[24]. It is not correct to say that the French always colour from their casts. They sometimes rouge them over with a beautiful rose-colour, or cover their lay-figures with flesh-coloured Nankin, like that which adorns the bodies of their opera dancers. We were at a loss to account for the colouring of David, till we heard of this contrivance. It is thus that these accomplished persons think to rival the hues of Titian and Correggio!
[25]. A radical objection to it, in point of composition, is, that it is addressing the spectator, and has its back turned to the audience.
[26]. The waiter drawing the cork in the Rent-day, is another exception, and quite Hogarthian.
[27]. Mr. Wilkie’s pictures are in general much better painted than Hogarth’s: but the Marriage a-la-mode is superior both in colour and execution to any of Wilkie’s.
[28].
‘And see! how dark the backward stream
A little moment past how smiling!
And still perhaps, with faithless gleam,
Some other loiterer beguiling.’
Wordsworth.