little from others: and still less will any artist, that can distinguish between excellence and insipidity, ever borrow from them. Raffaelle, who had no lack of invention, took the greatest pains to select; and when designing "his greatest as well as latest works, the Cartoons," he had before him studies he had made from Masaccio. He borrowed from him "two noble figures of St Paul." The only alteration he made was in the showing both hands, which he thought in a principal figure should never be omitted. Masaccio's work was well known; Raffaelle was not ashamed to have borrowed. "Such men, surely, need not be ashamed of that friendly intercourse which ought to exist among artists, of receiving from the dead, and giving to the living, and perhaps to those who are yet unborn. The daily food and nourishment of the mind of an artist is found in the great works of his predecessors. 'Serpens nisi serpentem comederit, non fit draco.'" The fact is, the most self-sufficient of men are greater borrowers than they will admit, or perhaps know; their very novelties, if they have any, commence upon the thoughts of others, which are laid down as a foundation in their own minds. The common sense, which is called "common property," is that stock which all that have gone before us have left behind them; and we are but admitted to the heirship of what they have acquired. Masaccio Sir Joshua considers to have been "one of the great fathers of modern art." He was the first who gave largeness, and "discovered the path that leads to every excellence to which the art afterwards arrived." It is enough to say of him, that Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Pietro Perugino, Raffaelle, Bartolomeo, Andrea del Sarto, Il Rosso, and Pierino del Vaga, formed their taste by studying his works. "An artist-like mind" is best formed by studying the works of great artists. It is a good practice to consider figures in works of great masters as statues which we may take in any view. This did Raffaelle, in his "Sergius Paulus," from Masaccio. Lest there should be any misunderstanding of this sort of borrowing, which he justifies, he again refers to the practice of Raffaelle in this his borrowing from Masaccio. The two figures of St Paul, he doubted if Raffaelle could have improved; but "he had the address to change in some measure without diminishing the grandeur of their character." For a serene composed dignity, he has given animation suited to their employment. "In the same manner, he has given more animation to the figure of Sergius Paulus, and to that which is introduced in the picture of Paul preaching, of which little more than hints are given by Masaccio, which Raffaelle has finished. The closing the eyes of this figure, which in Masaccio might be easily mistaken for sleeping, is not in the least ambiguous in the Cartoon. His eyes, indeed are closed, but they are closed with such vehemence, that the agitation of a mind