Note 157 — LETTERS ON ART.

The reference is to the closing paragraph of the Preface to the Notes, which runs as follows: “Athena, observe, of the Agora, or Market Place. And St. James of the Deep Stream or Market River. The Angels of Honest Sale and Honest Porterage; such honest porterage being the grandeur of the Grand Canal, and of all other canals, rivers, sounds, and seas that ever moved in wavering morris under the night. And the eternally electric light of the embankment of that Rialto stream was shed upon it by the Cross—know you that for certain, you dwellers by high-embanked and steamer-burdened Thames. And learn from your poor wandering painter this lesson—for the sum of the best he had to give you (it is the Alpha of the Laws of true human life)—that no city is prosperous in the sight of Heaven, unless the peasant sells in its market—adding this lesson of Gentile Bellini’s for the Omega, that no city is ever righteous in the Sight of Heaven unless the Noble walks in its street.”—Notes on Prout and Hunt, p. 44.