the monastery of Beargarden against the Penguin barbarians and established

themselves strongly within its walls. In order to render it impregnable they
pierced loop-holes through the walls and they took the lead off the church

roof to make balls for their slings. At night they lighted huge fires in the
courts and cloisters and on them they roasted whole oxen which they spitted

upon the ancient pine-trees of the mountain. Sitting around the flames, amid
smoke filled with a mingled odour of resin and fat, they broached huge casks

of wine and beer. Their songs, their blasphemies, and the noise of their
quarrels drowned the sound of the morning bells.

At last the Porpoises, having crossed the defiles, laid siege to the
monastery. They were warriors from the North, clad in copperarmour. They

fastened ladders a hundred and fifty fathoms long to the sides of the cliffs
and sometimes in the darkness and storm these broke beneath the weight of men

and arms, and bunches of the besiegers were hurled into the ravines and
precipices. A prolonged wail would be heard going down into the darkness, and

the assault would begin again. The Penguins poured streams of burning wax upon
their assailants, which made them blaze like torches. Sixty times the enraged

Porpoises attempted to scale the monastery and sixty times they were repulsed.
For six months they had closely invested the monastery, when, on the day of

the Epiphany, a shepherd of the valley showed them a hidden path by which they
climbed the mountain, penetrated into the vaults of the abbey, ran through the

cloisters, the kitchens, the church, the chapter halls, the library, the
laundry, the cells, the refectories, and the dormitories, and burned the

buildings, killing and violating without distinction of age or sex. The
Penguins, awakened unexpectedly, ran to arms, but in the darkness and alarm

they struck at one another, whilst the Porpoises with blows of their axes
disputed the sacred vessels, the censers, the candlesticks, dalmatics,

reliquaries, golden crosses, and precious stones.
The air was filled with an acrid odour of burnt flesh. Groans and death-cries

arose in the midst of the flames, and on the edges of the crumbling roofs
monks ran in thousands like ants, and fell into the valley. Yet Johannes Talpa

kept on writing his Chronicle. The soldiers of Crucha retreated speedily and
filled up all the issues from the monastery with pieces of rock so as to shut

up the Porpoises in the burning buildings. And to crush the enemy beneath the
ruin they employed the trunks of old oaks as battering-rams. The burning

timbers fell in with a noise like thunder and the lofty arches of the naves
crumbled beneath the shock of these giant trees when moved by six hundred men

together. Soon there was left nothing of the rich and extensive abbey but the
cell of Johannes Talpa, which, by a marvellous chance, hung from the ruin of a

smoking gable. The old chronicler still kept writing.
This admirableintensity of thought may seem excessive in the case of an

annalist who applies himself to relate the events of his own time. However
abstracted and detached we may be from surrounding things, we nevertheless

resent their influence. I have consulted the original manuscript of Johannes
Talpa in the National Library, where it is preserved (Monumenta Peng., K. L6.,

12390 four). It is a parchmentmanuscript of 628 leaves. The writing is
extremely confused, the letters instead of being in a straight line, stray in

all directions and are mingled together in great disorder, or, more correctly
speaking, in absoluteconfusion. They are so badly formed that for the most

part it is impossible not merely to say what they are, but even to distinguish
them from the splashes of ink with which they are plentifully interspersed.

Those inestimable pages bear witness in this way to the troubles amid which
they were written. To read them is difficult. On the other hand, the monk of

Beargarden's style shows no trace of emotion. The tone of the "Gesta
Penguinorum" never departs from simplicity. The narration is rapid and of a

conciseness that sometimes approaches dryness. The reflections are rare and,
as a rule, judicious.

V. THE ARTS: THE PRIMITIVES OF PENGUIN PAINTING
The Penguin critics vie with one another in affirming that Penguin art has

from its origin been distinguished by a powerful and pleasingoriginality, and
that we may look elsewhere in vain for the qualities of grace and reason that

characterise its earliest works. But the Porpoises claim that their artists
were undoubtedly the instructors and masters of the Penguins. It is difficult

to form an opinion on the matter, because the Penguins, before they began to
admire their primitivepainters, destroyed all their works.

