ature, and
nature in pictures. This faculty has had a strange influence over the
passionate lovers of statues. We find unquestionable evidence of the
vividness of the representative faculty, or the ideal presence, vying with
that of reality. EVELYN has described one of this cast of mind, in the
librarian of the Vatican, who haunted one of the finest collections at
Rome. To these statues he would frequently talk as if they were living
persons, often kissing and embracing them. A similar circumstance might be
recorded of a man of distinguished talent and literature among ourselves.
Wondrous stories are told of the amatorial passion for marble statues; but
the wonder ceases, and the truth is established, when the irresistible
ideal presence is comprehended; the visions which now bless these lovers
of statues, in the modern land of sculpture, Italy, had acted with equal
force in ancient Greece. "The Last Judgment," the stupendous ideal
presence of MICHAEL ANGELO, seems to have communicated itself to some of
his beholders: "As I stood before this picture," a late traveller tells
us, "my blood chilled as if the reality were before me, and the very sound
of the trumpet seemed to pierce my ears."

Cold and barren tempers without imagination, whose impressions of objects
never rise beyond those of memory and reflection, which know only to
compare, and not to excite, will smile at this equivocal state of the
ideal presence; yet it is a real one to the enthusiast of genius, and it
is his happiest and peculiar condition. Destitute of this faculty, no
metaphysical aid, no art to be taught him, no mastery of talent will
avail him: unblest with it, the votary will find each sacrifice lying cold
on the altar, for no accepting flame from heaven shall kindle it.

This enthusiasm indeed can only be discovered by men of genius themselves;
yet when most under its influence, they can least perceive it, as the eye
which sees all things cannot view itself; or, rather, such an attempt
would be like searching for the principle of life, which were it found
would cease to be life. From an enchanted man we must not expect a
narrative of his enchantment; for if he could speak to us reasonably, and
like one of ourselves, in that case he would be a man in a state of
disenchantment, and then would perhaps yield us no better account than we
may trace by our own observations.

There is, however, something of reality in this state of the ideal
presence;