IX. THE FEASTS OF THE VANDALS 401

Wint in the old Water Colour Society, and by David Roberts and Clarkson Stanfield in the Academy (Turner being wholly exceptional, and a wild meteoric phenomenon in the midst of them, lawless alike and scholarless)-this group of very characteristically English landscape painters had been well grounded, every one of them, more or less, in the orthodox old English faith in Dutch painting; had studied it so as to know the difficulty of doing anything as good in its way; and, whether in painting or literature, had studied very little else. Of any qualities or talents “angel-bright,” past or present, except in the rather alarming than dignified explosions round the stable lantern which sometimes take place in a Rembrandt Nativity, Vision to the Shepherds, or the like, none of them had ever felt the influence, or attempted the conception: the religious Italian schools were as little known at that time, to either artist or connoisseur, as the Japanese, and the highest scholarly criticism with which I had first come to hand-grips in Blackwood,¹ reached no higher than a sketching amateur’s acquaintance with the manner of Salvator and Gaspar Poussin. Taken as a body, the total group of Modern Painters were, therefore, more startled than flattered by my schismatic praise; the modest ones, such as Fielding, Prout, and Stanfield, felt that it was more than they deserved,-and, moreover, a little beside the mark and out of their way; the conceited ones, such as Harding and De Wint, were angry at the position given to Turner; and I am not sure that any of them were ready even to endorse George Richmond’s consoling assurance to my father, that I should know better in time.

172. But, with all the kindness of heart, and appreciation of domestic character, partly humorous, partly pathetic, which gave its prevailing tone to the British school of the day, led by Wilkie, Leslie, and Mulready, the entire fellowship of artists with whom we were acquainted sympathized

¹ [See above, i. § 243 (p. 217).]

XXXV. 2C

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