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take the same Frenchman to the two large 

 pictures we first looked at, he could not 

 find any stronger terms to express his ad- 

 miration of them, than superb and mag- 

 ficeht; but if he were an unprejudiced 

 man, he would certainly allow, that those 

 terms distinctly characterized the peculiar 

 excellence and style of those two pictures; 

 while in the case of this Teniers, they were 

 merely strong expressions of praise, with- 

 out any other meaning. 



" If aill this be true, if such expressions 

 often convey nothing more than general 

 commendation, the whole seems to me very 

 simple ; there is no longer any question 

 about physical impossibility, or the exhi- 

 bition of qualities which do not exist in 

 the original. The hog's inside, in this, 

 exact imitation, is neither more nor less 

 beautiful, or magnificent, than a real one 

 in a real back-kitchen; and the picture 

 itself, according to my notions, is neither 

 more nor less entitled to either of those 

 epithets, than any other welkpainted pic- 

 ture, without any one circumstance qf 



