92 NOTES. 



NOTE XXXIV. VERSE 325. 

 By tedious toil no paffions are expreft, 

 His band 'who feels them Jlrongefl paints them beft. 

 A Painter, whatever he may feel, will not be able to ex- 

 prefs it on canvas, without having recourfe to a recollection 

 of thofe principles by which that pafHon is expreffed; the 

 mind thus occupied, is not likely at the fame time to be 

 poiTeffed with the paffion which he is reprefenting, an image 

 may be ludicrous, and in its firft conception make the Painter 

 laugh as well as the Spectator > but the difficulty of his art 

 makes the Painter, in the courfe of his work, equally grave 

 and ferious, whether he is employed on the moft ludicrous,, 

 or the moft folemn fubjecls. 



However, we may, without great violence, fuppofe this rule 

 to mean no more, than that a fenfibility is required in the 

 Artift, fo that he mould be capable of conceiving the pafTion 

 properly before he fets about reprefenting it on canvas. R. 



NOTE XXXV. VERSE 325. 

 By tedious toil no Paffions are expreji, 

 His hand who feels them Jlrongeft paints them beft. 

 " The two verfes of the text, notwithftanding the air of 

 antiquity which they appear to have, feem moft probably to be 

 the Author's own," (fays the late French Editor) ; but I fup- 

 pofe, as I did on a fimihr adage before, that the thought is 

 taken from antiquity. With refpedt to my tranflation, I beg 

 leave to intimate, that by feeling the paffions ftrongeft, I do 

 not mean that a paflionate man will make the beft painter of 

 the paffions, but he who has the cleareft conception of them, 

 that is, who feels their effecl on the countenance of other men, 

 as in great aftors on the ftage, and in perfons in real life 

 ftrongly agitated by them : perhaps my tranflation would have 



been 



