"True," replied another artist, whose full round tones and rich emphasis bespoke him a Roman; "but taste is not intuitive; nor can it be attained by merely studying the appearances of nature and the theories of art. We must also explore the rich treasures of painting which adorn and dignify our beautiful Italy. It is not enough, however, to study a single specimen of each great master; we must patiently and repeatedly examine his progressive improvements and his various styles. By perseverance in this process, a young artist will beneficially exercise his eye and his judgment, and will readily distinguish the best pictures in a collection. Any degree of discipline short of this will be inadequate to raise him above the level of the mob, which followed in procession the Madonna of Cimabue, and lauded it as the _ne plus ultra_ of art because they had never seen anything better." The young stranger now addressed them with much animation: "I presume not to decide," said he, "how far the last speaker is correct in his opinions. The incessant noise on the piazza precludes any deliberate consideration of the subject; but so far as I could collect the subject of Maestro Paul's opinion, I understood him to insist upon the necessity of knowing the limits of art. I trust he will pardon so young an artist for uttering sentiments at variance with his own; and that I shall not lose ground in his esteem if I contend that every object in art is material, and that ideal forms and models of excellence are absurdities. An Aspasia and a Phryne, youthful and lovely, maybe elevated into a Pallas and a Venus by an able and imaginative painter, whose excited fancy will readily improve upon his models, and invest each feature, form, and attitude, with classical and appropriate expression. But an ideal and perfectly beautiful woman, destitute of every attribute arising from climate and national peculiarities, is a phantom of the brain. And yet how many common-place artists, who have consumed the most valuable portion of their lives in drawing from plaster-casts, call these insufferably vacant faces and forms genuine art, and affect to look down upon the master-spirits who have immortalised themselves by matchless portraits of the great men and beautiful women of their own times!"