sixteenth century preserved in the Herald's College.]

More especially in the domain of painting, it is surprising to see how
strictly the early workmen confined themselves to representations of
the same series of scenes; how little of pictorial embellishment they
usually added; and how, even in the positions and gestures of figures,
they strove to give the idea rather of their having seen the _fact_,
than imagined a picturesque treatment of it. Often, in examining early
art, we mistake conscientiousness for servility, and attribute to the
absence of invention what was indeed the result of the earnestness of
faith.

Nor, in a merely artistical point of view, is it less important to
note, that the greatest advance in power was made when painters had
few subjects to treat. The day has perhaps come when genius should be
shown in the discovery of perpetually various interest amidst the
incidents of actual life; and the absence of inventive capacity is
very assuredly proved by the narrow selection of subjects which
commonly appear on the walls of our exhibitions. But yet it is to be
always remembered, that more originality may be shown in giving
interest to a well-known subject than in discovering a new one; that
the greatest poets whom the world has seen have been contented to
retouch and exalt the creations of their predecessors; and that the
painters of the middle ages reached their utmost power by unweariedly
treading a narrow circle of sacred subjects.

Nothing is indeed more notable in the history of art than the exact
balance of its point of excellence, in all things, midway between
servitude and license. Thus, in choice and treatment of subject it
became paralysed among the Byzantines, by being mercilessly confined