CHAPTER XV.
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Since we began our voyagings together among the visionary worlds of the great painters, five hundred and thirty years ago, at the accession of King Richard II., we have journeyed far and wide, trudging from the rock where Cimabue found the boy Giotto drawing his sheep's likeness.

The battleship of Turner has now brought us to the mid-nineteenth century, a time within the memories of living men, and still our journey is not ended.
Hitherto we have been guided in our general preference for certain artists and certain pictures by the concurring opinion of the best judges of many successive generations.

But while we are looking at modern paintings, we cannot say, as some one did, that in our opinion, 'which is the correct one,' such and such a picture is worthy to rank with Titian.

The taste of one age is not the taste of another.

Who can surely pronounce the consensus of opinion to-day?
Who can guess if it will concur with that of future decades--of future centuries?
We can but hope that learning to see and enjoy the recognized masterpieces of the past will teach us what to like best among the masterpieces of the present.
A great love of the Old Masters inspired the work of a group of young artists, who, about the year 1850, banded themselves together into a society which they called the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.