While frenzy stares in each distracted face, As neighb'ring monarchs, when invoked for aid, Too oft the province they invade, usurp intoxicates instead of inspiring them. Thus, fewer great Artists are to be found amongst his professed followers, than amongst those of even inferior men; for the quality which pre-eminently characterised him, is one that can never be communicated by example, or acquired by imitation. In this view it is, that, with great deference to the high authority of Reynolds, the Author would have been disposed to hesitate, before he recommended the Taste of Michael Angelo to the particular cultivation of the English School; for though that daring and extraordinary genius was the first who emancipàted his Art from the dry, tame, and torpid manner of his predecessors, and led the way to all that is dignified and majestic in the practice of those who have succeeded him; yet, his ardour, like that of most other reformers, urged him into the opposite extreme, and the Author conceives that we have now, in Raphael, a safer and superior guide. He must always be a dangerous model whose peculiar excellence consists in that, which, when we imitate, we are sure to lose. Buonaroti is a blazing star, too excentric in its orbit, to direct us safely in the navigation of Art. The sublime is to be sought for only in those tracks which Genius opens for himself; it is an apparition Collateral studies led beyond their sphere, Perspective, next demands the Student's care, And, queen of distance! reigns unrivall❜d there. 45 that never rises to different persons in the same place: like the Genius of the new world, encountered by Columbus, it appears in all its majesty, to the first bold adventurer that penetrates its bounds, but is never after seen by those who follow in his course. They who consider the genius of Reynolds as an ornament to his Art, and an honour to his country, have perhaps, reason to be pleased, that his admiration of Michael Angelo was not so enthusiastic at the commencement, as at the close of his career. Since he declared that " were he to begin the world again he would tread in the steps of that great man ;" how far the powers of our English Apelles might have enabled him to succeed in that "terribile via," where so many others have failed, it is impossible to determine but as far as we can judge from the fate of those who have followed in this track, there appears to be no room for regret, that the founder and father of the English School of Painting, "took another course more suit. able to his abilities," and is not now to be classed amongst the imitators of Michael Angelo. : Line 47. Perspective, next demands the Student's care,]Reynolds has justly exposed the error of Fresnoy, on this Confides the compass to his hand, and leads 50 subject, as well as the absurd reasoning of his annotator De Piles. It appears indeed extraordinary, that an adherence to the rules of perspective should ever have been considered a defect, or an inconvenience. Since that Art supplies us with an infallible mode of ascertaining and representing the true appearance of things, if the points of sight and distance, are chosen judiciously, according to the nature of the subject and the scene, its principles can never be too scrupulously observed. To depart from them in any case, is to violate natural propriety, and to sacrifice to a fallacious pretext of Taste, the certainty of Truth and Science. But the position advanced by Fresnoy, has its foundation in a principle of criticism similar to that which in the words of Pope, is so often repeated, and so generally misunderstood: "Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend, It is surely injudicious to represent the higher beauties of an art, as attainable out of the sphere of propriety: to allow such a latitude to the excursions of caprice, is to The plain expands-the pillar, by her aid, 55 unsettle the established boundaries of merit, and furnish the plea of authority to transgressions without occasion or excuse. "To snatch a grace beyond the reach of Art," is an expression, which, however poetical and pointed, seems to be neither very clear, nor acute. The word Art is too vague for its office in this place; it cannot be understood to express the general power and function of any particular branch of human ingenuity, as Poetry for instance, for it would be a figure of speech bordering on a bull, to say that an Artist may exhibit a grace beyond the reach of the Art in which it is to be displayed. The word art must therefore, be supposed to mean that degree of inferior skill which is derived from system and rule, as distinguished from feeling and taste; and in this sense, the line conveys to us a position which is certainly as just, as it is generally acknowledged, viz. that we should aim at a grace which mere system and rule can never reach: but this grace, it is humbly conceived, should not be described as attainable by a brave disorder," or characterised as 66 a fault" which "true critics dare not mend." If it was the critic's intention to say, that in Poetry, or any other pursuit of Taste, exalted merits may be displayed which While taught by rule, each figure finds its place, ,60 are not exactly consistent with the principles and proprieties, which sound sense and experience have assigned to it. If he meant to inculcate that there are faults, which it is glorious to commit-blemishes, which it is a beauty to display that there is a kind of non-descript charm, which is generated between error and excellence, and partakes unaccountably of the qualities of both; the precept appears to be extraordinary, if not absurd, and indicates neither a pure sense of Taste, nor a clear conception of Merit. But In Art, there can be no excellence that is not founded in Fitness, Propriety, and Truth: these are the ingredients which are essential in the composition of merit : ingredi. ents which admit of no intermixture of error, however ingeniously modified, without detriment and adulteration. things which have no other relation than that of concomitance, are often connected in our minds as cause and consequence, and we fancy we can descry beauties resulting from defects, which exist in despite of them. By the joint operation of prejudice and bad taste, we confound the faults with the perfections of Genius, till at length in the blindness of undiscriminating reverence, we mistake the one for the other. The doctrine of license, as laid down in this canon of |