Improprium miniméque urgens potiora tenebit
Ornamenta operis."
"Nor paint conspicuous on the foremost plain,
Whate'er is false, impertinent, or vain."
Mason.
On this rule, Reynolds remarks—"This precept, so obvious to common sense, appears superfluous till we recollect that some of the greatest painters have been guilty of a breach of it; for—not to mention Paul Veronese or Rubens, whose principles as ornamental painters would allow great latitude in introducing animals, or whatever they might think necessary to contrast or make the composition more picturesque—we can no longer wonder why the poet has thought it worth setting a guard against this impropriety, when we find that such men as Raffaelle and the Caracci, in their greatest and most serious works, have introduced on the foreground mean and frivolous circumstances. Such improprieties, to do justice to the more modern painters, are seldom found in their works. The only excuse that can be made for those great artists, is their living in an age when it was the custom to mix the ludicrous with the serious, and when poetry as well as painting gave in to this fashion."
Many of the compositions of Rembrandt indicate not only a refined taste, but the greatest sensibility and feeling. For example, the small etchings of the "Burial of Christ," and the "Return from Jerusalem;" these, from their slightness, may lay me under the same category as the old Greek, who, having a house to sell, carried in his pocket one of the bricks as a sample; yet, being his own indications, I have given them. It is worth while to compare the "Entombment" with the same subject by Raffaelle, in the Crozat Collection. The whole arrangement is treated in the finest taste of the Italian school. The other design has been always a favourite with the admirers of Rembrandt. The feeling character of the youthful Saviour is admirably portrayed. Holding his mother's hand, he is cheering her on her tiring journey, looking in her face with an expression of affection and solace; while she is represented with downcast eyes, fatigued and "pondering in her mind" the import of the words he had addressed to her, "How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" And even here we can almost excuse the introduction of the little dog, who, running before the group, is looking back, giving a bark of joy at their having found the object of their solicitude. The background is conceived in the finest spirit of Titian.
These are the touches of nature that, like the expressions of our own immortal Shakspere, however slight, and though dressed in modern garb or familiar language, reach the innermost sensibilities of the human heart.