afternoon, and then sang in my own room to amuse Henry, till dinner-time.  Colonel Bailey sent me the mare’s saddle and bridle, and after dinner the boys put them on a chair for me, and gave me an absurd make-believe ride.

Wednesday, 21st—­Dear Mr. Harness called, and I received him.  He tells me that at the theater they want to do his tragedy ("The Wife of Antwerp,” was, I think, the name of the piece) without my father; but this seems to me really sheer madness.  The play is a pretty, interesting, well-written piece, and, well propped and sustained, may perhaps succeed for a few nights, but as to throwing the whole weight, or rather weakness of it, upon my shoulders, or any one pair of shoulders, it is folly to think of it.  It is not a powerful sort of monologue like “Fazio,” where the interest centres in one person and one passion, and therefore if that character is well sustained the rest can shift for itself.  It is no such matter; it is a play of incident and not of character, and must be played by people and not one person.  What terrible bad management!  But, poor people! what can they do, with my father lying disabled there?  If it was not for their complete disregard for their own interest, I should be inclined to quarrel with them for the way in which they are ruining mine; and I sincerely hope, for the sake of everybody concerned, that Mr. Harness will resist this senseless proposition.

I went with John in the afternoon to Angerstein’s Gallery (M.  Angerstein’s fine collection of pictures was not then incorporated in the National Gallery, of which it subsequently became so important a portion); there are some new pictures there.  Unluckily, we had only an hour to stay, but I brought away a great deal with me for so short a time.  Among the additions was a very singular old painting, “The Holy Family,” by one of the earliest masters, whose name I forget, not being familiar with it.  I looked long at the glorious Titian, the “Bacchus and Ariadne,” which always reminds me of—­

“Whence come ye, jolly Satyrs, whence come ye? 
Like to a moving vintage down they came.”

One of the most famous pictures here is “Our Saviour disputing with the Doctors,” by Leonardo da Vinci.  I hardly ever receive pleasure from his pictures; there is a mannerism in all that I have seen that is positively disagreeable to me.  How the later artists lost the simple secret of earnest vigor of their predecessors, while gaining in everything that was not that!  Grace, finish, refinement, accuracy of drawing, richness of coloring, all that merely tended towards perfection and execution, while the simplicity and single-heartedness of conception died away more and more.  All art seems by degrees to outgrow its strength, and certainly in painting the archaic cradle touches one’s imagination as neither the graceful youth nor mature manhood do.  “Le mieux c’est l’ennemi du bien”