124 ® n Painting. 



i)Iunt and cold that they can hardly be faid to be awake 

 during life. From a degree of exquiflte fenfibility arife oar 

 notions of beauty and deformity in the natural as well as the 

 moral world, and as our different minds happen to be more 

 or Ufa exquiflte, the more or lefs fenfibly do we perceive the 

 various degrees of good and bad, and of courfe are more or 

 lefs capable of being charmed with the right and beautiful, 

 and difgufted with the wrong and deformed. Hence it is 

 that this ienfibili-ty conftitutes what is termed genius, which 

 is only the power or capacity of clearly conceiving and pro- 

 perly combining images, and of adding to mere theory prac- 

 tice: to which a found head and a good heart is as neceffary 

 as a delicate imagination ; for we cannot poffefs true genius 

 without as exquiflte a feeling for moral beauty as for what 

 is great and beautiful in nature or mafterly in poetry, paint- 

 ing, fculpture, and mufic. 



The reverfe of true tafte is fhown in magnificence, parade, 

 and luxury ; and in whatever is horribly glaring, extrava* 

 gant, and unnatural in the laft degree. Gold, fhowy co- 

 lours, gaudy tapeftry, the heavy, clumfy, and whatever is 

 Juperfluous, will ever pafs with the vulgar for elegance and 

 greatnefs. So perfons of a bad tafte will prefer the forced, 

 unnatural, and exaggerated, in expreffion, attitude, or colour, 

 to the truly fimple, noble, or beautiful. We mould be guilty 

 of an error were we to attempt to eftablifh one principle of 

 tafte only, for were we to eftablifh one as right, all the others 

 mult be wrong; hence the miftake of Sir Jofhua Reynolds, 

 in fpeaking of the Hercules, Gladiator, and Apollo; for, 

 though each of thofe figures are perfect of their kind, yet 

 Sir Jofhua affirms that the higheft perfection of the human 

 figure is not to be found in any one of them, " but in that 

 form which is taken from them all, and which partakes 

 equally of the activity of the Gladiator, of the delicacy of 

 the Apollo, and of the mufcular ftrength of the Hercules." 

 Such an opinion is contrary to nature, as it goes to deftroy 

 that variety arifing from the active, the delicate, and the 

 ftrons: : as well might we fuppofe a fine tree from confoli- 

 dating the various forms found in nature. 



We muft carefully diftinguifh between truth and tafte; for 

 a thing may be true, and not poffefs one atom of tafte. The 

 Dutch and Flemifh pictures are true, as far as mere imitation 

 goes ; but will any one fay, the wretches one fees in fome 

 of Rembrant's works are tafty, or can the women of Rubens 

 be confidered as fuch ; yet thofe men poffeffed great tafte in 

 colour, cbiaro-fcuro, &c. We fhould be careful of miftaking 

 tinfel for gold ; many who reprefent kings, do it by a great 



dilplay 



