les of art: a power which no precepts can
teach, and which no industry can acquire.

'This opinion of the impossibility of acquiring those beauties which
stamp the work with the character of genius, supposes that it is
something more fixed than in reality it is, and that we always do and
ever did agree in opinion with respect to what should be considered as
the characteristic of genius. But the truth is, that the _degree_ of
excellence which proclaims _Genius_ is different in different times and
different places; and what shows it to be so is, that mankind have often
changed their opinion upon this matter.

'When the Arts were in their infancy, the power of merely drawing the
likeness of any object was considered as one of its greatest efforts.
The common people, ignorant of the principles of art, talk the same
language even to this day. But when it was found that every man could
be taught to do this, and a great deal more, merely by the observance of
certain precepts, the name of Genius then shifted its application, and
was given only to him who added the peculiar character of the object he
represented--to him who had invention, expression, grace, or dignity;
in short, those qualities or excellencies, the power of producing which
could not _then_ be taught by any known and promulgated rules.

'We are very sure that the beauty of form, the expression of the
passions, the art of composition, even the power of giving a general
air of grandeur to a work, is at present very much under the dominion
of rules. These excellencies were heretofore considered merely as the
effects of genius; and justly, if genius is not taken for inspiration,
but as the effect of close observation and experience.'

Sir Joshua began with undertaking to show that 'genius was the child
of the imitation of others, and now it turns out not to be inspiration
indeed, but the effect of close observation and experience.' The
whole drift of this argument appears to be contrary to what the writer
intended, for the obvious inference is that the essence of genius
consists entirely, both in kind and degree, in the single circumstance
of originality. The very same things are or are not genius, according as
they proceed from invention or from mere imitation. In so far as a
thing is original, as it has never been done before, it acquires and it
deserves the appellation of genius: in so far as it is not original,
and is borrowed from others or taught by rule, it