with the appearance of an imaginary good. “Apelles, one day admiring the prodigious labour which he saw in a picture of Protogenes, and knowing how much sweat it must have cost him, said, that Protogenes and himself were of equal strength; nay, that he yielded to him, in some parts of painting; but in this he surpassed him, that Protogenes never knew when he had done well, and could never hold his hand. He also added, in the nature of a precept, that he wished all painters would imprint this lesson deeply in their memory, that with overstraining and earnestness of finishing their pieces, they often did them more harm than good.”[145] “There are some,” says Quinctilian, “who never satisfy themselves, never are contented with their first notions and expressions, but are continually changing all, till nothing remains of their first ideas. Others there are,” continues he, “who dare never trust themselves, nor resolve on any thing; and who being, as it were, entangled in their own genius, imagine it to be a laudable correctness, when they form difficulties to themselves in their own work. And, to speak the truth, it is hard to discern, whether of the two is in the greatest error; he, who is enamoured of all he does; or he, whom nothing of his own can please. For it has happened to young men, and often even to those of the greatest wit, to waste their spirits, and to consume themselves with anxiety and pain of their own giving, so far as even to doze upon their work with too much eagerness of doing well. I will now tell you, how a reasonable man ought to carry himself on this occasion. It is certain, that we ought to use our best endeavour to give the last perfection to our works; yet it is always to be understood, that we attempt no more than what is in the compass of our genius, and according to our vein. For, to make a true progress, I grant that diligence and study are both requisite; but this study ought to have no mixture, either of self-opinion, obstinacy, or anxiety; for which reason, if it blows a happy gale, we must set up all our sails, though in so doing it sometimes happens, that we follow those motions where our natural heat is more powerful than our care and our correctness, provided we abuse not this license, and suffer not ourselves to be deceived by it; for all our productions cannot fail to please us at the moment of their birth, as being new to us.”[146] [*†61.]