"These are the true causes that have retarded our progress; and for this shall a nation, which has in all ages abounded in men of sound understanding and the brightest parts, be branded with incapacity by a set of pedantic dreamers, who seem to imagine that the degrees of genius are to be measured like the degrees on a globe, determine a man's powers from the latitude in which he was born, and think that a painter, like certain tender plants, can only thrive in a hothouse? Gross as are these absurdities, there will always be a band of profound blockheads ready to adopt and circulate them, if it were only upon the authority of the great names by which they are sanctioned.[37] "To return to our Royal Academy. I am told that one of their leading objects will be sending young men abroad to study the antique statues, etc. Such kind of studies may sometimes improve an exalted genius, but they will not create it; and whatever has been the cause, this same travelling to Italy has, in several instances that I have seen, seduced the student from nature, and led him to paint marble figures,--in which he has availed himself of the great works of antiquity, as a coward does when he puts on the armour of an Alexander; for with similar pretensions and similar vanity, the painter supposes he shall be adored as a second Raphael Urbino. "The fact is, that everything necessary for the student in sculpture or painting may at this time be procured in London. Of the 'Venus' and the 'Gladiator' we have small casts; and even the 'Torso,' by which Michael Angelo asserted he learned all he knew of the art, has been copied in a reduced size, and the cast, by which the principle may be clearly seen, is sold for a few shillings. These small casts, if quite correct, are full as useful to the student as the originals; the parts are easier comprehended, they are more portable to place in different lights, and of an even colour, while the old Parian marbles are apt to shine, dazzle, and confound the eye. If this be doubted, let a plaster figure be smoked and oiled, and the true dimensions of the muscles can be no more distinguished than those of a sooty chimney-sweeper. "After all, though the best statues are unquestionably in parts superlatively fine, and superior to nature, yet they have invariably a something that is inferior. "As to pictures, there are enough in England to seduce us from studying nature, which every man ought to do if he aims at any higher rank than being an imitator of the works of others; and to such servile spirits I will offer no advice.