A few generations hence, when these incomparable works have been irretrievably damaged, posterity will wonder--with a wonder intensified by indignation--that we allowed them to perish. Early Christians, who mutilated pagan works of art because they believed them to be pernicious, may be excused; but what excuse has our age to offer? We pretend to cherish all manifestations of culture, and we have ample means to preserve them; yet whilst our museums are daily adding to their collections of half-barbarous antiquities, dug up in Arizona, in Mexico, in Yucatan, in Peru, in Asia Minor, in Mesopotamia, there are surely hastening to destruction scores of the works of the mightiest genius who ever honored painting. During the past twenty years, New York millionaires have paid more for the immoralities and inanities of modern French painters than would be necessary to erect a separate gallery in Venice for the proper preservation of Tintoret’s masterpieces. If there were but a single manuscript of _Hamlet_ in the world, and no printing-presses, what should we say to those who allowed it to perish through neglect? Yet there are many of Tintoret’s pictures, each of them as precious in its way as a page of _Hamlet_, which we raise no voice to save. In our selfishness, we forget that the treasures which we have inherited from the past are not ours to dissipate and destroy; we hold them in trust for the future, and woe unto us if, unmindful of our responsibility, we prove careless stewards.[15] [15] So long as the originals exist, copies of great paintings are as unsatisfactory as a Beethoven symphony or a Wagner opera on the piano; but when the originals have perished, copies may serve a worthy purpose in perpetuating at least the concept and general treatment of the painter. It is greatly to be desired that some capable student should do for Tintoret what Toschi has done for Correggio at Parma. A series of faithfully executed sketches would enable posterity to judge of Tintoret’s range of imagination and inexhaustible powers of treatment, although his coloring and drawing could not be reproduced. Many of his paintings have never been engraved, and not one has been well engraved. II. HIS WORKS.