, and the influence of his discovery on art. Nor
are we less surprised that so important a branch as landscape painting
should have been omitted; Claude and Gaspar Poussin not mentioned; yet,
in the English school, Wilson is spoken of, whose sole merit rested upon
his landscape. He should more distinctly have stated his purpose to
treat only of high and historical art.

* * * * *

THIRD LECTURE.--In the commencement, there is an unnecessary, and rather
affectedly written disquisition of the old question, or rather
comparison between poetry and painting, from which nothing is to be
learned; nor does it suggest any thing. Nor do we now-a-days want to
read pages to tell us what invention is, and how it differs from
creation--nor is it at all important in matters of art, that we should
draw any such distinction at all. It is far better to go at once "in
medias res," and take it for granted that the reader both knows and
feels, without metaphysical discussion, what that invention is which is
required to make a great painter. Nor are we disposed to look upon
otherwise than impertinent, while we are waiting for didactic rules, the
being told that "he who discovers a gold mine, is surely superior to him
who afterwards adapts the metal for use;" especially when it is paraded
with comparisons between "Colombo" and "Amerigo Vespucci," and a
misplaced panegyric on Newton. And much of this is encumbered with
language that fatigues and makes a plain matter obscure. There is a
little affectation sometimes in Mr Fuseli's writing of Ciceronic
_ambages_, that is really injurious to the good sense and just thoughts,
which would without this display, come free, open, and with power. Some
pages, too, are taken up with a preliminary argument--"_whether it be
within the artist's province or not, to find or to combine a subject
from himself, without having recourse to tradition, or the stores of
history and poetry_." We have a display of learning to little purpose,
quotations from Latin and Greek, really "nihil ad rem;" the "[Greek:
phantasias]" of the Greek, and "visiones" of the Romans. Who that ever
saw even one work of Hogarth, the "Marriage a la Mode," would for a
moment think the question worth a thought. "The misnamed gladiator of
Agasias," seems forced into this treatise, for the sole purpose of
showing Mr Fuseli's reading, and after all, he leaves the figure as
uncertain as he finds it. He _once_ though