Here I found several Italians staying to take the air,
and among them one young gentleman, who told me he was writing a
book upon this neighbourhood, and was going to illustrate it with
his own drawings. This naturally interested me, and I encouraged
him to tell me more, which he was nothing loth to do. He said he
had a passion for drawing, and was making rapid progress; but there
was one thing that held him back--the not having any Conte chalk:
if he had but this, all his difficulties would vanish.
Unfortunately I had no Conte chalk with me, I but I asked to see
the drawings, and was shown about twenty, all of which greatly
pleased me. I at once proposed an exchange, and have thus become
possessed of the two which I reproduce here. Being pencil
drawings, and not done with a view to Mr. Dawson's process, they
have suffered somewhat in reproduction, but I decided to let them
suffer rather than attempt to copy them. What can be more
absolutely in the spirit of the fourteenth century than the
drawings given above? They seem as though done by some fourteenth-
century painter who had risen from the dead. And to show that they
are no rare accident, I will give another (p. 138), also done by an
entirely self-taught Italian, and intended to represent the castle
of Laurenzana in the neighbourhood of Potenza.
If the reader will pardon a digression, I will refer to a more
important example of an old master born out of due time.
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