But if, as a scholar and lover of Art, Mr. Norton naturally turns to
the past, he does not fail to tell us whatever he finds worth knowing
in the present. His tone of mind and habitual subjects of thought may
be inferred from the character of the topics that interest him. The
glimpses he gives us of the actual condition of the people of Italy, as
indicated by their practical conception of the religious dogmas of
their Church, by the quality of the cheap literature that is popular
among them, of the tracts provided for their spiritual aliment by
ecclesiastical authority, and of the caricatures produced in 1848-9,
(as in his notice of "Don Pirlone,") are of special value, and show that
he knows where to look for signs of what lies beneath the surface. His
appreciation of the beautiful in Art has not been cultivated at the
expense of his interest in the moral, political, and physical
well-being of man. His touching sketch of the life of Letterato, the
founder of Ragged Schools, shows that moral loveliness attracts his
sympathy as much when embodied in a life of obscure usefulness as when
it gleams in the saints and angels of Fra Angelico. A conscientious
Protestant, he exposes the corruptions of the Established Church in
Italy, not as an anti-Romanist, but because he sees that they are
practically operative in the social and political degradation of the
people.
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