This however is not meant to blame a statue for its polish, as it is conducive to beauty: though Laocoon informs us, that the ancients knew the secret of finishing statues, merely with the chissel. Nor does the cleanness of the pencil, on a picture, want its merit: yet it ought to be distinguished from enamelled tints. A barked statue, and a bristly picture are alike absurd. Sketch with fire, and execute with phlegm. We blame workmanship only as it claims the first rank; as in the marbles _à la Bernini_, and the linnen of _Scybold_ and _Denner_. Friend, these instructions may be of use. For as the bulk of mankind amuse themselves with the shells of things only, your eye may be captivated by polish and glare, as they are the most obvious; to put you on your guard against which, is leading you the first step to true knowledge. For daily observation, during several years, in Italy, has taught me how lamentably most young travellers are duped by a set of blind leaders. To see them skip about in the temple of art and genius, all quite sober and cool, puts me in mind of a swarm of new-fledged grashoppers wantoning in the spring. ON GRACE. ——Χαριτων ἱμερο φωνων ἱερον φυτον. Grace is the harmony of agent and action. It is a general idea: for whatever reasonably pleases in things and actions is gracious. Grace is a gift of heaven; though not like beauty, which must be born with the possessor: whereas nature gives only the dawn, the capability of this. Education and reflection form it by degrees, and custom may give it the sanction of nature. As water, _That least of foreign principles partakes,_ _Is best:_ So Grace is perfect when most simple, when freest from finery, constraint, and affected wit. Yet always to trace nature through the vast realms of pleasure, or through all the windings of characters, and circumstances infinitely various, seems to require too pure and candid a taste for this age, cloyed with pleasure, in its judgments either partial, local, capricious, or incompetent. Then let it suffice to say, that Grace can never live where the passions rave; that beauty and tranquillity of soul are the centre of its powers. By this Cleopatra subdued Cæsar; Anthony slighted Octavia and the world for this; it breathes through every line of Xenophon; Thucydides, it seems, disdained its charms; to Grace Apelles and Corregio owe immortality; but Michael Angelo was blind to it; though all the remains of ancient art, even those of but middling merit, might have satisfied him, that Grace alone places them above the reach of modern skill.