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light thrown back upon it by the mirror of
art: and by the aid of the pencil we may be said to touch and handle the
objects of sight. The air-drawn visions that hover on the verge of
existence have a bodily presence given them on the canvas: the form of
beauty is changed into a substance: the dream and the glory of the
universe is made 'palpable to feeling as well as sight.'--And see! a
rainbow starts from the canvas, with its humid train of glory, as if it
were drawn from its cloudy arch in heaven. The spangled landscape
glitters with drops of dew after the shower. The 'fleecy fools' show their
coats in the gleams of the setting sun. The shepherds pipe their farewell
notes in the fresh evening air. And is this bright vision made from a
dead, dull blank, like a bubble reflecting the mighty fabric of the
universe? Who would think this miracle of Rubens' pencil possible to
be performed? Who, having seen it, would not spend his life to do the
like? See how the rich fallows, the bare stubble-field, the scanty
harvest-home, drag in Rembrandt's landscapes! How often have I
looked at them and nature, and tried to do the same, till the very 'light
thickened,' and there was an earthiness in the feeling of the air! There is
no end of the refinements of art and nature in this respect. One may
look at the misty glimmering horizon till the eye dazzles and the
imagination is lost, in hopes to transfer the whole interminable expanse
at one blow upon the canvas. Wilson said, he used to try to paint the
effect of the motes dancing in the setting sun. At another time, a friend,
coming into his painting-room when he was sitting on the ground in a
melancholy posture, observed that his picture looked like a landscape
after a shower: he started up with the greatest delight, and said, 'That is
the effect I intended to produce, but thought I had failed.' Wilson was
neglected; and, by degrees, neglected his art to apply himself to brandy.
His hand became unsteady, so that it was only by repeated attempts that
he could reach the place or produce the effect he aimed at; and when he
had done a little to a picture, he would say to any acquaintance who
chanced to drop in, 'I have painted enough for one day: come, let us go
somewhere.' It was not so Claude left his pictures, or his studies on the
banks of the Tiber, to go in search of other enjoyments, or ceased to

gaze upon the glittering sunny vales and distant hills; and while his eye
drank in the clear sparkling hues and lovely forms of nature, his hand
stamped them on the lucid canvas to last there for ever! One of the
most delightful parts of my life was one fine summer, when I used to
walk out of an evening to catch the last light of the sun, gemming the
green slopes or russet lawns, and gilding tower or tree, while the blue
sky, gradually turning to purple and gold, or skirted with dusky grey,
hung its broad marble pavement over all, as we see it in the great
master of Italian landscape. But to come to a more particular
explanation of the subject:--
The first head I ever tried to paint was an old woman with the upper
part of the face shaded by her bonnet, and I certainly laboured [at] it
with great perseverance. It took me numberless sittings to do it. I have
it by me still, and sometimes look at it with surprise, to think how much
pains were thrown away to little purpose,--yet not altogether in vain if
it taught me to see good in everything, and to know that there is
nothing vulgar in Nature seen with the eye of science or of true art.
Refinement creates beauty everywhere: it is the grossness of the
spectator that discovers nothing but grossness in the object. Be this as it
may, I spared no pains to do my best. If art was long, I thought that life
was so too at that moment. I got in the general effect the first day; and
pleased and surprised enough I was at my success. The rest was a work
of time--of weeks and months (if need were), of patient toil and careful
finishing. I had seen an old head by Rembrandt at Burleigh House, and
if I could produce a head at all like Rembrandt in a year, in my lifetime,
it would be glory and felicity and wealth and fame enough for me! The
head l had seen at Burleigh was an exact and wonderful facsimile of
nature, and