leaf; into the figures of Michelangelesque strength reclining above the doors, and the tiny processions of men and beasts in chiaroscuro on the friezes; into the clear, radiant faces of women and sinewy forms of men; the eloquent dogs and lions; and not least into the lithe and gallant figure of himself, advancing from the mimic door at one end of the long vista to meet the lady who trips out from the opposite end, _l’amica dell’ artista_--or, as the guide-book discreetly says--his wife. The portrait of himself is done with much imagination and even pathos. He was a dreamer, too, this Veronese. These figures of the painter and his dog give us pause; they make us feel that he would have been good to walk the mountains with; that if he could step out now from the room where he keeps continual watch, on to the exquisite grass plot, with its happy tuft of white anemone and pale Michaelmas daisy, we might win from him some mountain confidence which he has not entrusted to canvas or fresco. It is a pleasure to picture Veronese at his work upon Marcantonio’s villa. Every midday he must have had good progress to show; for these blithe works that have kept their colour so fresh and strong are executed with a few brave master strokes: they are no less potent in their swift presentment than in their conception. We can see him dismounting from his scaffold at the summons of Barbaro, returned from his morning round among his stables or his orchards; we can see him still keen and stirred by the creative impulse, full of that excited pleasure which accompanies expression, standing a little aside while Barbaro bears his admiration to and fro--now confessing that time and office have rusted his mythology and asking the meaning of some emblem; now on the lookout for a freak of his friend, some beast or bird put in perhaps to give him joy; now in raptures over the old shoes and broom, which he swears he has just thrashed the maid for leaving on the cornice, while Paolo stands by brimming with mirth at the deception; now called upon to guess the significance of the fair lady bridled by her lord, which the guide-book ungallantly interprets as the victory of virtue over vice, but which to Marcantonio no doubt seemed capable of less abstract explanation. With all their nobility of design and execution, there is something about these frescoes so intimate and sympathetic as to impart to us the actual joy and health of spirit which conceived them. Given the skill and the robust and prodigal genius of Veronese, how should they not be joyous in these halls full of light and air and sunshine, the song of birds and of trickling water, the sounds of meadow and mountain. We may take leave of the mountains in the midst of one of those brave companies which must often have gathered in this earthly Paradise of Marcantonio Barbaro round the long table spread in the loggia--such a loggia as Paolo himself so often painted--looking out, through the arches to the