criticize the picture with as much severity as his worst enemy. If,
instead of the picture on the canvas, Boschini had referred to that in
his mind, as what Titian sought to forget, he would have been, as
we think, more correct. This practice is not uncommon with Artists,
though few, perhaps, are aware of its real object.

It has doubtless the appearance of a singular anomaly in the judgment,
that it should not always be as correct in relation to our own works
as to those of another. Yet nothing is more common than perfect truth
in the one case, and complete delusion in the other. Our surprise,
however, would be sensibly diminished, if we considered that the
reasoning or reflective faculties have nothing to do with either case.
It is the Principle of which we have been speaking, the life, or truth
within, answering to the life, or rather its sign, before us, that
here sits in judgment. Still the question remains unanswered; and
again we are asked, Why is it that our own works do not always respond
with equal veracity? Simply because we do not always _see_
them,--that is, as they are,--but, looking as it were _through
them_, see only their originals in the mind; the mind here acting,
instead of being acted upon. And thus it is, that an Artist may
suppose his conception realized, while that which gave life to it in
his mind is outwardly wanting. But let time erase, as we know it often
does, the mental image, and its embodied representative will then
appear to its author as it is,--true or false. There is one case,
however, where the effect cannot deceive; namely, where it comes upon
us as from a foreign source; where our own seems no longer ours. This,
indeed, is rare; and powerful must be the pictured Truth, that, as
soon as embodied, shall thus displace its own original.

Nor does it in any wise affect the essential nature of the Principle