He had shown this unconsciously in what he had said of spirits of wine. We have taken some pains in the pages of Maga to disabuse the public with regard to the imaginary benefit of painting in varnish--a most pernicious practice; and that it is so, we have elsewhere given both proof and authorities. We are glad to find our author on our side. "Besides, no one at the present day (1808) is ignorant of their absurd method of painting in varnish, which corrupts the colours, and prevents them ever attaining the requisite hardness." There is much useful matter upon varnishing, which it will be well that collectors and keepers of public galleries should read with attention. We do not say follow, but read; for it is indeed a very serious matter to recommend a varnish, seeing how many pictures are totally ruined by bad applications. We have been told that drying oil mixed with mastic varnish has been, though not very recently, used in our National Gallery. We hope it is a mistake, and that there has been no such practice. The effect must be to make them dull and horny, and to destroy all brilliancy in time. We say no more upon that subject, believing that our National Gallery is intrusted to good hands, and that whatever is done, will be done with judgment, and not without much reflection. A new varnish has appeared, "Bentley's." We believe it is copal, but rendered removable as mastic. It is certainly very brilliant, not, or but slightly, subject to chill, and is more permanent, as well as almost colourless. De Burtin not only denounces the use of oil in varnishes, but speaks of a more disgusting practice, common in Italy, of rubbing pictures "with fat, oil, or lard, or other animal grease.... So destructive a practice comes in process of time to rot the picture, so that it will not hold together." We should scarcely have thought it worth while to notice this, had we not seen pictures so treated in this country. Behold a specimen of folly and hazardous experiment:--"At that time, I frequented the Dresden gallery every morning, and got from M. Riedal all the details of his practice. He informed me that, amongst others, the chief works of Correggio, Raffaelle, Titian, and Procaccini, after having undergone his preparatory operations, had got a coat of his 'oil of flowers,' which he would repeat, until every part became 'perfectly bright.' And on my remarking, that in the admirable 'Venus' of Titian, the carnations alone were bright, and all the rest flat, he told me with perfect coolness, that 'having only as yet given it three coats of his oil, that it was not astonishing, but that he would put it all in unison by multiplying the coats.'" The man should have been suffocated in his "oil of flowers," preserved in them, and hung up in the gallery _in terrorem_. Could ghosts walk and punish, we would not have been in his skin, though perfumed with his preservative oil of flowers, under the visitations of the ghosts of Correggio, Raffaelle, Titian, and