We take some credit to ourselves for having in the pages of Maga, so long ago as June 1839--promoted an inquiry into the nature of the vehicles used by the old masters. And this we did, knowing that we should incur some odium and contemptuous disapprobation at the hands of artists, too many of whom were jealous of any supposed superiority in their great predecessors, and were generally satisfied with the meguilp, (mastic varnish, beat up with drying oil,) which had, nevertheless, been proved so deceitful from the first days of its adoption. The readiness with which it was made, the facility of working which it offered, and its immediate brilliancy, were temptations too great to be resisted. The too common use of this vehicle, we confess, led us too far in a contrary direction--to set ourselves against all varnishes whatever; and we laid, perhaps, too much stress upon the authority of Tingry, who speaks strongly against the admixture[12] of varnishes with oil; and, with this bias, we reviewed, in Maga, M. Merimée's work, in which, certainly with mistranslations of the Latin of Theophilus, as well as of Italian quotations, he insisted upon the use principally of copal, though without any distrust of mastic. The difference between the texture of old paint, that is of the good age, both Italian and Flemish, and that which modern practice had exhibited, was too manifest to be overlooked; and we never could bring ourselves to believe that the meguilp in use, by itself, ever had or ever would produce that solid brilliancy or _substantial_ transparency which was and is the great charm in the genuine works of the good old time of the art. And we believe still that all experience is against it, and that the era of its adoption is marked in the history of art by the visible deterioration in the quality of the painted surfaces. Bad as we conceive the use of mastic always to have been, it was not, until comparatively modern times, employed in the most injurious manner. The Flemish and Italian recipes incorporated it with the oil, together, generally, with other substances, by heat, and not, according to the subsequent modern practice, merely dissolved in turpentine and added to the oil. Of all varnishes mastic is the softest, most liable to decomposition, most readily affected by atmospheric changes, having no protection or medium of incorporation, being merely liquified with turpentine, which, evaporating, leaves the mastic to the injuries of air and moisture. Oil varnishes are, however, of another character, and we are converted to their use by historic evidence, and authorities which cannot be doubted. We do not assert that the exact recipes and formulæ, for the compositions of the true oleo-resinous vehicles are not now in possession of the public. We are inclined to think they are; but, as we are promised by Mr Eastlake another volume, chiefly upon the Italian practice, which, too, we presume to think was the best,