ed by these her attributes alike? Nay, so great is the
difference, that one might almost suppose them inhabitants of
different worlds. Of Claude, for instance, it is hardly a metaphor to
say that he lived in two worlds during his natural life; for Claude
the pastry-cook could never have seen the same world that was made
visible to Claude the painter. It was human sympathy, acting through
human works, that gave birth to his intellect at the age of forty.
There is something, perhaps, ludicrous in the thought of an infant of
forty. Yet the fact is a solemn one, that thousands die whose minds
have never been born.

We could not, perhaps, instance a stronger confutation of the vulgar
error which opposes learning to genius, than the simple history of
this remarkable man. In all that respects the mind, he was literally a
child, till accident or necessity carried him to Rome; for, when the
office of color-grinder, added to that of cook, by awakening his
curiosity, first excited a love for the Art, his progress through its
rudiments seems to have been scarcely less slow and painful than that
of a child through the horrors of the alphabet. It was the struggle of
one who was learning to think; but, the rudiments being mastered, he
found himself suddenly possessed, not as yet of thought, but of new
forms of language; then came thoughts, pouring from his mind, and
filling them as moulds, without which they had never, perhaps, had
either shape or consciousness.

Now what was this new language but the product of other minds,--of
successive minds, amending, enlarging, elaborating, through successive
ages, till, fitted to all its wants, it became true to the Ideal, and
the vernacular tongue of genius through all time? The first inventor
of verse was but the prophetic herald of Homer, Shakspeare, and
Milton. And what was Rome then but the great University of Art, where
all this accumulated learning was treasured?

Much has been said of self-taught geniuses, as opposed to those who
have been instructed by others: but the distinction, it appears to
us, is without a difference; for it matters not whether we learn in a
school or by ourselves,--we cannot learn any thing without in some way
recurring to other minds. Let us imagine a poet who had never read,
never heard, never conversed with another. Now if he will not be
taught in any thing by another, he must strictly preserve this
independent negation. Truly the verses of such a poet woul