brazier, on which were placed small pans filled with colours, all of a different body, and mixed with wax, but with what third ingredient I know not; whether salt of tartar, as recommended in the dissertation remunerated at Paris, or some other composition. A second brazier was fixed behind the cartoon or panel on which he painted, in order to preserve it always warm. The work being finished, he went over the whole with a small hair brush, and gave it a clear and vivid glow. Footnote 61: See the Encyclopedia, at the Art. _Encaustique_. Some there were at that time in Italy who much admired this art. The numerous reliques of ancient painting, preserved free from the effects of time at Naples and at Rome, may be said to exhibit a manifest triumph over modern productions, which so much sooner become aged and fade away. This it was that induced the Ab. Vincenzo Requeno to publish the book shortly before cited, at Venice, first in 1784. In him were united all the requisite qualities for promoting the new discovery--the learning of a man of letters, experience of an artist, philosophical reasoning, and persevering experiment. His work is in every one's hands, so as to enable them to form an opinion, for this is not the place to enter into a discussion of its various merits. It has been done by the Cav. de Rossi in three extracts from that work, published in the first volume of the "Memorie delle Belle Arti," one of the most brief and at the same time admired journals in Italy. My sole object is to do justice to his singular penetration and industry. He gave a solution of the difficulty mentioned in the Encyclopedia, and discovered a new process. He shewed that salt of tartar was not made use of by the Greeks to dissolve wax, and adapt it to the brush, because they were unacquainted with such a substance; while his own experience convinced him it was useless for the purpose. He knew that the application of fire to the back of the painting was not the method adopted by the Greeks, inasmuch as it was inapplicable to their paintings upon large walls. He tried many experiments, and he at length found that the resinous gum, called mastic, would produce the effect which he had vainly sought from salt of tartar. With the gum and wax he made crayons, and found various ways of combining the colours, so as best to adapt them for the use of painting. When the work was finished, he was accustomed sometimes to give it a slight covering of wax, in place of varnish, and sometimes to leave it without; but in every process which he observed, he perfected the work by the application of fire, or as he himself observes, by burning it. This he effected by holding a brazier near the front of the picture, and lastly going over the work with a small linen cloth, which clears and enlivens the tints.