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with the rest; all seems melted together, 

 but with so nice a judgment, as to avoid, 

 by means of certain free, yet delicate 

 touches, that laboured hardness and insi- 

 pidity, which arise from what is called high 

 finishing. Correggio's pictures are indeed 

 as far removed from monotony, as from 

 glare; he seems to have felt beyond all 

 others, the exact degree of brilliancy 

 which accords with the softness of beauty, 

 and to have been with regard to figures, 

 what Claude was in landscape. 



The pictures of Claude are brilliant in a 

 high degree; but that brilliancy is so dif- 

 fused over the whole of them, so happily 

 balanced, so mellowed and subdued by 

 the almost visible atmosphere which per- 

 vades every part, and unites all together, 

 that nothing in particular catches the eye; 

 the whole is splendour, the whole is re- 

 pose; every thing lighted up, every 

 thing in sweetest harmony. Rubens dif- 

 fers as strongly from Claude, as he does 

 from Correggio; his landscapes are full 

 of the peculiarities, and picturesque 



