[209] Some very fine ones of this description are in the National Gallery, and some in the Bridgewater Collection. [210] In our National Gallery. [211] Particularly in the picture of the Child in the Strozzi Palace at Florence. [212] Those pretty greyhounds, which appear under the table in the Supper at the house of Simon, the study for which Mr. Rogers has, and which are often, repeated. [213] The pretty bird is picking up the crumbs under the table at Emmaus. ESSAY VI. ON THE MATERIALS USED BY PAINTERS. However admirable his taste may be, he is but half a painter who can only conceive his subject, and is without knowledge of the mechanical part of his art. REYNOLDS’ NOTES ON DU FRESNOY. When first scholars began to study the works of the ancients, at that busy period distinguished by the revival of letters and the arts, the discoveries they made were so new and so surprising, that a kind of enchanted mist overspread every object in their eyes, and all they looked back upon was magnified or distorted. They found so much wisdom and knowledge in the writings of the ancients, that they, as is natural, thought that all antiquity was wise and knowing; and in proportion to their exaggerated esteem for the ancients, they encouraged a contempt for their contemporaries and countrymen, at least as extravagant. A little consideration would have told them, however, that many things must continue unaltered in nature, though fashion or accident should vary the form in all societies, after the first conveniences, comforts, and luxuries of civilised life have been invented. But here the pride of unusual learning stepped in, and it would have mortified the scholar to think that what he pored over by his midnight lamp in the books of Greece and Rome, could have anything in common with the manners and occupations of his vulgar neighbours. Thus an ignorance founded on prejudice was begotten, and has been maintained in part even to the present day, notwithstanding the stores of common knowledge opened to us by the discovery of Pompeii and its neighbouring towns. Scholars and antiquaries rejoiced indeed at the finding of those towns, because their position, long matter of controversial speculation, was ascertained; but I very much doubt if they did not also feel something like mortification, on beholding open proof that the materials and contrivances of the cooks of these our degenerate days continue like those of the ancients, and that there is no Greek method of eating[214]. Every day is adding something to the conviction of those who required proof, that where the end to be answered is the same, the tools and materials, employed in different ages and countries, cannot choose but be wonderfully alike.