that the original frame of his mind was imaginative even to romance, and that his mood would savour more of melancholy than mirth. Poetry has a large part in his composition: look at his young painter. Could any writer but one who has had such dreams himself have imagined a dream of fame so engrossing? There is something to me inexpressibly touching in that young artist's history: he is poor, low-born, with neither grace of person nor of manner; he is not even successful in his pursuit; he is the victim, not the priest of his altar; yet how we enter into his hopes! how convinced we feel of his power! and the author's great skill is shown in making his enthusiasm a pledge for his genius. No one could draw such a character who had not, at some time or other, numbered fame and futurity among his own visions. Again, I know no one who has painted love so poetically—and poetry is love's truth; he has painted its highest nature, removed from the commonplaces of life, but ready for its cares—a hidden spring, whose presence is only indicated by the freshness of the verdure around; and the more spiritualised, self-devoted, and entire, in proportion as it is kept apart from the dividing and corrupting effect of the world. The love
