survive the trying labour of the cabinet, a savant and an artist combined in one person. Books do not teach everything. He who wishes to speak of art with intelligence must study art objects themselves, must cultivate an intimate acquaintance with them, and, within himself, a love for beautiful forms. Without the perceptive powers which such an educational process alone can give, no man can appreciate the subtle differences which distinguish styles and schools. He who possesses no ear, who is unable to perceive the intervals which separate one note from another, who knows that he can neither recognise nor remember an air, does not, unless he be both presumptuous and ignorant, dilate upon music, or attempt to write its history. In the art of design, as in music, no education can supply the place of natural aptitudes; but the latter are not by themselves sufficient to form a connoisseur. Something more is necessary to those who wish to form judgments upon which reliance may be placed, and to give reasons for them which will bear discussion. A special preparation must be undergone, the rules and technical processes—that is to say, the language of art—must be learnt. A connoisseur need not be able to compose an opera, or to chisel a statue, but he should be able to read a part, or to decide, for instance, by the appearance of a copy whether its original were of bronze or marble.
At the end of the last century there was born in Silesia a man who, while yet in his first youth, gave evidence of a rare combination of the gifts necessary for the successful accomplishment of the task which we have described; we mean Carl Ottfried Müller, who has been called, without any exaggeration, a "scholar of genius."[1] A disciple of Niebuhr and Bœckh, he excelled all his contemporaries in his efforts to embrace the whole of antiquity in one view, to trace out and realise for himself all the varied aspects of ancient civilisation. As a philologist, he took the greatest pleasure in the science which weighs words and syllables, which collates manuscripts. A poet in his hours of leisure, he appreciated both ancient and modern works of literature. As a young man he studied with passion the antiques in the Dresden Museum and the gallery of casts belonging to the University of Gottingen.
- ↑ Léo Joubert, Essais de critique et d'histoire (Paris, Firmin-Didot, 1 vol. 1863, p. 4). We shall never cease to regret that politics have deprived literature of this judicious and widely instructed critic.
