not contrive a new story or character, but we nearly owe to him a fifth
part of painting, the knowledge of _chiaroscuro_--a distinct power and
element in art and nature. He had a steadiness, a firm keeping of mind
and eye, that first stood the shock of 'fierce extremes' in light and
shade, or reconciled the greatest obscurity and the greatest brilliancy
into perfect harmony; and he therefore was the first to hazard this
appearance upon canvas, and give full effect to what he saw and
delighted in. He was led to adopt this style of broad and startling
contrast from its congeniality to his own feelings: his mind grappled
with that which afforded the best exercise to its master-powers: he was
bold in act, because he was urged on by a strong native impulse.
Originality is then nothing but nature and feeling working in the mind.
A man does not affect to be original: he is so, because he cannot help
it, and often without knowing it. This extraordinary artist indeed
might be said to have had a particular organ for colour. His eye seemed
to come in contact with it as a feeling, to lay hold of it as a
substance, rather than to contemplate it as a visual object. The
texture of his landscapes is 'of the earth, earthy'--his clouds are
humid, heavy, slow; his shadows are 'darkness that may be felt,' a
'palpable obscure'; his lights are lumps of liquid splendour! There is
something more in this than can be accounted for from design or
accident: Rembrandt was not a man made up of two or three rules and
directions for acquiring genius.

I am afraid I shall hardly write so satisfactory a character of Mr.
Wordsworth, though he too, like Rembrandt, has a faculty of making
something out of nothing, that is, out of himself, by the medium through
which he sees and with which he clothes the barrenest subject. Mr.
Wordsworth is the last man to 'look abroad into universality,' if that
alone constituted genius: he looks at home into himself, and is 'content