costume itself. Not only is it base in being new, but base in that it cannot last to be old. If one wanted a lesson on the ugliness of modern costume, it could not be more sharply received than by turning from one to the other horseman. The knight wears steel plate armor, chased here and there with gold; the delicate, rich, pointed lace collar falling on the embossed breastplate; his dark hair flowing over his shoulders; a crimson silk scarf fastened round his waist, and floating behind him; buff boots, deep folded at the instep, set in silver stirrup. The general wears his hair cropped short; blue coat, padded and buttoned; blue trowsers and red stripe; black shiny boots; common saddler's stirrups; cocked hat in hand, suggestive of absurd completion, when assumed. "Another thing noticeable as giving nobleness to the Vandyck is its feminineness: the rich, light silken scarf, the flowing hair, the delicate, sharp, though sunburnt features, and the lace collar, do not in the least diminish the manliness, but _add_ feminineness. One sees that the knight is indeed a soldier, but not a soldier only; that he is accomplished in all ways, and tender in all thoughts: while the general is represented as nothing but a soldier--and it is very doubtful if he is even that--one is sure, at a glance, that if he can do anything but put his hat off and on, and give words of command, the anything must, at all events, have something to do with the barracks; that there is no grace, nor music, nor softness, nor learnedness, in the man's soul; that he is made up of forms and accoutrements. "Lastly, the modern picture is as bad painting as it is wretched conceiving, and one is struck, in looking from it to Vandyck's, peculiarly by the fact that good work is always _enjoyed_ work. There is not a touch of Vandyck's pencil but he seems to have revelled in--not grossly, but delicately--tasting the color in every touch as an epicure would wine. While the other goes on daub, daub, daub, like a bricklayer spreading mortar--nay, with far less lightness of hand or lightness of spirit than a good bricklayer's--covering his canvas heavily and conceitedly at once, caring only but to catch the public eye with his coarse, presumptuous, ponderous, illiterate work."