Page:Essays and Studies - Swinburne (1875).pdf/376



[.—I reprint these loose and cursory notes almost exactly as they were first issued, with the excision of two passages which I see now no reason to reproduce. It is not that in either case I find anything to unsay; that I have any palinode to sing, any retractation [sic] to offer. But in the one instance I think it no longer worth while to prolong the recollection of what I found feeble and futile in the work of a painter who will give us no more of bad work or good; and in the other instance I should feel it somewhat more than presumptuous, I should feel it indeed thankless and indecorous, to make mention but once of one of the greatest among modern artists, and then in a tone of blame or at least of complaint rather than of praise and thanksgiving. My opinion of his pictures exhibited in 1868 remains what it was then; but however slight may be the worth of that opinion, it would be unseemly to insist on it within the limits of these notes; limits which preclude all possibility of touching on the many and marvellous gifts of his regal and masterful genius. A competent critic who should undertake the task of re viewing his work as a whole might permissibly note in passing the less excellent parts of it, and set down the