"That the outline was performed with this freedom and celerity, and scarcely ever altered, may be further inferred, from the great inaccuracies of drawing so frequent even in those vases whose design and execution are of the very highest class. Perhaps an absolutely unerring precision of hand has never been the lot of any artist, however excellent. The drawings of the greatest masters prove that they found many things to alter in their most careful first lines; and the union of excellence and defect on the vases can, I think, only be accounted for in the supposition of an unaltered line. "What has been hitherto said of the mode of outlining this sort of vases is applicable only to the finish of them. In those of inferior finish, the outlines are much thicker, and laid on with a less body of colour; and in many of the coarsest, there is reason to think that no outline at all was made, but that the figures were merely left red in the general wash of the vase, with the dark-coloured varnish, and the outlines of the features, folds of the drapery, &c. were put in with a large brush, and in a very careless manner. Indeed, on the very finest of the vases, the subordinate decorations, such as the honeysuckle (as it is called) ornament so frequent under the handles, were simply left red in the general wash of varnish over the body of the vase; at least no outline of them is now discoverable. To return to the painting of the finest vases. The outline already described being perfectly dry, the artist with a brush or other similar instrument which bore a full body of colour and made a stroke of about a quarter of an inch in breadth, went carefully round the contours of the outlined figures. In this operation, an opportunity was given to make slight alterations in the design, and in some degree to amend the contour. This seems to have been often done; for the original outline is often covered in parts by this wash, and appears projecting from the surface of the vase under it; affording also a proof that the outline was dry and hard before this wash was laid on. Frequently, also, this wash does not come quite up to the original outline; but in general the wash follows the outline in a most steady and masterly manner. Probably at this time the hair of the figures was put in with a thin wash of the same varnish or colour, managed with peculiar freedom and dexterity, and so washed out to nothing at the extremities of the flowing curls of the tresses, as to have the lightest and at the same time the most finished effect. It is to be observed that the hair, which in some parts is as dark as the ground of the vase, is not carried quite to the ground, but that a small space is left red round the hair, in order to relieve it from