We doubt if
even Michel Angelo's copy of Dante was so great a loss as has sometimes
been thought. We have seen missals and other manuscripts that were truly
_illuminated_,--
"laughing leaves
That Franco of Bologna's pencil limned ";
but the line of those artists ended with Fra Angelico, whose works are
only larger illuminations in fresco and on panel. In those days some
precious volume became the Laura of a poor monk, who lavished on it all
the poetry of his nature, all the unsatisfied longing of a lifetime.
Shut out from the world, his single poem or book of saintly legends was
the window through which he looked back on real life, and he stained its
panes with every brightest hue of fancy and tender half-tint of reverie.
There was, indeed, a chance of success, when the artist worked for the
love of it, gave his whole manhood to a single volume, and mixed his
life with his pigments. But to please yourself is a different thing from
pleasing Tom, Dick, and Harry, which is the problem to be worked out by
whoever makes illustrations to be multiplied and sold by thousands. In
Dr. Palmer's "Folk-Songs," if we understand his preface rightly, the
artists have done their work for love, and it is accordingly much better
done than usual.
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