was a great relief to my mind and on inquiring further of other students, I found that those persons only who from natural imbecility appeared to be incapable of ever relishing those divine performances, made pretensions to instantaneous raptures on first beholding them.-In justice to myself, however, I must add, that though disappointed and mortified at not finding myself enraptured with the works of this great master, I did not for a moment conceive or suppose that the name of Raffaelle, and those admirable paintings in particular, owed their reputation to the ignorance and prejudice of mankind ; on the contrary, my not relishing them as I was conscious I ought to have done, was one of the most humiliating circumstances that ever happened to me, I found myself in the midst of works executed upon principles with which I was unacquainted: I felt my ignorance, and stood abashed. All the indigested notions of painting which I had

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brought with me from England, where the art was in the lowest state it had ever been in, (it could not indeed be lower,) were to be totally done away, and eradicated from my mind. It was necessary, as it is expressed on a very solemn occasion, that I should become as a little child.-Notwithstanding my disappointment, I proceeded to copy some of those excellent works. I viewed them again and again; I even affected to feel their merit, and to admire them, more than I really did. In a short time a new taste and new perceptions began to dawn upon me; and I was convinced that I had originally formed a false opinion of the perfection of art, and that this great painter was well entitled to the high rank which he holds in the estimation of the world. The truth is, that if these works had really been what I expected, they would have contained beauties superficial and alluring, but by no means such as would have entitled them to the

great reputation which they have so long and so justly obtained.

"Having since that period frequently revolved this subject in my mind, I am now clearly of opinion, that a relish for the higher excellencies of art is an acquired taste, which no man ever possessed without long cultivation, and great labour and attention. On such occasions as that which I have mentioned, we are often ashamed of our apparent dulness; as if it were to be expected that our minds, like tinder, should instantly catch fire from the divine spark of Raffaelle's genius. I flatter myself that now it would be so, and that I have a just and

tion of his great powers: always remembered, that the

lively percep

but let it be excellence of

his style is not on the surface, but lies deep; and at the first view is seen but mistily. It is the florid style, which strikes at once, and captivates the eye for a time, without

George, the third Lord Edgcumbe and Captain (afterwards Lord) Keppel, by each of whom he was warmly patronised; and the latter being appointed to the command of a small squadron on the Mediterranean station, Mr. Reynolds embraced the opportunity which his kindness offered, and accompanied him thither, sailing from Plymouth, May 11th, 1749. In the course of their voyage (during which he had accommodations in the Captain's own ship,) they touched at Lisbon, Cadiz, Gibraltar, Algiers, and Minorca; and after spending about two months in Portmahon, the principal town of that island, in December he sailed to Leghorn, from which place he proceeded to Rome.

Among our author's loose papers, I have found some detached and unconnected thoughts, written occasionally as hints for a Discourse on a new and singular plan, which he appears, at a late period of his life,

to have had it in contemplation to compose and deliver to the Academy, and which he seems to have intended as a history of his mind, so far as concerned his art, and of his progress, studies, and practice; together with a view of the advantages which he had enjoyed, and the disadvantages he had laboured under, in the course that he had run a scheme from which, however liable it might be to the ridicule of Wits and Scoffers, (a circumstance of which, he says, he was perfectly aware,) he conceived the Students might derive some useful documents for the regulation of their own conduct and practice. It is much to be regretted that he did not live to compose such a Discourse; for, from the hand of so great and candid an Artist, it could not but have been highly curious and instructive. One of these fragments relating to his feelings when he first went to Italy, every reader will, I am confident, be pleased with its insertion.