Such was the _general_ character of Rubens' colouring. I do not mean that there are no felicitous exceptions. I would notice--but there the human figure is not--his lioness on a ledge of rock; there is an entire absence of his strong and flickering colours: on the contrary all is dim--the scenery natural to the animal, for it partakes of its proper colours, (and this is strictly true, as the hare and the fox conceal themselves by their assimilating earths and forms.) The spectator advances upon the scene, unaware of the stealthily lurking danger. The dimness and repose are of a terror, that contrast and forcible colour would at least mitigate; the surprise would be lost, or rather be altogether of another kind; it would arm you for the danger, which becomes sublime by taking you unprepared. And there is his little landscape with the sun shedding his rays through the hole in the tree, where the sentiment of the obscure--the dim wood--is enhanced by the bright gleam--and there is in this little picture a whole agreeability of colour. His landscapes in general are, however, very strange; rather eccentric than natural in colour, yet preserving the intended atmospheric effect by an idealism of colouring not quite in keeping with the unromantic commonness of the scenery. But these exceptions do not indicate the _characteristics_ of Rubens as a colourist; he is more known, and more imitated, as far as he can be imitated, in the mannerism of his style which has been described. Deficient, then, as I think him to have been in these two essentials, I am still disposed to question his claim to the title, and to ask, "Was Rubens a colourist?" If the answer be in the negative, it may be worth while to consider the precise point from which his style may be said to have deviated from the right road; nor is it here necessary to particularise, but to refer to the Italian practice generally, which will be found to consist chiefly in this--in the choosing a low key; and for the greatest perfection of colouring, the proper union of the two essentials of good colouring, it may be safe to refer, first to the Venetian, the Lombard, and then to the Bolognese schools. Not that the Roman school is altogether to be omitted. Out of his polished style, Raffaelle is often excellent--both rich in tone, and, where he is not remarkably so, often sentimental. Some of his frescoes, as the Heliodorus, are good examples. And in that small picture in our National Gallery, the "St Catherine," the sentiment of purity and loveliness is admirably sustained in the colouring. There is in the best pictures of that school no affected flashiness of high lights--no flimsiness in the unsubstantial paint in the shadows; there is an evenness throughout, which, if it reach not the perfection of colouring, is the best substitute for it.