'tis commonly fuch a one's In tention not to make a Jufl, but a Fine Picture of them; To which our Own Prejudices in their favour do not a little contribute. By this means 'tis natural for us to imagine a Work in which we fee great Defects could not be of a Hand, of which we have fo favourable an Idea. 'Tis neceffary therefore to correct This way of Thinking, and remember that Great Men are but Men ftill, and that there are Degrees, and Kinds of Excellence of which we may have an Idea, but to which the Greateft of Men could never arrive; God has faid to every Man as to the Ocean, Hitherto halt thou go, and no farther; There are certain bounds fet to the moft Exalted amongst Men beyond which they are are upon the Level with the moft Inferiour: Nor can any Man Always do as he Somtimes can, nor even as he Generally does; à notorious Fault, or more than one in a Work, nay in a fingle Figure, is confiftent with a Juft Idea of Raffaele himself, and that in his Best time: Raffaele indeed could not have made a Lame, Ill-proportioned Figure, or Limb; that is if he had taken Care, and did as well as he could; but Raffaele might be in Haft, Negligent, or Forget him. felf; he might be Weary, Indif pos'd, or out of Humour. Could the Inferiour Master to whom the Work is to be attributed upon account of thefe Faults be fuppofed capable of doing the reft? If we had feen an Intire Work of that Bad Kind could we have believed the Handithat did That would have done like the Gobe pate of the thing in quafiona Tis ealior w to Defcends than Mount Raffaele could's mora eafily do like an Inferior Ma fter in certain Inftances iǝthan fuch a one could do like Rafs faele in all the reft. Ɔ end od 193 And as the Ideas we have of Men frequently misledd ausgin fudging from Thende ofpthefr Works with mirefpetto thri Goodness, the fame happéhsias 20s the Kindsofthen Wheri to one is poffeffed of the Gharac ter of Michelangelo (for Inftance) asFierce, Bold,Impetuous, Haughty, and even gone beyond Great, to as to have a mixtured of the Savage; when one reads fuch an Account of him as schis d to 1900 900 yus word have Je puis dire peu avoir veu Michel l' Ange, bien qu'a agé de plus de foixante ans, & encore non de plus robuftes, abattre plus d'escailles d'un tref-dur marbre en un quart d'heure que trois jeunes tailleurs de pierre, n'euffent faire en trois ou quatre, chofe prefqu'incroyable qui ne le verroit, & alloit d' une telle impetuofite, & furie que je penfois que tout l' ouvrage deuft aller en peices, abbatant par terre d'un feul coup de grofs mor ceaux de trois ou have put in the Margin; (And which I was the more inclined to put there becaufe 'tis Curious, and gives one a more Lively Idea of the Man than I have found al moft any where elfe,and is withal little known) one finds it hard to conceive that fuch a one Drew very neat quatre doigts d'efly, and Finish'd and poiffeur, fi ric à ric very highly, confe quently Young Connoiffeues hager Q2 ving ger de perdre tout, parceque cela ne fe peut plus reparer par apres, ny replafter comme les images d' Argille, ou de Stuc. ving This Idea of this great Mafter will not very readily believe fuch Drawings to be Annotations de Blaife of him, and de Vigenere fur le yet 'tis incon teftable that he did make fuch very frequent ly. History nevertheless has it's Ufe in giving us Ideas of the Masters in order to judge of their Hands, as has been feen already in Part, and will further appear presently; but these Ideas must be Corrected, Regulated, and Perfected by the Works themfelves. A Picture or Drawing has fo many Particulars relating to it, fuch |