Table-Talk | Page 9

this little picture of
brotherly tenderness. I added a bit of the hedge, the barn-door, and
some broken cart-wheels, without any order, just as they happened to
lie; and in about an hour I found I had made a drawing of great
expression and very correct design without having put in anything of
my own. This confirmed me in the resolution I had made before, only
to copy Nature for the future. Nature is inexhaustible, and alone forms
the greatest masters. Say what you will of rules, they alter the true
features and the natural expression.'
[2] It is at present covered with a thick slough of oil and varnish (the
perishable vehicle of the English school), like an envelope of
goldbeaters' skin, so as to be hardly visible.
[3] Men in business, who are answerable with their fortunes for the
consequences of their opinions, and are therefore accustomed to
ascertain pretty accurately the grounds on which they act, before they
commit themselves on the event, are often men of remarkably quick
and sound judgements. Artists in like manner must know tolerably well
what they are about, before they can bring the result of their
observations to the test of ocular demonstration.
[4] The famous Schiller used to say, that he found the great happiness
of life, after all, to consist in the discharge of some mechanical duty.
[5] The rich impasting of Titian and Giorgione combines something of
the advantages of both these styles, the felicity of the one with the
carefulness of the other, and is perhaps to be preferred to either.

ESSAY II
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED
The painter not only takes a delight in nature, he has a new and
exquisite source of pleasure opened to him in the study and
contemplation of works of art--
Whate'er Lorraine light touch'd with soft'ning hue, Or savage Rosa
dash'd, or learned Poussin drew.
He turns aside to view a country gentleman's seat with eager looks,
thinking it may contain some of the rich products of art. There is an air
round Lord Radnor's park, for there hang the two Claudes, the Morning
and Evening of the Roman Empire--round Wilton House, for there is
Vandyke's picture of the Pembroke family--round Blenheim, for there
is his picture of the Duke of Buckingham's children, and the most
magnificent collection of Rubenses in the world--at Knowsley, for
there is Rembrandt's Handwriting on the Wall--and at Burleigh, for
there are some of Guido's angelic heads. The young artist makes a
pilgrimage to each of these places, eyes them wistfully at a distance,
'bosomed high in tufted trees,' and feels an interest in them of which the
owner is scarce conscious: he enters the well-swept walks and echoing
archways, passes the threshold, is led through wainscoted rooms, is
shown the furniture, the rich hangings, the tapestry, the massy services
of plate--and, at last, is ushered into the room where his treasure is, the
idol of his vows--some speaking face or bright landscape! It is stamped
on his brain, and lives there thenceforward, a tally for nature, and a test
of art. He furnishes out the chambers of the mind from the spoils of
time, picks and chooses which shall have the best places--nearest his
heart. He goes away richer than he came, richer than the possessor; and
thinks that he may one day return, when he perhaps shall have done
something like them, or even from failure shall have learned to admire
truth and genius more.
My first initiation in the mysteries of the art was at the Orleans Gallery:
it was there I formed my taste, such as it is; so that I am irreclaimably
of the old school in painting. I was staggered when I saw the works

there collected, and looked at them with wondering and with longing
eyes. A mist passed away from my sight: the scales fell off. A new
sense came upon me, a new heaven and a new earth stood before me. I
saw the soul speaking in the face--'hands that the rod of empire had
swayed' in mighty ages past--'a forked mountain or blue promontory,'
--with trees upon't That nod unto the world, and mock our eyes with
air.
Old Time had unlocked his treasures, and Fame stood portress at the
door. We had all heard of the names of Titian, Raphael, Guido,
Domenichino, the Caracci--but to see them face to face, to be in the
same room with their deathless productions, was like breaking some
mighty spell--was almost an effect of necromancy! From that time I
lived in a world of pictures. Battles, sieges, speeches in parliament
seemed mere idle noise and fury, 'signifying nothing,' compared with
those mighty works and dreaded names that spoke to me in the eternal
silence of thought. This was the more