equal in every part of the art, and superior in one, to anything that has been done since the age of Raphael. All Sir J. Reynolds' Discourses to the Royal Academy will show that the Venetian finesse in art can never be united with the majesty of colouring necessary to historical beauty; and in a letter to the Rev. Mr. Gilpin, author of a work on Picturesque Scenery, he says thus:—'It may be worth consideration whether the epithet picturesque is not applicable to the excellencies of the inferior schools rather than to the higher. The works of Michael Angelo, Raphael, &c. appear to me to have nothing of it. Whereas Rubens and the Venetian painters may almost be said to have nothing else. Perhaps picturesque is somewhat synonymous to the word taste, which we should think improperly applied to Homer or Milton, but very well to Prior or Pope. I suspect that the application of these words is to excellences of an inferior order, and which are incompatible with the grand style. You are certainly right in saying that variety of tints and forms is picturesque; but it must be remembered, on the other hand, that the reverse of this (uniformity of colour and a long continuation of lines) produces grandeur.So says Sir Joshua, and so say I; for I have now proved that the parts of the art which I neglected to display, in those little pictures and drawings which I had the pleasure and profit to do for you, are incompatible with the designs. There is nothing in the art which our painters do that I can confess myself ignorant of. I also know and understand, and can assuredly affirm, that the works I have done for you are equal to the Caracci or Raphael (and I am now some years older than Raphael was when he died). I say they are equal to Caracci or Raphael, or else I am blind, stupid, ignorant, and incapable, in two years' study, to understand those things which a boarding-school miss can comprehend in a fortnight. Be assured, my dear friend, that there is not one touch in those drawings and pictures but what came from my head and my heart in unison that I am proud of being their author, and grateful to you my employer; and that I look upon you as the chief of my friends whom I would endeavour to please, because you, among all men, have enabled me to produce these things. I would not send you a drawing or a picture till I had again reconsidered my notions of art, and had put myself back as if I was a learner. I have proved that I am right and shall now go on with the vigour I was, in my childhood, famous for. But I do not pretend to be perfect; yet, if my works have faults, Caracci's, Correggio's, and Raphael's have faults also. Let me observe that the yellow-leather flesh of old men, the ill-drawn and
