Hogarth or Rembrandt to place no dependence on
their own genius, and to apply themselves to the general study of the
different branches of the art and of every sort of excellence, with a
confidence of success proportioned to their misguided efforts, but to
destroy both those great artists? 'You take my house when you do take
the prop that doth sustain my house!' You undermine the superstructure
of art when you strike at its main pillar and support, confidence and
faith in nature. We might as well advise a person who had discovered a
silver or a lead mine on his estate to close it up, or the common farmer
to plough up every acre he rents in the hope of discovering hidden
treasure, as advise the man of original genius to neglect his particular
vein for the study of rules and the imitation of others, or try to
persuade the man of no strong natural powers that he can supply their
deficiency by laborious application. Sir Joshua soon after, in the Third
Discourse, alluding to the terms, _inspiration, genius, gusto,_ applied
by critics and orators to painting, proceeds:

'Such is the warmth with which both the Ancients and Moderns speak of
this divine principle of the art; but, as I have formerly observed,
enthusiastic admiration seldom promotes knowledge. Though a student
by such praise may have his attention roused and a desire excited of
running in this great career, yet it is possible that what has been said
to excite may only serve to deter him. He examines his own mind, and
perceives there nothing of that divine inspiration with which, he is
told, so many others have been favoured. He never travelled to heaven
to gather new ideas; and he finds himself possessed of no other
qualifications than what mere common observation and a plain
understanding can confer. Thus he becomes gloomy amidst the splendour of
figurative declamation, and thinks it hopeless to pursue an object which
he supposes out of the reach of human industry.'

Yet presently after he adds:

'It is not easy to define in what this great style consists; nor to
describe by words the proper means of acquiring it, _if the mind of the
student should be at all capable of such an acquisition._ Could we teach
taste or genius by rules, they would be no longer taste and genius.'

Here, then, Sir Joshua admits that it is a question whether the student
is likely _to be at all capable of such an acquisition_ as the higher
excellencies of art, though he had said in the