Another reason which has lessened my affection
for the study of criticism is, that criticks, so far as I have observed,
debar themselves from receiving any pleasure from the polite arts, at
the same time, that they profess to love and admire them: for these
rules, being always uppermost, give them such a propensity to criticise,
that, instead of giving up the reins of their imagination into their
author's hands, their frigid minds are employed in examining whether the
performance be according to the rules of art.
To those who are resolved to be criticks in spite of nature, and, at the
same time, have no great disposition to much reading and study, I would
recommend to them to assume the character of connoisseur, which may be
purchased at a much cheaper rate than that of a critick in poetry. The
remembrance of a few names of painters, with their general characters,
with a few rules of the academy, which they may pick up among the
painters, will go a great way towards making a very notable connoisseur.
With a gentleman of this cast, I visited last week the Cartoons at
Hampton-court; he was just returned from Italy, a connoisseur of course,
and of course his mouth full of nothing but the grace of Raffaelle, the
purity of Domenichino, the learning of Poussin, the air of Guido, the
greatness of taste of the Carraccis, and the sublimity and grand
contorno of Michael Angelo; with all the rest of the cant of criticism,
which he emitted with that volubility which generally those orators have
who annex no ideas to their words.
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