high degree, will make a work very valuable, and in some measure
compensate for the absence of the higher kind of merits. It is the duty
of the connoisseur to know and esteem, as much as it may deserve, every
part of painting; he will not then think even Bassano unworthy of his
notice, who, though totally devoid of expression, sense, grace, or
elegance, may be esteemed on account of his admirable taste of colours,
which, in his best works, are little inferior to those of Titian.

Since I have mentioned Bassano, we must do him likewise the justice to
acknowledge that, though he did not aspire to the dignity of expressing
the characters and passions of men, yet, with respect to the facility and
truth in his manner of touching animals of all kinds, and giving them
what painters call their character, few have ever excelled him.

To Bassano we may add Paul Veronese and Tintoret, for their entire
inattention to what is justly esteemed the most essential part of our
art, the expression of the passions. Notwithstanding these glaring
deficiencies, we justly esteem their works; but it must be remembered
that they do not please from those defects, but from their great
excellences of another kind, and in spite of such transgressions. These
excellences, too, as far as they go, are founded in the truth of general
nature. They tell the truth, though not the whole truth.

By these considerations, which can never be too frequently impressed, may
be obviated two errors which I observed to have been, formerly at least,
the most prevalent, and to be most injurious to artists: that of thinking
taste and genius to have nothing to do with reason, and that of taking
particular living objects for nature.

I shall now say something on that part of taste which, as I have hinted