NOTES. I07 



from grofs faults till they had well formed, and, as I may 

 fay, hardened their judgment : they might then be permitted 

 to look about them, not only without fear of vitiating their 

 tafte, but even with advantage, and would often find great 

 ingenuity and extraordinary invention in works which are 

 under the influence of a bad tafte. R. 



NOTE XLVII. VERSE 601. 

 A s furely charms that voluntary jlile, 

 Which carelefs plays and feems to mock at toil. 

 This appearance of eafe and facility may be called the Grace 

 or Genius of the mechanical or ^executive part of the art. 

 There is undoubtedly fomething fafcinating in feeing that 

 done with carelefs eafe, which others do with laborious diffi- 

 culty : the fpedator unavoidably, by a kind of natural inftind:, 

 feels that general animation with which the hand of the Artift 

 feems to be infpired. 



Of all Painters Rubens appears to claim the firft rank for 

 facility both in the invention and in the execution of his 

 work ; it makes fo great a part of his excellence, that take it 

 away, and half at lead of his reputation will go with it. R,. 



NOTE XLVIII. VERSE 617. 

 tfhe eye each obvious error fwift defcrics, 

 Hold then the compafs only in the eyes. 



A Painter who relies on his compafs, leans on a prop which 

 will not fupport him : there are few parts of his figures but 

 what are fore-fhortened more or lefs, and cannot, therefore, 

 be drawn or corrected by meafures. Though he begins his 

 fludies with the compafs in his hand as we learn a dead lan- 

 guage by Grammar, yet, after a certain time, they are both 

 Hung afide, and in their place a kind of mechanical corre&nefs 



O 2 of 



