DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61012#0114
So
THE SIXTH DISCOURSE.
any constancy or any certainty, for this is not the nature
of chance ; but the rules by which men of extraordinary
parts, and such as are called men of Genius, work, are
either such as they discover by their own peculiar observa-
tions, or of such a nice texture as not easily to admit being
expressed in words; especially as artists are not very
frequently skilful in that mode of communicating ideas.
Unsubstantial, however, as these rules may seem, and
difficult as it may be to convey them in writing, they are
still seen and felt in the mind of the artist; and he works
from them with as much certainty, as if they were
embodied, as I may say, upon paper. It is true, these
refined principles cannot be always made palpable, like the
more gross rules of art; yet it does not follow, but that the
mind may be put in such a train, that it shall perceive, by
a kind of scientific sense, that propriety, which words,
particularly words of unpractised writers, such as we are,
can but very feebly suggest.
Invention is one of the great marks of genius ; but if we
consult experience, we shall find that it is by being con-
versant with the inventions of others, that we learn to
invent; as by reading the thoughts of others we learn to
think.
Whoever has so fa.r formed his taste, as to be able to
relish and feel the beauties of the great masters, has gone a
great way in his study ; for, merely from a consciousness of
this relish of the right, the mind swells with an inward
pride, and is almost as powerfully affected as if it had
itself produced what it admires, Our hearts, frequently
warmed in this manner by the contact of those whom we
wish to resemble, will undoubtedly catch something of
their way of thinking ; and we shall receive in our own
bosoms some radiation at least of their fire and splendour.
THE SIXTH DISCOURSE.
any constancy or any certainty, for this is not the nature
of chance ; but the rules by which men of extraordinary
parts, and such as are called men of Genius, work, are
either such as they discover by their own peculiar observa-
tions, or of such a nice texture as not easily to admit being
expressed in words; especially as artists are not very
frequently skilful in that mode of communicating ideas.
Unsubstantial, however, as these rules may seem, and
difficult as it may be to convey them in writing, they are
still seen and felt in the mind of the artist; and he works
from them with as much certainty, as if they were
embodied, as I may say, upon paper. It is true, these
refined principles cannot be always made palpable, like the
more gross rules of art; yet it does not follow, but that the
mind may be put in such a train, that it shall perceive, by
a kind of scientific sense, that propriety, which words,
particularly words of unpractised writers, such as we are,
can but very feebly suggest.
Invention is one of the great marks of genius ; but if we
consult experience, we shall find that it is by being con-
versant with the inventions of others, that we learn to
invent; as by reading the thoughts of others we learn to
think.
Whoever has so fa.r formed his taste, as to be able to
relish and feel the beauties of the great masters, has gone a
great way in his study ; for, merely from a consciousness of
this relish of the right, the mind swells with an inward
pride, and is almost as powerfully affected as if it had
itself produced what it admires, Our hearts, frequently
warmed in this manner by the contact of those whom we
wish to resemble, will undoubtedly catch something of
their way of thinking ; and we shall receive in our own
bosoms some radiation at least of their fire and splendour.