from prejudice to a manner adopted by some favourite Painter then in vogue.

When it is recommended to preserve a breadth of colour or of light, it is not intended that the Artist is to work broader than Nature; but this lesson is insisted on because we know, from experience, that the contrary is a fault which Artists are apt to be guilty of; who, when they are examining and finishing the detail, neglect or forget that breadth which is observable only when the eye takes in the effect of the whole.

Thus again, we recommend to paint soft and tender, to make a harmony and union of colouring; and for this end, that all the shadows shall be nearly of the same colour. The reason of these precepts being at all enforced, proceeds from the disposition which Artists have to paint harder than Nature, to make the outline more cutting against the ground, and to have less harmony and union than is found in Nature, preserving the same brightness of colour in the shadows as are seen in the lights: both these false manners of representing Nature

were the practice of the Painters when the art was in its infancy, and would be the practice now of every student who was left to himself, and had never been taught the art of seeing nature.

There are other rules which may be said not so much to relate to the objects represented as to the eye; but the truth of these are as much fixed in Nature as the others, and proceed from the necessity there is that the work should be seen with ease and satisfaction: to this end are all the rules that relate to grouping and the disposition of light and shade.

With regard to precepts about moderation, and avoiding extremes, little is to be drawn from them. The rule would be too minute that had any exactness at all: a multiplicity of exceptions would arise, so that the teacher would be for ever saying too much, and yet never enough. When a student is instructed to mark with precision every part of his figure, whether it be naked, or in drapery, he probably becomes hard; if, on the contrary, he is told to paint in the most tender manner, possibly he becomes insipid. But

among extremes some are more tolerable than others; of the two extremes I have just mentioned, the hard manner is the most pardonable, carrying with it an air of learning, as if the Artist knew with precision the true form of Nature, though he had rendered it with too heavy a hand.

In every part of the human figure, when not spoiled by too great corpulency, will be found this distinctness, the parts never appearing uncertain or confused, or, as a musician would say, slurred; and all those smaller parts which are comprehended in the larger compartment are still to be there, however tenderly marked.

To conclude. In all minute, detailed, and practical excellence, general precepts must be either deficient or unnecessary: for the rule is not known, nor is it indeed to any purpose a rule, if it be necessary to inculcate it on every occasion.

R

NOTE LV. VERSE 747..

Bright, beyond all the rest, Correggio flings
His ample lights, and round them gently brings
The mingling shade.

The excellency of Correggio's manner has justly been admired by all succeeding Painters. This manner is in direct opposition to what is called the dry and hard manner which preceded him.

His colour, and his mode of finishing, approach nearer to perfection than those of any other Painter: the gliding motion of his outline, and the sweetness with which it melts into the ground; the cleanness and transparency of his colouring, which stop at that exact medium in which the purity and perfection of taste lies, leave nothing to be wished for. Baroccio, though, upon the whole, one of his most successful imitators, yet sometimes, in endeavouring at cleanness or brilliancy of tint, overshot the mark, and falls under the criticism that was made on an ancient Painter, that his figures looked as if they fed upon roses.

R.

THE ART OF PAINTING.

TING.

179

NOTE LVI. VERSE 767..

Yet more than these to meditation's eyes
Great Nature's self redundantly supplies.

Fresnoy, with great propriety, begins and finishes his poem with recommending the study of Nature.

This is in reality the beginning and the end of theory. It is in nature only we can find that beauty which is the great object of our search; it can be found no where else: we can no more form any idea of beauty superior to Nature than we can form an idea of a sixth sense, or any other excellence out of the limits of the human mind. We are forced to confine our conception even of heaven itself and its inhabitants to what we see in this world; even the Supreme Being, he is represented at all, the Painter has no other way of representing than by reversing the decree of the inspired Lawgiver, and making God after his own image.

Nothing can be so unphilosophical as a supposition that we can form any idea of beauty or excellence out of or beyond Na