efully avoided, and must be kept as separate from it as the style
of Poetry from that of History. (Poetical ornaments destroy that air
of truth and plainness which ought to characterize History; but the
very being of Poetry consists in departing from this plain narrative,
and adopting every ornament that will warm the imagination.)[36] To
desire to see the excellences of each style united--to mingle the
Dutch with the Italian school, is to join contrarieties which cannot
subsist together, and which destroy the efficacy of each other."

We find, first, from this interesting passage, that the writer
considers the Dutch and Italian masters as severally representative of
the low and high schools; next, that he considers the Dutch painters
as excelling in a mechanical imitation, "in which the slowest
intellect is always sure to succeed best"; and, thirdly, that he
considers the Italian painters as excelling in a style which
corresponds to that of imaginative poetry in literature, and which has
an exclusive right to be called the grand style.

I wish that it were in my power entirely to concur with the writer,
and to enforce this opinion thus distinctly stated. I have never been
a zealous partisan of the Dutch School, and should rejoice in claiming
Reynolds's authority for the assertion, that their manner was one "in
which the slowest intellect is always sure to succeed best." But
before his authority can be so claimed, we must observe exactly the
meaning of the assertion itself, and separate it from the company of
some others not perhaps so admissible. First, I say, we must observe
Reynolds's exact meaning, for (though the assertion may at first
appear singular) a man who uses accurate language is always more
liable to misinterpretation than one who is careless in his
expressions. We may assume that the latter means very nearly what we
at first suppose him to mean, for words which have been uttered
without thought may be received without examination. But when a writer
or speaker may be fairly supposed to have considered his expressions
carefully, and, after having revolved a number of terms in his mind,
to have chosen the one which _exactly_ means the thing he intends
to say, we may be assured that what costs him time to select, will
require from us time to understand, and that we shall do him wrong,
unless we pause to reflect how the word which he has actually employed
differs from other words which it seems he _might_ hav