69] Retsch's outlines have more real material in them
than Flaxman's, occasionally showing true fancy and power; in artistic
principle they are nearly as bad, and in taste worse. All outlines from
statuary, as given in works on classical art, will be very hurtful to
you if you in the least like them; and _nearly_ all finished line
engravings. Some particular prints I could name which possess
instructive qualities, but it would take too long to distinguish them,
and the best way is to avoid line engravings of figures altogether. If
you happen to be a rich person, possessing quantities of them, and if
you are fond of the large finished prints from Raphael, Correggio, &c.,
it is wholly impossible that you can make any progress in knowledge of
real art till you have sold them all--or burnt them, which would be a
greater benefit to the world. I hope that some day, true and noble
engravings will be made from the few pictures of the great schools,
which the restorations undertaken by the modern managers of foreign
galleries may leave us; but the existing engravings have nothing
whatever in common with the good in the works they profess to represent,
and if you like them, you like in the originals of them hardly anything
but their errors.

Finally, your judgment will be, of course, much affected by your taste
in literature. Indeed, I know many persons who have the purest taste in
literature, and yet false taste in art, and it is a phenomenon which
puzzles me not a little: but I have never known any one with false taste
in books, and true taste in pictures. It is also of the greatest
importance to you, not only for art's sake, but for all kinds of sake,
in these days of book deluge, to keep out of the salt swamps of
literature, and live on a rocky island of your own, with a spring and a
lake in it, pure and good. I cannot, of course, suggest the choice of
your library to you, every several mind needs different books; but there
are some books which we all need, and assuredly, if you read Homer,[270]
Plato, AEschylus, Herodotus, Dante,[271] Shakspeare, and Spenser, as much
as you ought, you will not require wide enlargement of shelves to right
and left of them for purposes of perpetual study. Among modern books,
avoid generally magazine and review literature. Sometimes it may contain
a useful abridgement or a wholesome piece of criticism; but the chances
are ten to one it will either waste your time or mislead you. If you
want to