ever satisfying the judgement. Nor does painting in this respect differ from other arts. A just poetical taste, and the acquisition of a nice discriminative musical ear, are equally the work of time. Even the eye, however perfect in itself, is often unable to distinguish between the brilliancy of two diamonds; though the experi-. enced jeweller will be amazed at its blindness; not considering that there was a time. when he himself could not have been able to pronounce which of the two was the most perfect, and that his own power of discrimination was acquired by slow and imperceptible degrees.

"The man of true genius, instead of spending all his hours, as many artists do while they are at Rome, in measuring statues and copying pictures, soon begins to think for himself, and endeavours to do something like what he sees.-I consider general copying (he adds) as a delusive kind of industry :

the student satisfies himself with the appearance of doing something; he falls into the dangerous habit of imitating without selecting, and of labouring without any determinate object as it requires no effort of the mind, he sleeps over his work, and those powers of invention and disposition which ought particularly to be called out and put in action, lie torpid, and lose their energy for want of exercise. How incapable of producing any thing of their own, those are, who have spent most of their time in making finished copies, is an observation well known to all who are conversant with our art. We may

be assured, therefore, that this great painter did not fall into the errour here pointed out ;did not long continue the practice of copying the great works which were at this period

12

"This observation occurs nearly in the same words in the first Discourse.

Of the few copies which he made while he was at Rome, two are now in the possession of the Earl of Inchiquin, who married his niece, Miss Palmer; St. Mi

within his reach; but rather employed his time in examining and fixing in his mind their peculiar and characteristick excellencies. Instead of copying the touches of the great masters, he aspired to copy their conceptions. "From contemplating the works of Titian, Correggio, &c. (says he in another of his fragments,) we derive this great advantage; we learn that certain niceties of expression are capable of being executed, which otherwise we might consider as beyond the reach. of art; this inspires us with some degree of confidence, and we are thus incited to endeavour at other excellencies in the same line."

Some account of his particular practice and habits of study, while he was in Italy, is, I know, much desired by several Artists of the present day; but these I have no means of

chael, the Archangel, slaying the Dragon, after Guido ; and the School of Athens, from Raffaelle; both masterly, performances.

investigating. The method which he followed when he was at Venice, in order to ascertain the principles on which the great masters of colouring wrought, and to attain the true management of light and shade, he has himself particularly mentioned in a note on Du Fresnoy's Poem."

While he was in Italy, he occasionally indulged himself in Caricatura, which was much in vogue at that time. Of pieces of this description, the only one which I have seen of his hand, is a large picture," containing about twenty figures, being all the English gentlemen of note who were then at Rome. This caricatura, however, was not like the more modern productions in that style, being done with the consent of the gentlemen represented. It was a kind of picturesque travesty of Raffaelle's SCHOOL OF ATHENS.

13 Vol. III. p. 147.

14 In the collection of Joseph Henry, Esq. of Straffan in the county of Kildare, in Ireland,

After an absence of near three years, he began to think of returning home; and a slight circumstance which he used to mention, may serve to show, that however great may have been the delight which he derived from residence in a country that Raffaelle and Michael Angelo had embellished by their genius and their works, the prospect of revisiting his native land was not unpleasing. When he was at Venice, in compliment to the English gentlemen then residing there, the manager of the opera one night ordered the band to play an English ballad-tune. Happening to be the popular air which was played or sung in almost every street, just at the time of their leaving London, by suggesting to them that metropolis with all its connexions and endearing circumstances, it immediately brought tears into our author's eyes, as well as into those of his countrymen. who were present.

On his arrival in L very soon attracted