character and passions of those vulgar people which are the

subjects of their study and attention. Amongst those, Jean Stein

seems to be one of the most diligent and accurate observers of what

passed in those scenes which he frequented, and which were to him

an academy. I can easily imagine that if this extraordinary man

had had the good fortune to have been born in Italy instead of

Holland, had he lived in Rome instead of Leyden, and had been

blessed with Michael Angelo and Raffaelle for his masters instead

of Brower and Van Gowen, that the same sagacity and penetration

which distinguished so accurately the different characters and

expression in his vulgar figures, would, when exerted in the

selection and imitation of what was great and elevated in nature,

have been equally successful, and his name would have been now

ranged with the great pillars and supporters of our art.

Men who, although thus bound down by the almost invincible powers

of early habits, have still exerted extraordinary abilities within

their narrow and confined circle, and have, from the natural vigour

of their mind, given such an interesting expression, such force and

energy to their works, though they cannot be recommended to be

exactly imitated, may yet invite an artist to endeavour to

transfer, by a kind of parody, those excellences to his own works.

Whoever has acquired the power of making this use of the Flemish,

Venetian, and French schools is a real genius, and has sources of

knowledge open to him which were wanting to the great artists who

lived in the great age of painting.

To find excellences however dispersed, to discover beauties however

concealed by the multitude of defects with which they are

surrounded, can be the work only of him who, having a mind always

alive to his art, has extended his views to all ages and to all

schools, and has acquired from that comprehensive mass which he has

thus gathered to himself, a well digested and perfect idea of his

art, to which everything is referred. Like a sovereign judge and