at a distance, 'bosomed high
in tufted trees,' and feels an interest in them of which the owner is
scarce conscious: he enters the well-swept walks and echoing archways,
passes the threshold, is led through wainscoted rooms, is shown the
furniture, the rich hangings, the tapestry, the massy services of
plate--and, at last, is ushered into the room where his treasure is, the
idol of his vows--some speaking face or bright landscape! It is stamped
on his brain, and lives there thenceforward, a tally for nature, and a
test of art. He furnishes out the chambers of the mind from the spoils
of time, picks and chooses which shall have the best places--nearest his
heart. He goes away richer than he came, richer than the possessor;
and thinks that he may one day return, when he perhaps shall have done
something like them, or even from failure shall have learned to admire
truth and genius more.

My first initiation in the mysteries of the art was at the Orleans
Gallery: it was there I formed my taste, such as it is; so that I am
irreclaimably of the old school in painting. I was staggered when I saw
the works there collected, and looked at them with wondering and with
longing eyes. A mist passed away from my sight: the scales fell off. A
new sense came upon me, a new heaven and a new earth stood before me.
I saw the soul speaking in the face--'hands that the rod of empire had
swayed' in mighty ages past--'a forked mountain or blue promontory,'

--with trees upon't
That nod unto the world, and mock our eyes with air.

Old Time had unlocked his treasures, and Fame stood portress at
the door. We had all heard of the names of Titian, Raphael, Guido,
Domenichino, the Caracci--but to see them face to face, to be in the
same room with their deathless productions, was like breaking some
mighty spell--was almost an effect of necromancy! From that time I lived
in a world of pictures. Battles, sieges, speeches in parliament seemed
mere idle noise and fury, 'signifying nothing,' compared with those
mighty works and dreaded names that spoke to me in the eternal silence
of thought. This was the more remarkable, as it was but a short time
before that I was not only totally ignorant of, but insensible to the
beauties of art. As an instance, I remember that one afternoon I was
reading _The Provoked Husband_ with the highest relish, with a green
woody landscape of Ruysdael or Hobbima just before me, at which I looked
off the book now and then,