Coroll.—All first impressions are involuntary and inevitable; but the knowledge of the subject will guide you to judge first of the whole; not to creep on from part to part, and nibble at execution before you know what it means to convey. The notion of a tree precedes that of counting leaves or disentangling branches.
Every artist has, or ought to have, a character or system of his own; if, instead of referring that to the test of nature, you judge him by your own packed notions, or arraign him at the tribunal of schools which he does not recognize—you degrade the dignity of art, and add another fool to the herd of Dilettanti.
But if, for reasons best known to yourself, you come determined to condemn what yet you have not seen, let me advise you to drop your pursuits of art for one of far greater importance—the inquiry into yourself; nor aim at taste till you are sure of justice.
19. Misconception of its own powers is the injurious attendant of genius, and the most severe remembrancer of its vanity.
Coroll.—Much of Leonardo da Vinci's life evaporated in useless experiment and quaint research; Michael Angelo perplexed the limbs of grandeur with the minute ramifications of anatomy; Rafaelle forsook humanity to people a mythologic desert with clumsy gods and clumsier goddesses; Shakspeare, trusting time and chance with Hamlet and Othello, revised a frozen sonnet, or fondled his Adonis; whilst Milton dropt the trumpet that had astonished hell, left Paradise, and introduced a pedagogue to Heaven. When genius is surprised by such lethargic moments, we can forget that Johnson wrote Irene, and Hogarth made a solemn fool of Paul.
20. Reality teems with disappointment for him whose sources of enjoyment spring in the elysium of fancy.
21. Where perfection cannot take place, a very high degree of general excellence is impossible. Negligence is the shade of energy; where there is neither, expect mediocrity, the common expletive of society; capacity without elevation, industry without predilection, practice without choice.