[Footnote 37: Hunc vero triumphum, tam laude quam memoria
dignum, ad Meresburgum rex in superiori coenaculo domus per
Zeus, id est, picturam, notari praecepit, adeo ut rem veram
potius quam verisimilem videas: a high encomium, (Liutprand,
l. ii. c. 9.) Another palace in Germany had been painted
with holy subjects by the order of Charlemagne; and Muratori
may justly affirm, nulla saecula fuere in quibus pictores
desiderati fuerint, (Antiquitat. Ital. Medii Aevi, tom. ii.
dissert. xxiv. p. 360, 361.) Our domestic claims to
antiquity of ignorance and original imperfection (Mr.
Walpole's lively words) are of a much more recent date,
(Anecdotes of Painting, vol. i. p. 2, &c.)]