262 REVIEWS AND PAMPHLETS ON ART

bear traces of unsound scholarship. An awkward instance occurs in the first paragraph:-

“Theophilus, humilis presbyter, servus servorum Dei, indignus nomine et professione monachi, omnibus mentis desidiam animique vagationem utili manuum occupatione, et delectabili novitatum meditatione declinare et calcare volentibus, retributionem cœlestis præmii!”

“I, Theophilus, and humble priest, servant of the servants of God, unworthy of the name and profession of a monk, to all wishing to overcome and avoid sloth of the mind or wandering of the soul, by useful manual occupation and the delightful contemplation of novelties, send a recompense of heavenly price.”-Theophilus, p. 1.

Præmium is not “price,” nor is the verb understood before retributionem “send.” Mr. Hendrie seems even less familiar with Scriptural than with monkish language, or in this and several other cases he would have recognised the adoption of apostolic formulæ. The whole paragraph is such a gretting and prayer as stands at the head of the sacred epistles:-“Theophilus, to all who desire to overcome wandering of the soul, etc., etc. (wishes) recompense of heavenly reward.” Thus also the dedication of the Byzantine manuscript, lately translated by M. Didron,¹ commences “A tous les peintres, et à tous ceux qui, aimant l’instruction, étudieront ce livre, salut dans le Seigneur.” So, presently afterwards, in the sentence, “divina dignatio quæ dat omnibus affluenter et non improperat” (translated, “divine authority which affluently and not precipitately gives to all”), though Mr. Hendrie might have perhaps been excused for not perceiving the transitive sense of dignatio after indignus in the previous text, which indeed, even when felt, is sufficiently difficult to render in English; and might not have been aware that the word impropero frequently bears the sense of opprobro; he ought still to have recognized the Scriptural “who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not.”² “Qui,” in the first

¹ [The Manuel d’ Iconographie Chrétienne, 1845, has notes and an introduction by M. Didron, and a translation, by Paul Durand, from a Byzantine MS. of a “Guide to Painting” by Dionysius, Monk of Fourna d’Agrapha. The passage here quoted by Ruskin is at p. 7 of Didron’s book.]

² [James i. 5. For Ruskin’s revised translation of these passages, see next page.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]