nd well proportioned. Whoever becomes
preeminent in any art, nay, in any style of art, generally does so by
devoting himself with intense and exclusive enthusiasm to the pursuit of
one kind of excellence. His perception of other kinds of excellence is
therefore too often impaired. Out of his own department he praises and
blames at random, and is far less to be trusted than the mere
connoisseur, who produces nothing, and whose business is only to judge
and enjoy. One painter is distinguished by his exquisite finishing. He
toils day after day to bring the veins of a cabbage leaf, the folds of a
lace veil, the wrinkles of an old woman's face, nearer and nearer to
perfection. In the time which he employs on a square foot of canvas, a
master of a different order covers the walls of a palace with gods
burying giants under mountains, or makes the cupola of a church alive
with seraphim and martyrs. The more fervent the passion of each of these
artists for his art, the higher the merit of each in his own line, the
more unlikely it is that they will justly appreciate each other. Many
persons who never handled a pencil probably do far more justice to
Michael Angelo than would have been done by Gerard Douw, and far more
justice to Gerard Douw than would have been done by Michael Angelo.

It is the same with literature. Thousands, who have no spark of the
genius of Dryden or Wordsworth, do to Dryden the justice which has never
been done by Wordsworth, and to Wordsworth the justice which, we
suspect, would never have been done by Dryden. Gray, Johnson,
Richardson, Fielding, are all highly esteemed by the great body of
intelligent and well-informed men. But Gray could see no merit in
Rasselas; and Johnson could see no merit in the Bard. Fielding thought
Richardson a solemn prig; and Richardson perpetually expressed contempt
and disgust for Fielding's lowness.

Mr. Crisp seems, as far as we can judge, to have been a man eminently
qualified for the useful office of a connoisseur. His talents and
knowledge fitted him to appreciate justly almost every species of
intellectual superiority. As an adviser he was inestimable. Nay, he
might probably have held a respectable rank as a writer, if he would
have confined himself to some department of literature in which nothing
more than sense, taste, and reading was required. Unhappily he set his
heart on being a great poet, wrote a tragedy in five acts on the death
of Virginia, and offered it to