the works there collected, and looked at them with wondering and with
longing eyes. A mist passed away from my sight: the scales fell off. A
new sense came upon me, a new heaven and a new earth stood before me. I
saw the soul speaking in the face--'hands that the rod of empire had
swayed' in mighty ages past--'a forked mountain or blue promontory,'

--with trees upon't
That nod unto the world, and mock our eyes with air.

Old Time had unlocked his treasures, and Fame stood portress at the
door. We had all heard of the names of Titian, Raphael, Guido,
Domenichino, the Caracci--but to see them face to face, to be in the
same room with their deathless productions, was like breaking some
mighty spell--was almost an effect of necromancy! From that time I
lived in a world of pictures. Battles, sieges, speeches in parliament
seemed mere idle noise and fury, 'signifying nothing,' compared with
those mighty works and dreaded names that spoke to me in the eternal
silence of thought. This was the more remarkable, as it was but a short
time before that I was not only totally ignorant of, but insensible to
the beauties of art. As an instance, I remember that one afternoon I
was reading _The Provoked Husband_ with the highest relish, with a green
woody landscape of Ruysdael or Hobbima just before me, at which I looked
off the book now and then, and wondered what there could be in that sort
of work to satisfy or delight the mind--at the same time asking myself,
as a speculative question, whether I should ever feel an interest in it
like what I took in reading Vanbrugh and Cibber?

I had made some progress in painting when I went to the Louvre to study,
and I never did anything afterwards. I never shall forget conning over
the Catalogue which a friend lent me just before I set out. The