Besides reading, of course all opportunities of seeing good specimens at home should be made the most of. These are far from so rare as ten years ago. In Boston the Athenaeum, in New York the Metropolitan Art Museum, and both in the latter city and Philadelphia the private collections--which the kindness of their owners makes almost as accessible as public ones--afford us examples of most contemporary painters and of some of the older masters; while our schools of design are provided with casts from the most celebrated antique statues, and many of the best modern ones come to our shores. The Arundel Society of London publishes chromo-lithographs of uncommon merit after the finest and most curious paintings of the Old World. But the best preparation of all is a knowledge of drawing: even if nothing is acquired beyond the ability to copy a cast correctly or sketch a landscape roughly but faithfully, it is a long step over the primary difficulties of the path. The very first of these difficulties is to know what we really like. It is probably impossible to look at a famous work with eyes clear from preconceived impressions: copies, engravings, photographs, have familiarized us in some measure with the finest things in the world. However imperfect an idea may be given by reproductions of great pictures--great in size as well as merit--whether we have seen a Marcantonio or a Raphael Morghen or only a _carte de visite_--a notion of their chief features is acquired: we recognize them from the farther end of the gallery, whither indeed we have generally come in quest of them, and the results are very like those of a first sight of Niagara. Everybody knows how that looks--the huge downpour of the American Fall, the graceful rush of the slenderer stream formed by Goat Island, the mighty curve and tremendous placidity of the Horseshoe Fall, the clouds of spray, the lightly poised rainbow. But all this does not give us the feeling of Niagara: one person is overwhelmed, another enraptured, very many are disappointed. Besides, we are bothered by notions of how we ought to feel at such a moment. All these hinderances the majority of us will meet at the outset. After seeing a few masterpieces, a superficial acquaintance with the characteristics of the most elaborated painters is soon acquired, and then comes the difficulty of judging honestly of the effect upon one's self of a picture which bears so great a name. Yet all Tintoretto's paintings are no more equal than Sir Walter Scott's novels or Byron's poems: Titian trips as Homer nods. Of course we cannot expect to distinguish between the good and the bad of a great master, but there is no reason for our admiring everything from his hand. A great step is gained when we know whether we are pleased or not.