196 REPORTS FROM THE SECTIONS. 
that nobody will ever behold in any looking-glass, not bewitched 
by necromancy, such an arrangement of form and line as we have 
conclude with an aphorism from Fuseli, asking you to 
excuse these hastily thrown Sopethes remarks, time not having 
permitted me to eulange on a subject on which 1 feel that so much 
more might be said : “If mind and organs conspire to quali 
you for a judge in works of taste, remember that you are to be 
ssed of three things—the subject of the work which you 
to examine, the character of the artist as such, and, before all, of 
impartiality. first impressions are involunta tary ‘and inevitable, 
but the knowledge of the subject will guide you to judge, first of 
the whole, not to creep on from part to part, and nibble at 
execution before you know what it means to convey ; the notion 
of a tree precedes that of counting leaves or disentangling 
branches. Every artist has, or ought to have, a character or 
system of his ae If, ins stead of referring that to the test of 
' Nature, you judge kine by your own packed notions, or arraign 
him at the tribunal of schools which he does not recognize, you 
justice. 
