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Between these extremes lies that grate- 

 ful medium of grateful irritation, which 

 produces the sensation of what we call 

 beauty; and which in visible objects we 

 call picturesque beauty, because painting, 

 by imitating the visible qualities only, dis- 

 criminates it from the objects of other 

 senses with which it may be combined; 

 and which, if productive of stronger im- 

 pressions, either of pleasure or disgust, 

 will overpower it ; so that a mind not ha- 

 bituated to such discriminations, or (as 

 more commonly expressed,) a person not 

 possessed of a painter's eye, does not dis- 

 cover it till it is separated in the artist's 

 imitation. Rembrandt, Ostade, Teniers, 

 and others of the Dutch painters, have 

 produced the most beautiful pictures, by 

 the most exact imitations of the most ugly 

 and disgusting objects in nature ; and yet 

 it is physically impossible that an exact 

 imitation should exhibit qualities not ex- 

 isting in its original ; but the case is, that 

 in the originals, animal disgust, and the 

 nauseating repugnance of appetite, drown 



