ot by
laborious microscopic inspection; in seeking for it without, we lose the
harmonious clue to it within; and in aiming to grasp the substance, we
let the very spirit of art evaporate. In a word, the objects of fine art
are not the objects of sight, but as these last are the objects of taste
and imagination, that is, as they appeal to the sense of beauty, of
pleasure, and of power in the human breast, and are explained by that
finer sense, and revealed in their inner structure to the eye in return.
Nature is also a language. Objects, like words, have a meaning; and the
true artist is the interpreter of this language, which he can only do by
knowing its application to a thousand other objects in a thousand other
situations. Thus the eye is too blind a guide of itself to distinguish
between the warm or cold tone of a deep-blue sky; but another sense acts
as a monitor to it and does not err. The colour of the leaves in autumn
would be nothing without the feeling that accompanies it; but it is
that feeling that stamps them on the canvas, faded, seared, blighted,
shrinking from the winter's flaw, and makes the sight as true as touch--

And visions, as poetic eyes avow,
Cling to each leaf and hang on every bough.

The more ethereal, evanescent, more refined and sublime part of art is
the seeing nature through the medium of sentiment and passion, as each
object is a symbol of the affections and a link in the chain of our
endless being. But the unravelling this mysterious web of thought
and feeling is alone in the Muse's gift, namely, in the power of
that trembling sensibility which is awake to every change and every
modification of its ever-varying impressions, that

Thrills in each nerve, and lives along the line.

This power is indifferently called genius, imagination, feeling, taste;
but the manner in which it acts upon the mind can neither be defined by
abstract rules, as is the case in science, nor verified by continual,
unvarying experiments, as is the case in mechanical performances. The
mechanical excellence of the Dutch painters in colouring and handling
is that which comes the nearest in fine art to the perfection of certain
manual exhibitions of skill. The truth of the effect and the facility
with which it is produced are equally admirable. Up to a certain point
everything is faultless. The hand and eye have done their part. There
is only a want of taste and genius. It is after we enter upon that
enchant