The great vulgar and the small. Cowley, Horace, Odes, III. 1.
The strong conception. Othello, Act V. Sc. 2.
That the mind groans withal. Ibid., Act V. Sc. 2.
THE IDEAL
Another of the Specimens of a Dictionary of Definitions, from The Atlas, January 10, 1830.
429. In Hazlitt’s Criticisms on Art, edited by his son, the following passages are inserted in the reprint of The Atlas article, presumably from Hazlitt’s MS.:
After power without effort, add: ‘It is the most exalted idea we can form of humanity. Some persons have hence raised it quite above humanity, and made its essence to consist specifically in the representation of gods and goddesses, just as if, on the same principle that there are court painters, there were certain artists who had the privilege of being admitted into the mythological heaven, and brought away casts and fac-similes of the mouth of Venus or the beard of Jupiter.’
After in every part, beautiful, add: ‘The Venus is only the idea of the most perfect female beauty, and the statue will be none the worse for bearing the more modern name of Musidora. The ideal is only making the best of what is natural and subject to the sense.’
[430]. Severe in youthful beauty. Paradise Lost, IV. 845.
Inimitable on earth. Ibid., III. 508.