We cannot be too sorry for this loss. For my own part I feel it cruelly, for I
venerate the Penguin antiquities and I adore the primitives. They are

delightful. I do not say the are all alike, for that would be untrue, but they
have common characters that are found in all schools--I mean formulas from

which they never depart--and there is besides something finished in their
work, for what they know they know well. Luckily we can form a notion of the

Penguin primitives from the Italian, Flemish, and Dutch primitives, and from
the French primitives, who are superior to all the rest; as M. Gruyer tells us

they are more logical, logic being a peculiarly French quality. Even if this
is denied it must at least be admitted that to France belongs the credit of

having kept primitives when the other nations knew them no longer. The
Exhibition of French Primitives at the Pavilion Marsan in 1904 contained

several little panels contemporary with the later Valois kings and with Henry
IV.

I have made many journeys to see the pictures of the brothers Van Eyck, of
Memling, of Roger van der Weyden, of the painter of the death of Mary, of

Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and of the old Umbrian masters. It was, however, neither
Bruges, nor Cologne, nor Sienna, nor Perugia, that completed my initiation; it

was in the little town of Arezzo that I became a conscious adept in primitive
painting. That was ten years ago or even longer. At that period of indigence

and simplicity, the municipal museums, though usually kept shut, were always
opened to foreigners. One evening an old woman with a candle showed me, for

half a lira, the sordid museum of Arezzo, and in it I discovered a painting by
Margaritone, a "St. Francis," the pious sadness of which moved me to tears. I

was deeply touched, and Margaritone,of Arezzo became from that day my dearest
primitive.

I picture to myself the Penguin primitives in conformity with the works of
that master. It will not therefore be thought superfluous if in this place I

consider his works with some attention, if not in detail, at least under their
more general and, if I dare say so, most representative aspect.

We possess five or six pictures signed with his hand. His masterpiece,
preserved in the National Gallery of London, represents the Virgin seated on a

throne and holding the infant Jesus in her arms. What strikes one first when
one looks at this figure is the proportion. The body from the neck to the feet

is only twice as long as the head, so that it appears extremely short and
podgy. This work is not less remarkable for its painting than for its drawing.

The great Margaritone had but a limited number of colours in his possession,
and he used them in all their purity without ever modifying the tones. From

this it follows that his colouring has more vivacity than harmony. The cheeks
of the Virgin and those of the Child are of a bright vermilion which the old

master, from a naive preference for clear definitions, has placed on each face
in two circumferences as exact as if they had been traced out by a pair of

compasses.
A learnedcritic of the eighteenth century, the Abbe Lanzi, has treated

Margaritone's works with profounddisdain. "They are," he says. "merely crude
daubs. In those unfortunate times people could neither draw nor paint." Such

was the common opinion of the connoisseurs of the days of powdered wigs. But
the great Margaritone and his contemporaries were soon to be avenged for this

cruel contempt. There was born in the nineteenth century, in the biblical
villages and reformed cottages of pious England, a multitude of little Samuels

and little St. Johns, with hair curling like lambs, who, about 1840, and 1850,
became spectacled professors and founded the cult of the primitives.

That eminent theorist of Pre-Raphaelitism, Sir James Tuckett, does not shrink
from placing the Madonna of the National Gallery on a level with the

masterpieces of Christian art. "By giving to the Virgin's head," says Sir
James Tuckett, "a third of the total height of the figure, the old master

attracts the spectator's attention and keeps it directed towards the more
sublime parts of the human figure, and in particular the eyes, which we

ordinarily describe as the spiritual organs. In this picture, colouring and
design conspire to produce an ideal and mystical impression. The vermilion of

the cheeks does not recall the natural appearance of the skin; it rather seems
as if the old master has applied the roses of Paradise to the faces of the

Mother and the Child."
We see, in such a criticism as this, a shining reflection, so to speak, of the

work which it exalts; yet MacSilly, the seraphic aesthete of Edinburgh, has
expressed in a still more moving and penetrating fashion the impression

produced upon his mind by the sight of this primitivepainting. "The Madonna
of Margaritone," says the revered MacSilly, "attains the transcendent end of

art. It inspires its beholders with feelings of innocence and purity; it makes
them like little children. And so true is this, that at the age of sixty-six,

after having had the joy of contemplating it closely for three hours, I felt
myself suddenly transformed into a little child. While my cab was taking me

through Trafalgar Square I kept laughing and prattling and shaking my
spectacle-case as if it were a rattle. And when the maid in my boarding-house

had served my meal I kept pouring spoonfuls of soup into my ear with all the
artlessness of childhood."

"It is by such results," adds MacSilly, "that the excellence of a work of art
is proved."

Margaritone, according to Vasari, died at the age of seventy-seven,