this analogy extends also to the extreme tertiary and semi-neutral colours, while the mean or middle colours afford the most agreeable contrasts or harmonies. This general feeling has evidently been that of the poet, with whom it is a license to purple and gild without reserve, and with whom "to purple" often means to paint or colour in the abstract. Neither nature nor the painter's art is, however, so profuse of this colour; and purple pigments are rare, of which the following are the few that merit attention. Purple pigments lie under a peculiar disadvantage as to apparent durability and beauty of colour, owing to the neutralizing power of yellowness in the grounds upon which they are laid, as well as to the general warm colour of light, and the yellow tendency of almost all vehicles and varnishes, by which this colour is subdued.

I. MIXED PURPLES. Purple being a secondary colour, composed of blue and red, it follows of course that any blue and red pigments, which are not chemically at variance, may be used in producing mixed purple pigments of any required hue, either by compounding or grinding them together ready for use, or by combining them in the various modes of operation in painting. In such compounding, the more perfect the original colours are, the better in general will be the purple produced. In these ways ultramarine and the rose

colours of madder constitute excellent and beautiful purples, which are equally permanent in water and oil, in glazing, or in tint, whether under the influence of the oxygenous or the hydrogenous principles of light and impure air, by which colours are subject to change. The blue and red of cobalt and madder afford also good purples. Some of the finest and most delicate purples in antient paintings appear to have been similarly compounded of ultramarine and vermilion, which constitute tints equally permanent, but less transparent than the above. Facility of use, and other advantages, are obtained at too great a sacrifice by the employment of perishable mixtures, such as are the carmines and lakes of cochineal with indigo and other blue colours.

II. GOLD PURPLE, or Cassius's Purple Precipitate, is the compound oxide which is precipitated upon mixing the solutions of gold and tin. It is not a bright, but a rich and powerful colour, of great durability, varying in degrees of transparency, and in hue from deep crimson to a murrey or dark purple, and is principally used in miniature. It may be employed in enamel-painting, works well in water, and is an excellent though expensive pigment, but not much used at present, as the madder purple is cheaper, and perfectly well supplies its place.

III. MADDER PURPLE, Purple Rubiate, or Field's Purple, is a very rich and deep carmine, prepared from madder. Though not a brilliant purple, its richness, durability, transparency, and superiority of colour, have given it the preference to the purple of gold preceding, and to burnt carmine. It is a pigment of great body and intensity; it works well, dries and glazes well in oil, and is pure and permanent in its tints. It neither gives nor sustains injury from other colours, and is in every respect a very perfect and eligible pig

ment.

There is a lighter and brighter sort, which has all the properties of the above with less intensity of colour.

IV. BURNT CARMINE is, according to its name, the carmine of cochineal partially charred till it resembles in colour the purple of gold, for the uses of which in miniature and water-painting it is substituted, and has the same properties except its durability; of which quality, like the carmine it is made from, it is deficient, and therefore in this important respect is an ineligible pigment. A durable colour of this kind may, howbe obtained by burning madder carmine in a cup over a spirit lamp, or otherwise, stirring it till it becomes of the hue or hues required.

ever,

V. PURPLE LAKE. The best purple lake

so called is prepared from cochineal, and is of a rich and powerful colour, inclined to crimson. Its character as a pigment is that of the cochineal lakes already described. It is fugitive both in glazing and tint; but, used in considerable body, as in the shadows of draperies, &c. it will last under favourable circumstances a long time. Lac lake resembles it in colour, and may supply its place more durably, although not perfectly so.

VI. LAC LAKE. See Red Lakes.

MINERAL

VII. PURPLE OCHRE, or PURPLE, is a dark ochre, native of the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. It is of a murrey or chocolate colour, and forms cool tints of a purple hue with white. It is of a similar body and opacity, and darker colour than Indian red, which has also been classed among purples, but in all other respects it resembles that pigment. It may be prepared artificially, and some natural red ochres burn to this colour, which has been employed under the denomination of Violet de Mars.

CHAPTER XV.

OF THE TERTIARY COLOURS.

OF CITRINE.

"His nose was high, his eyen bright citrin."

Chaucer: Knight's Tale.

CITRINE, or the colour of the Citron, is the first of the tertiary class of colours, or ultimate compounds of the primary triad, yellow, red, and blue; in which yellow is the archeus, or predominating colour, and blue the extreme subordinate; for citrine being an immediate compound of the secondaries, orange and green, of both which yellow is a constituent, the latter colour is of double occurrence therein, while the other two primaries enter singly into the composition of citrine,—its mean or middle hue comprehending eight blue, five red, and six yellow, of equal intensities.

Hence citrine, according to its name, which is the name of a class of colours, and is used commonly for a dark yellow, partakes in a subdued degree of all the powers of its archeus yellow; and, in estimating its properties and effects in painting, it is to be regarded as participating of all the