not the poorest minds, "that it entirely or mainly depends
on imitation." Plato, even in this respect, misleads by a partial
theory. It is with "such a false view that Cardinal Bembo has chosen to
distinguish even Raffaelle himself, whom our enthusiasm honours with the
name divine. The same sentiment is adopted by Pope in his epitaph on Sir
Godfrey Kneller; and he turns the panegyric solely on imitation as it is
a sort of deception." It is, undoubtedly, most important that the world
should be taught to honour art for its highest qualities; until this is
done, the profession will be a degradation. So far from painting being
imitation, he proceeds to show that "it is, and ought to be, in many
points of view, and strictly speaking, no imitation at all of external
nature." Civilization is not the gross state of nature; imagination is
the result of cultivation, of civilization; it is to this state of
nature art must be more closely allied. We must not appeal for judgment
upon art to those who have not acquired the faculty to admire. The
lowest style of all arts please the uncultivated. But, to speak of the
unnaturalness of art--let it be illustrated by poetry, which speaks in
language highly artificial, and "a construction of measured words, such
as never is nor ever was used by man." Now, as there is in the human
mind "a sense of congruity, coherence, and consistency," which must be
gratified; so, having once assumed a language and style not adopted in
common discourse, "it is required that the sentiments also should be in
the same proportion raised above common nature." There must be an
agreement of all the parts with the whole. He recognizes the chorus of
the ancient drama, and the recitative of the Italian opera as natural,
under this view. "And though the most violent passions, the highest
distress, even death itself, are expressed in singing or recitative, I
would not admit as sound criticism the condemnation of such exhibitions
on account of their being unnatural." "Shall reason stand in the way,
and tell us that we ought not to like what we know we do like, and
prevent us from feeling the full effect of this complicated exertion of
art? It appears to us that imagination is that gift to man, to be
attained by cultivation, that enables him to rise above and out of his
apparent nature; it is the source of every thing good and great, we had
almost said of every virtue. The parent of all arts, it is of a higher
devotion; i