And when the maid in my boarding-house had served my meal I kept pouring spoonfuls of soup into my ear with all the artlessness of childhood." "It is by such results," adds MacSilly, "that the excellence of a work of art is proved." Margaritone, according to Vasari, died at the age of seventy-seven, "regretting that he had lived to see a new form of art arising and the new artists crowned with fame." These lines, which I translate literally, have inspired Sir James Tuckett with what are perhaps the finest pages in his work.

They form part of his "Breviary for Aesthetes"; all the Pre-Raphaelites know them by heart.

I place them here as the most precious ornament of this book.
You will agree that nothing more sublime has been written since the days of the Hebrew prophets.
MARGARITONE'S VISION Margaritone, full of years and labours, went one day to visit the studio of a young painter who had lately settled in the town.

He noticed in the studio a freshly painted Madonna, which, although severe and rigid, nevertheless, by a certain exactness in the proportions and a devilish mingling of light and shade, assumed an appearance of relief and life.
At this sight the artless and sublime worker of Arezzo perceived with horror what the future of painting would be.

With his brow clasped in his hands he exclaimed: "What things of shame does not this figure show forth! I discern in it the end of that Christian art which paints the soul and inspires the beholder with an ardent desire for heaven.