Who can decide how much in a picture belongs to the idiosyncrasies and
associations of the person who looks upon it. Artists undoubtedly
powerful and fine may have nothing in them which touches the nervous
sympathies and tastes of some persons: who, therefore, shall establish
any authoritative canon of taste? who shall say that Claude is finer
than Zuccarelli, or Zuccarelli than Claude? A man might as well say
that the woman who enchants him is the only true Venus for the world.

Then, again, how much in painting or in poetry depends upon the frame
of mind in which we see or hear! Whoever looks on these pictures, or
reads the Lotus Eaters or Castle of Indolence, at a time when soul and
body are weary, and longing for retirement and rest, will receive an
impression from them such as could never be made on the strong nerves
of our more healthful and hilarious seasons.

Certainly no emotions so rigidly reject critical restraints, and
disdain to be bound by rule, as those excited by the fine arts. A man
unimpressible and incapable of moods and tenses, is for that reason an
incompetent critic; and the sensitive, excitable man, how can he know
that he does not impose his peculiar mood as a general rule?

From the state rooms we were taken to the top of the Hound Tower,
where we gained a magnificent view of the Park of Windsor, with its
regal avenue, miles in length, of ancient oaks; its sweeps of
greensward; clumps of trees; its old Herne oak, of classic memory; in
short, all that constitutes the idea of a perfect English landscape.
The English tree is shorter and stouter than ours; its foliage dense
and deep, lying with a full, rounding outline against the sky. Every
thing here conveys the idea of concentrated vitality, but without that