Sebastians by the dozen, without thinking of finding fresh subjects to excite fresh interest. Nor does this restricted range of subjects imply, under the hand of a master, monotony. There is more unlikeness in Raphael's Madonnas than in the figures of any modern artist, whatever their variety of name and action. Even a century later than Raphael, among the Flemings and Hollanders, the best pictures are the simplest, the least dependent for their interest upon anything dramatic or anecdotal in their subject. The triumphs of the Dutch school are the portraits of the guilds. The masterpieces of Rubens are his children and single figures and biblical scenes, not his _Marie de Medicis_. And what of Rembrandt is so perfect as his _Saskia with the Pink_ at Dresden? If we have a photograph even of such a picture as this constantly before us, with a modern picture of anecdotal interest, no matter how vivid and pleasant that interest may have been at first, it is not hard to predict which will please us longest--which will grow to be an element in the happiness of every day, while the other becomes at last _fade_ and insipid. This even if we suppose its technical excellence to be great. How, then, shall such interest take the place of technical excellence? This modern love of _l'anecdote_ is not exactly the cause perhaps, nor yet the effect, of the self-consciousness of modern art, but it goes hand in hand with it: they are manifestations of the same spirit in the two different spheres of worker and spectator.