_Coroll._--All first impressions are involuntary and inevitable; but the knowledge of the subject will guide you to judge first of the whole; not to creep on from part to part, and nibble at execution before you know what it means to convey. The notion of a tree precedes that of counting leaves or disentangling branches. Every artist has, or ought to have, a character or system of his own; if, instead of referring that to the test of nature, you judge him by your own packed notions, or arraign him at the tribunal of schools which he does not recognize--you degrade the dignity of art, and add another fool to the herd of Dilettanti. But if, for reasons best known to yourself, you come determined to condemn what yet you have not seen, let me advise you to drop your pursuits of art for one of far greater importance--the inquiry into yourself; nor aim at taste till you are sure of justice. 19. Misconception of its own powers is the injurious attendant of genius, and the most severe remembrancer of its vanity. _Coroll._--Much of Leonardo da Vinci's life evaporated in useless experiment and quaint research; Michael Angelo perplexed the limbs of grandeur with the minute ramifications of anatomy; Rafaelle forsook humanity to people a mythologic desert with clumsy gods and clumsier goddesses; Shakspeare, trusting time and chance with Hamlet and Othello, revised a frozen sonnet, or fondled his Adonis; whilst Milton dropt the trumpet that had astonished hell, left Paradise, and introduced a pedagogue to Heaven. When genius is surprised by such lethargic moments, we can forget that Johnson wrote Irene, and Hogarth made a solemn fool of Paul. 20. Reality teems with disappointment for him whose sources of enjoyment spring in the elysium of fancy. 21. Where perfection cannot take place, a very high degree of general excellence is impossible. Negligence is the shade of energy; where there is neither, expect mediocrity, the common expletive of society; capacity without elevation, industry without predilection, practice without choice. _Coroll._--"About this time," says Tacitus, "died Poppæus Sabinus, who, from a middling origin, rose to imperial friendships, the consulate, and the honours of the triumph: he was selected for the space of four-and-twenty years to govern the most important provinces,[2] not for any distinguished merit of his own, but because he was equal to his task, and not above it." Behold here the most comprehensive epitaph of mediocrity, and the most unambiguous solution of every riddle with which its brilliant success may have perplexed your mind. 22. Determine the principle on which you commence your career of art: some woo the art itself, some its appendages; some confine their view to the present, some extend it to futurity: the butterfly flutters round a meadow; the eagle crosses seas.