gradually and helpfully. When, however, he had once got himself well
joined, and softly, to the more simple work, he put his own force on
with a will and produced the most noble piece of pictorial philosophy
[Footnote: There is no philosophy _taught_ either by the school of
Athens or Michael Angelo's 'Last Judgment,' and the 'Disputa' is merely
a graceful assemblage of authorities, the effects of such authority not
being shown.] and divinity existing in Italy.

This pretty, and, according to all evidence by me attainable, entirely
true, tradition has been all but lost, among the ruins of fair old
Florence, by the industry of modern mason-critics--who, without
exception, labouring under the primal (and necessarily unconscious)
disadvantage of not knowing good work from bad, and never, therefore,
knowing a man by his hand or his thoughts, would be in any case
sorrowfully at the mercy of mistakes in a document; but are tenfold
more deceived by their own vanity, and delight in overthrowing a
received idea, if they can.

Farther: as every fresco of this early date has been retouched again
and again, and often painted half over,--and as, if there has been the
least care or respect for the old work in the restorer, he will now and
then follow the old lines and match the old colours carefully in some
places, while he puts in clearly recognizable work of his own in
others,--two critics, of whom one knows the first man's work well, and
the other the last's, will contradict each other to almost any extent
on the securest grounds. And there is then no safe refuge for an
uninitiated person but in the old tradition, which, if not literally
true, is founded assuredly on some root of fact which you are likely to
get at, if ever, through it only. So that my general directions to all
young people going to Florence or Rome would be very short: "Know your