But the distinction we have made is perhaps truer and more intelligible, _viz._ that the former gave greater dignity of form, and the latter greater force and refinement of expression. Michael Angelo borrowed his style from sculpture, which represented in general only single figures, (with subordinate accompaniments,) and had not to express the conflicting actions and passions of a multitude of persons. He is much more picturesque than Raphael. The whole figure of his Jeremiah droops and hangs down like a majestic tree surcharged with showers. His drawing of the human figure has all the characteristic freedom and boldness of Titian’s landscapes.[18] To return to Sir Joshua. He has given one very strange proof that there is no such thing as genius, namely, that ‘the degrees of excellence which proclaims genius is different in different times and places.’ If Sir Joshua had aimed at a confutation of himself, he could not have done it more effectually. For what is it that makes the difference but that which originates in a man’s self, _i.e._, is first done by him, is genius, and when it is no longer original, but borrowed from former examples, it ceases to be genius, since no one can establish this claim by following the steps of others, but by going before them? The test of genius may be different, but the thing itself is the same,—a power at all times to do or to invent what has not before been done or invented. It is plain from the passage above cited what influenced Sir Joshua’s mind in his views on this subject. He quarrelled with genius from being annoyed with premature pretensions to it. He was apprehensive that if genius were allowed to stand for any thing, industry would go for nothing in the minds of ‘the vain, the ignorant, and the idle.’ But as genius will do little without labour in an art so mechanical as painting, so labour will do still less without genius. Indeed, wherever there is true genius, there will be true labour, that is, the exertion of that genius in the field most proper for it. Sir Joshua, from his unwillingness to admit one extreme, has fallen into the other, and has mistaken the detection of an error for a demonstration of the truth. ‘The human understanding,’ says Luther, ‘resembles a drunken clown on horseback; if you set it up on one side, it tumbles over on the other.’ ON THE IMITATION OF NATURE _The Champion._] [_December 25, 1814._