ease
him no more than the middling performance of a vulgar artist; and this
not for want of better or higher relish, but because all men do not
observe with sufficient accuracy on the human figure to enable them to
judge properly of an imitation of it.

And that the critical taste does not depend upon a superior principle
in men, but upon superior knowledge, may appear from several
instances. The story of the ancient painter and the shoemaker is very
well known. The shoemaker set the painter right with regard to some
mistakes he had made in the shoe of one of his figures, and which the
painter, who had not made such accurate observations on shoes, and was
content with a general resemblance, had never observed. But this was
no impeachment to the taste of the painter; it only showed some want
of knowledge in the art of making shoes. Let us imagine that an
anatomist had come into the painter's working-room. His piece is in
general well done, the figure in question in a good attitude, and the
parts well adjusted to their various movements; yet the anatomist,
critical in his art, may observe the swell of some muscle not quite
just in the peculiar action of the figure. Here the anatomist observes
what the painter had not observed; and he passes by what the shoemaker
had remarked.

II

THE LETTER TO A NOBLE LORD[55]

I was not, like his Grace of Bedford, swaddled, and rocked, and
dandled into a legislator--_Nitor in adversum_ is the motto for a man
like me. I possest not one of the qualities, nor cultivated one of the
arts, that recommend men to the favor and protection of the great. I
was not made for a minion or a tool. As little did I follow the trade
of winning the hearts by imposing on the understanding of the people.
At every step of my progress in life--for in every step was I
traversed and opposed--and at every turnpike I met, I was obliged to
shew my passport, and again and again to prove my sole title to the
honor of being useful to my country by a proof that I was not wholly
unacquainted with its laws, and the whole system of its interests both
abroad and at home. Otherwise, no rank, no toleration even for me. I
had no arts but manly arts. On them I have stood, and, please God, in
spite of the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale, to the last
gasp will I stand....

I know not how it has happened, but it really seems that, while his
Grace was meditating his well-considered censure upon me, he fel