guides; not to create genius, but to enable it to
understand itself, and by a distinct knowledge of its own operations
to correct its mistakes,--in a word, to establish the landmarks
between the flats of commonplace and the barrens of extravagance. And,
though the personal or individual principles referred to may not with
propriety be cited as examples in a general treatise like the present,
they are not only not to be overlooked, but are to be regarded by the
student as legitimate objects of study. To the truism, that we can
only judge of other minds by a knowledge of our own, we may add
its converse as especially true. In that mysterious tract of the
intellect, which we call the Imagination, there would seem to lie
hid thousands of unknown forms, of which we are often for years
unconscious, until they start up awakened by the footsteps of a
stranger. Hence it is that the greatest geniuses, as presenting a
wider field for excitement, are generally found to be the widest
likers; not so much from affinity, or because they possess the
precise kinds of excellence which they admire, but often from the
_differences_ which these very excellences in others, as the
exciting cause, awaken in themselves. Such men may be said to be
endowed with a double vision, an inward and an outward; the inward
seeing not unfrequently the reverse of what is seen by the outward.
It was this which caused Annibal Caracci to remark, on seeing for the
first time a picture by Caravaggio, that he thought a style totally
opposite might be made very captivating; and the hint, it is said,
sunk deep into and was not lost on Guido, who soon after realized what
his master had thus imagined. Perhaps no one ever caught more from
others than Raffaelle. I do not allude to his "borrowing," so
ingeniously, not soundly, defended by Sir Joshua, but rather to his
excitability, (if I may here apply a modern term,)--that inflammable
temperament, which took fire, as it were, from the very friction
of the atmosphere. For there was scarce an excellence, within his
knowledge, of his predecessors or contemporaries, which did not in a
greater or less degree contribute to the developement of his powers;
not as presenting models of imitation, but as shedding new light on
his own mind, and opening to view its hidden treasures. Such to him
were the forms of the Antique, of Leonardo da Vinci, and of Michael
Angelo, and the breadth and color of Fra Bartolomeo,--lights that
first