this not for want of better
or higher relish, but because all men do not observe with sufficient
accuracy on the human figure to enable them to judge properly of an
imitation of it. And that the critical taste does not depend upon a
superior principle in men, but upon superior knowledge, may appear from
several instances. The story of the ancient painter and the shoemaker is
very well known. The shoemaker set the painter right with regard to some
mistakes he had made in the shoe of one of his figures, which the
painter, who had not made such accurate observations on shoes, and was
content with a general resemblance, had never observed. But this was no
impeachment to the taste of the painter; it only showed some want of
knowledge in the art of making shoes. Let us imagine, that an anatomist
had come into the painter's working-room. His piece is in general well
done, the figure in question in a good attitude, and the parts well
adjusted to their various movements; yet the anatomist, critical in his
art, may observe the swell of some muscle not quite just in the peculiar
action of the figure. Here the anatomist observes what the painter had
not observed; and he passes by what the shoemaker had remarked. But a
want of the last critical knowledge in anatomy no more reflected on the
natural good taste of the painter, or of any common observer of his
piece, than the want of an exact knowledge in the formation of a shoe. A
fine piece of a decollated head of St. John the Baptist was shown to a
Turkish emperor: he praised many things, but he observed one defect: he
observed that the skin did not shrink from the wounded part of the neck.
The sultan on this occasion, though his observation was very just,
discovered no more natural taste than the painter who executed this
piece, or than a thousand European connoisseurs, who probably never
would have made the same observation. His Turkish majesty had indeed
been well acquainted with that terrible spectacle, which the others
could only have represented in their imagination. On the subject of
their dislike there is a difference between all these people, arising
from the different kinds and degrees of their knowledge; but there is
something in common to the painter, the shoemaker, the anatomist, and
the Turkish emperor, the pleasure arising from a natural object, so far
as each perceives it justly imitated; the satisfaction in seeing an
agreeable figure; the sympathy proceeding from a str