One may very safely recommend a little more enthusiasm to the modern
painters; too much is certainly not the vice of the present age. The
Italians seem to have been continually declining, in this respect, from
the time of Michael Angelo to that of Carlo Maratti, and from thence to
the very bathos of insipidity to which they are now sunk; so that there
is no need of remarking, that, where I mentioned the Italian painters in
opposition to the Dutch, I mean not the moderns, but the heads of the
old Roman and Bolognian schools; nor did I mean to include in my idea of
an Italian painter, the Venetian school, which may be said to be the
Dutch part of the Italian genius. I have only to add a word of advice to
the painters, that, however excellent they may be in painting naturally,
they would not flatter themselves very much upon it, and to the
connoisseurs, that when they see a cat or fiddle painted so finely,
that, as the phrase is, "it looks as if you could take it up," they
would not for that reason immediately compare the painter to Raffaelle
and Michael Angelo.[1]

[1] By Sir Joshua Reynolds.

No. 80. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1759.

That every day has its pains and sorrows is universally experienced, and
almost universally confessed; but let us not attend only to mournful
truths; if we look impartially about us, we shall find that every day
has likewise its pleasures and its joys.

The time is now come when the town is again beginning to be full, and
the rusticated beauty sees an end of her banishment. Those whom the
tyranny of fashion had condemned to pass the summer among shades and
brooks, are now preparing to return to plays, balls and assemblies, with
health restored by retirement, and spirits kindled by expectation.

Many a mind, which has languished some months without emotion or desire,
now feels a sudden renovation of its faculties. It was long ago observed
by Pythagoras, that ability and necessity dwell near each other. She
that wandered in the garden without sense of its fragrance, and lay day
after day stretched upon a couch behind a green curtain, unwilling to
wake, and unable to sleep, now summons her thoughts to consider which of
her last year's clothes shall be seen again, and to anticipate the
raptures of a new suit; the day and the night are now filled with
occupation; the laces, which were too fine to be worn among rusticks,
are taken from the boxes and reviewed; and the eye is no sooner closed