what they knew, they have recourse to poetical enthusiasm. They call it
inspiration; a gift from heaven. The artist is supposed to have ascended
the celestial regions, to furnish his mind with this perfect idea of
beauty. "He," says Proclus, "who takes for his model such forms as
nature produces, and confines himself to an exact imitation of them, will
never attain to what is perfectly beautiful. For the works of nature are
full of disproportion, and fall very short of the true standard of
beauty. So that Phidias, when he formed his Jupiter, did not copy any
object ever presents to his sight; but contemplated only that image which
he had conceived in his mind from Homer's description." And thus Cicero,
speaking of the same Phidias: "Neither did this artist," says he, "when
he carved the image of Jupiter or Minerva, set before him any one human
figure as a pattern, which he was to copy; but having a more perfect idea
of beauty fixed in his mind, this he steadily contemplated, and to the
imitation of this all his skill and labour were directed."

The moderns are not less convinced than the ancients of this superior
power existing in the art; nor less conscious of its effects. Every
language has adopted terms expressive of this excellence. The _Gusto
grande_ of the Italians; the _Beau ideal_ of the French and the _great
style_, _genius_, and _taste_ among the English, are but different
appellations of the same thing. It is this intellectual dignity, they
say, that ennobles the painter's art; that lays the line between him and
the mere mechanic; and produces those great effects in an instant, which
eloquence and poetry, by slow and repeated efforts, are scarcely able to
attain.

Such is the warmth with which both the ancients and moderns speak of this
divine principle of the art; but, as I have formerly observed,
enthusiastic admiration seldom promotes knowledge. Though a student by