pastry, either of them was conscious of the sublime Ideas which
afterwards took form for the admiration of the world? When Raffaelle,
then a youth, was selected to execute the noble works which now live
on the walls of the Vatican, "he had done little or nothing," says
Reynolds, "to justify so high a trust." Nor could he have been
certain, from what he knew of himself, that he was equal to the task.
He could only hope to succeed; and his hope was no doubt founded on
his experience of the progressive developement of his mind in former
efforts; rationally concluding, that the originally seeming blank
from which had arisen so many admirable forms was still teeming with
others, that only wanted the occasion, or excitement, to come forth at
his bidding.

To return to that which, as the interpreting medium of his thoughts
and conceptions, connects the artist with his fellow-men, we remark,
that only on the ground of some self-realizing power, like what
we have termed Poetic Truth, could what we call the Ideal ever be
intelligible.

That some such power is inherent and fundamental in our nature, though
differenced in individuals by more or less activity, seems more
especially confirmed in this latter branch of the subject, where the
phenomena presented are exclusively of the Possible. Indeed, we cannot
conceive how without it there could ever be such a thing as true Art;
for what might be received as such in one age might also be overruled
in the next: as we know to be the case with most things depending on
opinion. But, happily for Art, if once established on this immutable
base, there it must rest: and rest unchanged, amidst the endless
fluctuations of manners, habits, and opinions; for its truth of
a thousand years is as the truth of yesterday. Hence the beings