Though Coypel wanted a simplicity of taste, and mistook a

presumptuous and assuming air for what is grand and majestic; yet

he frequently has good sense and judgment in his manner of telling

his stories, great skill in his compositions, and is not without a

considerable power of expressing the passions, The modern

affectation of grace in his works, as well as in those of Bouche

and Watteau, may be said to be separated by a very thin partition

from the more simple and pure grace of Correggio and Parmigiano.

Amongst the Dutch painters, the correct, firm, and determined

pencil, which was employed by Bamboccio and Jan Miel on vulgar and

mean subjects, might without any change be employed on the highest,

to which, indeed, it seems more properly to belong. The greatest

style, if that style is confined to small figures such as Poussin

generally painted, would receive an additional grace by the

elegance and precision of pencil so admirable in the works of

Teniers.

Though this school more particularly excelled in the mechanism of

painting, yet there are many who have shown great abilities in

expressing what must be ranked above mechanical excellences.

In the works of Frank Hals the portrait painter may observe the

composition of a face, the features well put together as the

painters express it, from whence proceeds that strong marked

character of individual nature which is so remarkable in his

portraits, and is not to be found in an equal degree in any other

painter. If he had joined to this most difficult part of the art a

patience in finishing what he had so correctly planned, he might

justly have claimed the place which Vandyke, all things considered,

so justly holds as the first of portrait painters.

Others of the same school have shown great power in expressing the