Must he not, therefore, who imitates her with the greatest fidelity

be the best artist? By this mode of reasoning Rembrandt has a

higher place than Raffaelle. But a very little reflection will

serve to show us that these particularities cannot be nature: for

how can that be the nature of man, in which no two individuals are

the same?

It plainly appears that as a work is conducted under the influence

of general ideas or partial it is principally to be considered as

the effect of a good or a bad taste.

As beauty therefore does not consist in taking what lies

immediately before you, so neither, in our pursuit of taste, are

those opinions which we first received and adopted the best choice,

or the most natural to the mind and imagination.

In the infancy of our knowledge we seize with greediness the good

that is within our reach; it is by after-consideration, and in

consequence of discipline, that we refuse the present for a greater

good at a distance. The nobility or elevation of all arts, like

the excellence of virtue itself, consists in adopting this enlarged

and comprehensive idea, and all criticism built upon the more

confined view of what is natural, may properly be called shallow

criticism, rather than false; its defect is that the truth is not

sufficiently extensive.

It has sometimes happened that some of the greatest men in our art

have been betrayed into errors by this confined mode of reasoning.

Poussin, who, upon the whole, may be produced as an instance of

attention to the most enlarged and extensive ideas of nature, from

not having settled principles on this point, has in one instance at

least, I think, deserted truth for prejudice. He is said to have

vindicated the conduct of Julio Romano, for his inattention to the

masses of light and shade, or grouping the figures, in the battle