is in that patient observation of actual things, that sure simplicity and directness of vision, which is the narrow way to knowledge. Hence comes the realism of romance,—the realism both of the early Renaissance and of its later maturity. A dominant characteristic (for instance) of Michaelangelo—the greatest and most fascinating personality of the whole Renaissance period—was, as his latest biographer, Mr. John Addington Symonds, has pointed out, that “he invariably preferred the particular to the universal, the critical moment of an action to suggestions of the possibilities of action.” This feature of the highest Renaissance work, though it seem at first sight to disprove the general theory of romance as the meditative, contrasted with the classic or dramatic form of art, is really consonant with it, since one example of one action is more analytic and reflective in quality than the suggestion of action generally. Our assertion, then, that the first manifestation of the break-up of the monastic system was a return to Nature as revealed and worshipped in the Hellenic ideal, must be qualified by a recognition of another tendency modifying and chastening the first. The second tendency was towards the reconciliation of the superb naturalism of Grecian art with the Christian spirit of self-discipline and heroic denial. It was an effort after that ultimate balance and harmony prophesied (to bring a modern instance) in Ibsen’s “Third Kingdom;” the kingdom in which the realism of the flesh and the idealism of the spirit shall be blended into one perfect humanity. “It was a movement,” to quote again from Mr. J.A. Symonds, “towards that further point outside both Paganism and mediæval Christianity, at which the classical ideal of a temperate and joyous natural life shall be restored to the conscience educated by the gospel.” The vision of this union was the inspiration of Pre-Raphaelite art. It quickened the hands of the painters to great tasks; it stirred the scholars to a new energy of labour and of hope. The poets, interpreting its meaning for the life of a future Italy, began to speak one to another across the mediæval gloom, as waking birds call and answer, while it is yet dark, with a sure instinct prophetic of the dawn.