Occasional allusion has been made to the mechanical modes of operation employed in ancient painting. On comparing the different passages allusive to these, two things certainly appear: that a permanency was given to its productions unknown even in modern art; and that oil-painting, properly so termed, formed no part of its practice. Laying aside, then, all conflicting opinions, we are disposed to infer that there were three principal methods; first, Distemper employed on stuccoed walls, and for pictures not moveable; second, Glazing, when the picture, after being furnished in water-colours, crayons, or distemper, was covered with a coat of hard and transparent varnish, of which several kinds are described; and thirdly, Encaustic, when the coloring matters actually incorporated with wax, or preparations of wax, were thus applied in a liquid state, and when finished, allowed to dry, and most likely afterwards varnished also. In these two latter methods were executed the most excellent pictures of the great masters, and which were portable. The last has given rise to much needless discussion, as if resembling enamel, the colors being burnt in. We apprehend, however, the Greek and Latin verb here used, merely denotes that the tints were laid on hot, which, from their nature, must have been absolutely necessary, while it is evident, from scattered hints, that the material painted upon was destructible by fire. CHAPTER XI. FALLEN as was every liberal pursuit during those ages, since emphatically called dark, painting was yet never unpractised in Europe. In the ecclesiastical records of that period, evidence is found that, in Italy, churches were in every century decorated with paintings and mosaics by native or Greek artists. A kind of competition, indeed, appears to have been carried on between the successive pontiffs, imitated by their inferior suffragans, who should thus load some favorite cathedral with the greatest quantity of barbarous finery. These gentlemen, as even the Abbate Tiraboschi has ventured to disclose, being rarely ornamental to the church in their own proper persons, endeavored to make up the deficiency in the best way possible by proxy. From monuments still remaining in Germany, it is evident, that neither was some degree of skill wanting in that quarter. In France, as in our country, similar research would probably be rewarded with the same discovery. Though darkened, the human spirit was still at work; and when at length its energies were restored to comparative activity by the slow operation of causes, imperceptible in themselves, mighty in their results, the arts, as already seen, shone forth among the morning stars in the dawn of freedom. This light first arose upon Italy; and, from the circumstances of her situation, Florence soonest established a school of painting. Cimabue, her citizen, early in the thirteenth century, caught the inspiration from certain Greek painters, employed by order of the magistracy.