works of Michael Angelo,
whether they would receive any advantage from possessing this
mechanical merit, I should not scruple to say, they would not only
receive no advantage, but would lose, in a great measure, the effect
which they now have on every mind susceptible of great and noble
ideas. His works may be said to be all genius and soul; and why should
they be loaded with heavy matter, which can only counteract his
purpose by retarding the progress of the imagination?"

Examining carefully this and the preceding passage, we find the
author's unmistakable meaning to be, that Dutch painting is _history_;
attending to literal truth and "minute exactness in the details of
nature modified by accident." That Italian painting is _poetry_,
attending only to the invariable; and that works which attend only to
the invariable are full of genius and soul; but that literal truth and
exact detail are "heavy matter which retards the progress of the
imagination."

This being then indisputably what Reynolds means to tell us, let us
think a little whether he is in all respects right. And first, as he
compares his two kinds of painting to history and poetry, let us see
how poetry and history themselves differ, in their use of _variable_
and _invariable_ details. I am writing at a window which commands a
view of the head of the Lake of Geneva; and as I look up from my
paper, to consider this point, I see, beyond it, a blue breadth of
softly moving water, and the outline of the mountains above Chillon,
bathed in morning mist. The first verses which naturally come into my
mind are--

A thousand feet in depth below
The massy waters meet and flow;
So far the fathom line was sent
From Chillon's snow-white battlement.[37]

Let us see in what manner this poetical statement is distinguished
from a historical one.

It is distinguished from a truly historical statement, first, in being
simply false. The water under the Castle of Chillon is not a thousand
feet deep, nor anything like it.[38] Herein, certainly, these lines
fulfil Reynolds's first requirement in poetry, "that it should be
inattentive to literal truth and minute exactness in detail." In
order, however, to make our comparison more closely in other points,
let us assume that what is stated is indeed a fact, and that it was to
be recorded, first historically, and then poetically.

Historically stating it, then, we should say: "The lake was sounded
from the wal