to have had it in contemplation to compose and deliver to the Academy, and which he seems to have intended as a history of his mind, so far as concerned his art, and of his progress, studies, and practice; together with a view of the advantages which he had enjoyed, and the disadvantages he had laboured under, in the course that he had run a scheme from which, however liable it might be to the ridicule of Wits and Scoffers, (a circumstance of which, he says, he was perfectly aware,) he conceived the Students might derive some useful documents for the regulation of their own conduct and practice. It is much to be regretted that he did not live to compose such a Discourse; for, from the hand of so great and candid an Artist, it could not but have been highly curious and instructive. One of these fragments relating to his feelings when he first went to Italy, every reader will, I am confident, be pleased with its insertion.

"It has frequently happened, (says this great painter) as I was informed by the keeper of the Vatican, that many of those whom he had conducted through the vari ous apartments of that edifice, when about to be dismissed, have asked for the works of Raffaelle, and would not believe that they had already passed through the rooms where they are preserved; so little impression had those performances made on them. One of the first painters now in France once told me, that this circumstance happened to himself; though he now looks on Raffaelle with that veneration which he deserves from all painters and lovers of the art. I remember very well my own disappointment, when I first visited the Vatican; but on confessing my feelings to a brother-student, of whose ingenuousness I had a high opinion, he acknowledged that the works of Raffaelle had the same effect on him, or rather that they did not produce the effect which he expected. This

was a great relief to my mind; and on inquiring further of other students, I found that those persons only who from natural imbecility appeared to be incapable of ever relishing those divine performances, made pretensions to instantaneous raptures on first beholding them.-In justice to myself, however, I must add, that though disappointed and mortified at not finding myself enraptured with the works of this great master, I did not for a moment conceive or suppose that the name of Raffaelle, and those admirable paintings in particular, owed their reputation to the ignorance and prejudice of mankind; on the contrary, my not relishing them as I was conscious I ought to have done, was one of the most humiliating circumstances that ever happened to me; I found myself in the midst of works executed upon principles with which I was unacquainted: I felt my ignorance, and stood abashed. All the indigested notions of painting which I had

brought with me from England, where the art was in the lowest state it had ever been in, (it could not indeed be lower,) were to be totally done away, and eradicated from my mind. It was necessary, as it is expressed on a very solemn occasion, that I should become as a little child.-Notwithstanding my disappointment, I proceeded to copy some of those excellent works. I viewed them again and again; I even affected to feel their merit, and to admire them, more than I really did. In a short time a new taste and new perceptions began to dawn upon me; and I was convinced that I had originally formed a false opinion of the perfection of art, and that this great painter was well entitled to the high rank which he holds in the estimation of the world. The truth is, that if these works had really been what I expected, they would have contained beauties. superficial and alluring, but by no means such as would have entitled them to the

great reputation which they have so long and so justly obtained.

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Having since that period frequently revolved this subject in my mind, I am now clearly of opinion, that a relish for the higher excellencies of art is an acquired taste, which no man ever possessed without long cultivation, and great labour and attention. On such occasions as that which I have mentioned, we are often ashamed of our apparent dulness; as if it were to be expected that that our minds, like tinder, should instantly catch fire from the divine spark of Raffaelle's genius. I flatter myself that now it would be so, and that I have a just and lively perception of his great powers: but let it be always remembered, that the excellence of his style is not on the surface, but lies deep; and at the first view is seen but mistily. It is the florid style, which strikes at once, and captivates the eye for a time, without