“The flush of health in flesh, exposed to the open air, nourished by the spirits of forests and floods, in that ancient happy period, which history has recorded, cannot be like the sickly daubs of Titian or Rubens. Where will the copier of nature, as it now is, find a civilized man, who has been accustomed to go naked. Imagination only can furnish us with colouring appropriate, such as is found in the frescoes of Rafael, and Michael Angelo: the disposition of forms always directs colouring in works of true art. As to a modern man, stripped from his load of clothing, he is like a dead corpse. Hence Rubens, Titian, Correggio, and all of that class, are like leather and chalk; their men are like leather, and their women like chalk, for the disposition of their forms will not admit of grand colouring; in Mr. B's Britons, the blood is seen to circulate in their limbs; he defies competition in colouring.” My regard for thee, dear Reader, would not permit me to leave untranscribed this very curious and original piece of composition. Probably thou hast never seen, and art never likely to see either the “Descriptive Catalogue” or the “Poetical Sketches” of this insane and erratic genius, I will therefore end the chapter with the _Mad Song_ from the latter,—premising only _Dificultosa provincia es la que emprendo, y à muchos parecerà escusada; mas para la entereza desta historia, ha parecido no omitir aguesta parte._[2] The wild winds weep, And the night is a-cold; Come hither, Sleep, And my griefs unfold: But lo! the morning peeps Over the eastern steep; And the rustling birds of dawn The earth do scorn. Lo! to the vault Of paved heaven, With sorrow fraught My notes are driven: They strike the ear of night Make weep the eyes of day; They make mad the roaring winds And with tempests play. Like a fiend in a cloud With howling woe, After night I do croud And with night will go; I turn my back to the east, From whence comforts have increas'd; For light doth seize my brain With frantic pain. [Footnote 2: LUIS MUÑOZ. VIDA DEL P. L. DE GRANADA.] CHAPTER CLXXXII. AN IMPROVEMENT IN THE FORM OF THE HUMAN LEG SUGGESTED BY A PHYSICIAN. THE DOCTOR'S CURE OF A BROKEN SHIN AND INVENTION OF A SHIN-SHIELD. _Res fisci est, ubicunque natat._ Whatsoever swims upon any water, belongs to this exchequer. JEREMY TAYLOR. _Preface to the Duct. Dub._ Some Dr. Moreton is said to have advanced this extraordinary opinion in a treatise upon the beauty of the human structure, that had the calf of the leg been providentially set before, instead of being preposterously placed behind, it would have been evidently better, for as much as the shin-bone could not then have been so easily broken.