For monastic duties he had no vocation, and the irregularities of his behaviour caused scandal even in that age of cynical indulgence.

It can scarcely be doubted that the schism between his practice and profession served to debase and vulgarise a genius of fine imaginative quality, while the uncongenial work of decorating choirs and painting altar-pieces limed the wings of his swift spirit with the dulness of routine that savoured of hypocrisy.

Bound down to sacred subjects, he was too apt to make angels out of street-urchins, and to paint the portraits of his peasant-loves for Virgins.[179] His delicate sense of natural beauty gave peculiar charm to this false treatment of religious themes.

Nothing, for example, can be more attractive than the rows of angels bearing lilies in his "Coronation of the Virgin;"[180] and yet, when we regard them closely, we find that they have no celestial quality of form or feature.

Their grace is earthly, and the spirit breathed upon the picture is the loveliness of colour, quiet and yet glowing--blending delicate blues and greens with whiteness purged of glare.