I would not leave old Scotland's mountains gray,
Her hills, her cots, her halls, her groves of pine,
Dark though they be; yon glen, yon broomy brae,
Yon wild fox cleugh, yon eagle cliff's outline;
An hour like this—this white right hand of thine,
And of thy dark eye such a gracious glance,
As I got now, for all beyond the line,
And all the glory gain'd by sword or lance,
In gallant England, Spain, or olive vales of France.

And some will mourn in ashes, some coal black.

All music sleeps, where death doth lead the dance,
And shepherds' wonted solace is extinct-
The blue in black, the green in gray is tinct:

The gaudy garlands deckt her grave,

The faded flowers her corse embrave.

O heavie hearse!

ID. PAR. REG.

A. CUNNINGHAM.

SHAKSPEARE.

Mourn now my muse, now mourn with tears besprent.

O careful verse!

The mantled meadows mourne,
Their sundry colours tourne.

SPENSER'S SHEP. CAL. Nov.

There are several pigments of this class, which follow; and others might easily be found if required. They are also as easily compounded as they are useful and essential in painting :

Y

I. MIXED GRAYS are formed not only by the compounding of black and white, which yields neutral greys, and of black and blue, black and purple, black and olive, &c., which yield the semi-neutral grays of clouds, &c., but these may be well imitated by the mixture of russet rubiate, or madder browns, with blues, which form transparent compounds, which are much employed: Grays are, however, as above remarked, so easily produced, that the artist will in this respect vary and suit his practice to his purpose.

II. NEUTRAL TINT. Several mixed pigments of the class of gray colours are sold under the name of Payne's gray, neutral tint, &c. They were first employed by Cousins, and are, as we have been informed, now variously composed of sepia and indigo or other blues, with madder or other lakes, and are designed for water-colour painting only, in which they are found extremely useful. And here it may be proper to mention those other pigments, sold under the name of tints, which belong to no particular denomination of pigments; but being compounds, the result of the experience of accredited masters in their peculiar modes of practice, serve to facilitate the progress of their pupils, while they are eligible in a like view to other artists. Such are Harding's and Macpherson's tints, usually sold ready prepared in cakes and boxes for miniature and water painting. The latter of these two we know to be composed of pigments which associate cordially and with permanence, and may therefore be relied upon; nevertheless the artist will in general prefer a dependence upon his own skill for the production of his tints in painting.

III. ULTRAMARINE ASHES are the recrement of Lapis lazuli, from which ultramarine has been extracted, varying in colour from dull gray to blue. Although not equal in beauty, and inferior in strength of colour, to ultramarine, they are extremely useful pigments, affording grays much more pure and tender than such as are composed of black and white, or other blues, and better suited to the pearly tints of flesh, foliage, the grays of skies, the shadows of draperies, &c., in which the old masters were wont to employ them. Ultramarine broken with black and white, &c., produces the same effects, and is thus sometimes carried throughout the colouring of a picture.

The brighter sorts of ultramarine ashes are more properly pale ultramarines, and of the class of blue.

IV. PHOSPHATE OF IRON is a native ochre, which classes in colour with the deeper hues of ultramarine ashes, and is eligible for all their uses. It has already been described under its appellation of blue ochre.

Slate clays and several native earths class with grays; but the colours of some of the latter, which we have tried, are not durable, being subject to become brown by the oxidation of the iron they contain.

V. PLUMBAGO. See Black Lead.

CHAP. XXI.

OF THE NEUTRAL,

BLACK.

If white and black blend, soften, and unite

A thousand ways, is there no black and white?

РОРЕ.

BLACK is the last and lowest in the series or scale of colours descending,the opposite extreme from white,—the maximum of colour. To be perfect it must be neutral with respect to colours individually, and absolutely transparent, or destitute of reflective power in regard to light; its use in painting being to represent shade or depths, of which it is the element in a picture and in colours, as white is of light.

As there is no perfectly pure and transparent black pigment, black deteriorates all colours in deepening them, as it does warm colours by partially neutralizing them, but it combines less injuriously with cold colours. Though it is the antagonist or contrast of white, yet added to it in minute portion it in general renders white more neutral, solid, and local, with less of the character of light.

As a local colour in a picture, it has the effect of connecting or amassing surrounding objects, and it is the most retiring of colours, which property it communicates to other colours in mixture. It heightens the effect of warm as well as light colours, by a double contrast when opposed to them, and in like manner subdues that of cold and deep colours; but in mixture or glazing these effects are reversed, as we have already said, by reason of the predominance of cold colour in the constitution of black.

Black is to be considered as a synthesis of the three primary colours, the three secondaries, or the three tertiaries, or of all these together-and consequently also of the three semi-neutrals, and may accordingly be composed

of due proportions of either tribe or triad. All antagonist colours, or contrasts, also afford the neutral black by composition; but in all the modes of producing black by compounding colours, blue is to be regarded as its archeus or predominating colour, and yellow as subordinate to red, in the proportions, when their hues are true, of eight blue, five red, and three yellow. It is owing to this predominance of blue in the constitution of black, that it contributes by mixture to the pureness of hue in white colours, which in general incline to warmth, and that it produces the cool effect of blueness in glazing and tints, or however otherwise diluted or dilated.

All colours are comprehended in the synthesis of black, consequently the whole sedative power of colour is comprised in black. It is the same in the synthesis of white; and, with like relative consequence, white comprehends all the stimulating powers of colour in painting. It follows that a little black or white are equivalent to much colour, and hence their use as colours requires judgment and caution in painting; and in engraving, black and white supply the place of colours, and hence a true knowledge of the active or sedative power of every colour is of great importance to the engraver, and of main consideration in every mode of the chiar'-oscuro.

By due attention to the synthesis of black it may be rendered a harmonizing medium to all colours, and it gives brilliancy to them all by its sedative effect on the eye, and its powers of contrast; nevertheless, we repeat, as a pigment it must be introduced with caution in painting when hue is of greater importance than shade, even when employed as shadow. Without great judgment in its use black is apt to appear as local colour, rather than as privation of light; and for this reason deep and transparent colours, which have darkness in their constitution, are better adapted in general for producing the true natural effects of shade. From the contrasting and harmonizing efficacy of black with all colours, and in particular with the lively and gay, the goddess Flora has been not inaptly decorated by mythologists with a mantle of black; and the moral sentiment, arising from the same cause, has not escaped the elegant imagination of the poet, thus beautifully and succinctly expressed by Gray,—

The hues of bliss more brightly glow,
Chasten'd by sabler tints of woe.

Black is emblematical of mental degradation and crime; the garb of the Harpies and Furies, the daughters of Night. In its moral effects indivi