It is a fault of even some of our best colourists, as evinced by their pictures, to be too fond of black upon their palettes, and thence to infuse it needlessly into their tints and colours. With such it is a taste acquired from the study of old pictures; but in nature hardly any object above ground is black, or in daylight is rendered neutral thereby. Black, therefore, should be reserved for a local colour, or employed only in the under-painting properly called grounding and dead colouring. As a local colour, black has the effect of connecting or amassing surrounding objects, and is the most retiring of all colours, a property which it communicates to other colours in mixture. It heightens the effect of warm as well as light colours, by a double contrast when opposed to them, and in like manner subdues that of cold and deep colours. In mixture or glazing, however, these effects are reversed, by reason of the predominance of cold colour in the constitution of black. Having, therefore, the double office of colour and of shade, black is perhaps the most important of all colours to the artist, both as to its use and avoidance. It may be laid down as a rule that the black must be conspicuous. However small a point of black may be, it ought to catch the eye, otherwise the work is too heavy in the shadow. All the ordinary shadows should be of some _colour_--never black, nor approaching black, they should be evidently and always of a luminous nature, and the black should look strange among them; never occurring except in a black object, or in small points indicative of intense shade in the very centre of masses of shadow. Shadows of absolutely negative grey, however, may be beautifully used with white, or with gold; but still though the black thus, in subdued strength, becomes spacious, it should always be conspicuous: the spectator should notice this grey neutrality with some wonder, and enjoy, all the more intensely on account of it, the gold colour and the white which it relieves. Of all the great colourists, Velasquez is the greatest master of the black chords: his black is more precious than other people's crimson. Yet it is not simply black and white that must be made valuable, rare worth must be given to each colour employed; but the white and black ought to separate themselves quaintly from the rest, while the other colours should be continually passing one into the other, being all plainly companions in the same gay world; while the white, black, and neutral grey should stand monkishly aloof in the midst of them. Crimson may be melted into purple, purple into blue, and blue into green, but none of them must be melted into black.