side, that innumerable multitude of people, full of confidence and
joy, lifting up their hands to heaven; and perceive, on the other
side, King Pharaoh with the Egyptians frighted and confounded at the
sight of the waves that join again to swallow them up. Now, in good
earnest, who would be so bold as to affirm that a chambermaid,
having by chance daubed that piece of cloth, the colours had of
their own accord ranged themselves in order to produce that lively
colouring, those various attitudes, those looks so well expressing
different passions, that elegant disposition of so many figures
without confusion, that decent plaiting of draperies, that
management of lights, that degradation of colours, that exact
perspective--in short, all that the noblest genius of a painter can
invent? If there were no more in the case than a little foam at the
mouth of a horse, I own, as the story goes, and which I readily
allow without examining into it, that a stroke of a pencil thrown in
a pet by a painter might once in many ages happen to express it
well. But, at least, the painter must beforehand have, with design,
chosen the most proper colours to represent that foam, in order to
prepare them at the end of his pencil; and, therefore, it were only
a little chance that had finished what art had begun. Besides, this
work of art and chance together being only a little foam, a confused
object, and so most proper to credit a stroke of chance--an object
without form, that requires only a little whitish colour dropped
from a pencil, without any exact figure or correction of design.
What comparison is there between that foam with a whole design of a
large continued history, in which the most fertile fancy and the
boldest genius, supported by the perfect knowledge of rules, are
scarce sufficient to perform what makes an excellent picture? I
cannot prevail with myself to leave these instances without desiring
the reader to observe that the most rational men are naturally