“quite shut out.” His pride takes part with his ignorance; and his self-importance rises with the number of things of which be does not know the value, and which he therefore despises as unworthy of his notice. He knows nothing of pictures;—“of the colouring of Titian, the grace of Raphael, the purity of Domenichino, the corregiescity of Correggio, the learning of Poussin, the airs of Guido, the taste of the Caracci, or the grand contour of Michael Angelo,”—of all those glories of the Italian and miracles of the Flemish school, which have filled the eyes of mankind with delight, and to the study and imitation of which thousands have in vain devoted their lives. These are to him as if they had never been, a mere dead letter, a bye-word; and no wonder: for he neither sees nor understands their prototypes in nature. A print of Rubens's Watering-place, or Claude's Enchanted Castle, may be hanging on the walls of his room for months without his once perceiving them; and if you point them out to him, he will turn away from them. The language of nature, or of art (which is another nature), is one that he does not understand. He repeats indeed the names of Apelles and Phidias, because they are to be found in classic authors, and boasts of their works as prodigies, because
