would produce some wretched, crude, unfermented stuff, instead of an
exquisite old wine, uniting strength and mellowness, outraging those
great spirits whom I endeavour reverently to follow, satisfied, however,
to honour the marks of their footsteps, instead of supposing--I
acknowledge it candidly--that I can ever attain to their eminence even
in mere conception.

_Rubens._


LIX

[You have stated that you thought these Marbles had great truth and
imitation of nature; do you consider that that adds to their value?]

It considerably adds to it, because I consider them as united with grand
form. There is in them that variety that is produced in the human form,
by the alternate action and repose of the muscles, that strike one
particularly. I have myself a very good collection of the best casts
from the antique statues, and was struck with that difference in them,
in returning from the Elgin Marbles to my own house.

_Lawrence._


LX

It is absolutely necessary that at some moment or other in one's career
one should reach the point, not of despising all that is outside
oneself, but of abandoning for ever that almost blind fanaticism which