The generous wine of the Bacchus and of "Comus," so intoxicating in its newness, the same wine in the Sistine and "Paradise Lost," so overwhelming in its mature strength, has acquired an austere aridity.

Here, on the contrary, was disclosed a surprising aridity, a sterility of recollection, an incredibly undue constipation.

There is little or no verdure to relieve the eye, which encounters aridity wherever it turns; and the sand being rendered loose by frequent traffic, the foot sinks at every step, so that the journey is disagreeable to both man and beast.

Marcantonio seems to have felt and resented the aridity of composition, the isolation of plastic form, the tyranny of anatomical science, which even the most sympathetic of us feel in Michelangelo.