The "Massacre of Scio" was violently attacked as an outrage against good taste, but found a warm defender in the Baron Gerard, and was again bought by the Government for L320. It may not be out of place here to state that there is but scant justification for the often-repeated assertion that Delacroix's rare genius did not receive official recognition until very late in the master's life, and that he was not given his fair share of official commissions. We have seen that, in spite of the outcry raised by the academic faction, the Government encouraged the young artist by acquiring the first two pictures exhibited by him at the Salon. At brief intervals he continued to receive important commissions: for the "Death of Charles the Bold," from the Ministry of the Interior; the great battle-piece "Taillebourg," for the gallery at Versailles; the decoration of the Chamber of Deputies, of the Libraries at the Luxembourg and the Palais Bourbon, of the Salon de la Paix at the Hotel de Ville, of a chapel in the Church of Saint Sulpice; a wall-painting in the Church of St. Denis; the "St. Sebastian" for the Church of Nantua; and the ceiling of the Galerie d'Apollon at the Louvre--not to speak of the numerous works commissioned or bought from him by Louis-Philippe. Thus, it will be seen, there was no lack of "official recognition," although it is quite true that to within a few years of his death he was generally forced to accept wholly inadequate prices for his paintings. III Delacroix's friendship with Thales Fielding and Bonington and his love of English romantic literature had awakened in him the desire to visit London. He undertook the little journey in 1825. He was much impressed by the immensity of London, the "absence of all that we call architecture," the horses and carriages, the river, Richmond, and Greenwich; and, above all, by the English stage. He had occasion to admire the great Kean in some of his Shakespearian impersonations, and Terry as Mephistopheles in an adaptation of "Faust." He was deeply stirred by these productions, which had a by no means beneficial influence upon his art. To his love of the stage may be ascribed the least acceptable characteristics of his minor pictures and lithographs--exaggerated action, stage grouping, and a certain lack of restraint. It is difficult to understand Goethe's highly eulogistic comment upon Delacroix's "Faust" illustrations, unless it was a case of _faute de mieux_, or that he had not seen the complete set. To modern eyes, at any rate, they are the epitome of the master's weaknesses. The drawing is frequently inexcusably bad; the sentiment is carried beyond the merely theatrical to the melodramatic.