bit of the hedge, the barn-door, and
some broken cart-wheels, without any order, just as they happened
to lie; and in about an hour I found I had made a drawing of great
expression and very correct design without having put in anything of my
own. This confirmed me in the resolution I had made before, only to
copy Nature for the future. Nature is inexhaustible, and alone forms
the greatest masters. Say what you will of rules, they alter the true
features and the natural expression.'

(2) It is at present covered with a thick slough of oil and varnish
(the perishable vehicle of the English school), like an envelope of
goldbeaters' skin, so as to be hardly visible.

(3) Men in business, who are answerable with their fortunes for
the consequences of their opinions, and are therefore accustomed to
ascertain pretty accurately the grounds on which they act, before they
commit themselves on the event, are often men of remarkably quick and
sound judgements. Artists in like manner must know tolerably well what
they are about, before they can bring the result of their observations
to the test of ocular demonstration.

(4) The famous Schiller used to say, that he found the great happiness
of life, after all, to consist in the discharge of some mechanical duty.

(5) The rich _impasting_ of Titian and Giorgione combines something of
the advantages of both these styles, the felicity of the one with the
carefulness of the other, and is perhaps to be preferred to either.

ESSAY II. THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED

The painter not only takes a delight in nature, he has a new
and exquisite source of pleasure opened to him in the study and
contemplation of works of art--

Whate'er Lorraine light touch'd with soft'ning hue,
Or savage Rosa dash'd, or learned Poussin drew.

He turns aside to view a country gentleman's seat with eager looks,
thinking it may contain some of the rich products of art. There is
an air round Lord Radnor's park, for there hang the two Claudes, the
Morning and Evening of the Roman Empire--round Wilton House, for there
is Vandyke's picture of the Pembroke family--round Blenheim, for there
is his picture of the Duke of Buckingham's children, and the most
magnificent collection of Rubenses in the world--at Knowsley, for there
is Rembrandt's Handwriting on the Wall--and at Burleigh, for there are
some of Guido's angelic heads. The young artist makes a pilgrimage to
each of these places, eyes them wistfully