Who begins with severity, in judging of another, ends commonly with falsehood.

Falsel Severity of judgment is a great virtue.

Who, without pressing temptation, tells a lie, will, without pressing temptation, act ignobly and meanly.

Uneasy.

False! A man may lie for his own pleasure, but if any one is hurt by his lying, will confess his lie.

Frequent laughing has been long called a sign of a little mind—whilst the scarcer smile of harmless quiet has been complimented as the mark of a noble heart—But to abstain from laughing, and exciting laughter, merely not to offend, or to risk giving offence, or not to debase the inward dignity of character—is a power unknown to many a vigorous mind.

I hate scarce smiles: I love laughing.

None can see the man in the enemy; if he is igno, rantly so, he is not truly an enemy; if maliciously, not a man. I cannot love my enemy, for my enemy is not man, but beast or devil, if I have any. I can love him as a beast & wish to beat him.

Mark that I do not believe there is such a thing litterally, but hell is the being shut up in the possession of corporeal desires which shortly weary the man, for ALL LIFE IS HOLY.

Lie is the contrary to Passion

Take here the grand secret—if not of pleasing all, yet of displeasing none—court mediocrity, avoid originality, and sacrifice to fashion.

& go to hell.

I hope no one will call what I have written cavilling because he may think my remarks of small consequence. For I write from the warmth of my heart, & cannot resist the impulse I feel to rectify what I think false in a book I love so much & approve so generally.

Man is bad or good as he unites himself with bad or good spirits: tell me with whom you go & I’ll tell you what you do.

As we cannot experience pleasure but by means of others, who experience either pleasure or pain thro’ us, And as all of us on earth are united in thought, for it is impossible to think without images of somewhat on earth—So it is impossible to know God or heavenly things without conjunction with those who know God & heavenly things; therefore all who converse in the spirit, converse with spirits.

For these reasons I say that this Book is written by consultation with Good Spirits, because it is Good, & that the name Lavater is the amulet of those who purify the heart of man.

There is a strong objection to Lavater’s principles (as I understand them) & that is He makes every thing originate in its accident; he makes the vicious propensity not only a leading feature of the man, but the stamina on which all his virtues grow. But as I understand Vice it is a Negative. It does not signify what the laws of Kings & Priests have call’d Vice; we who are philosophers ought not to call the Staminal Virtues of Humanity by the same name that we call the omissions of intellect springing from poverty.

Every man’s leading propensity ought to be call’d his leading Virtue & his good Angel. But the Philosophy of Causes & Consequences misled Lavater as it has all his Cotemporaries. Each thing is its own cause & its own effect. Accident is the omission of act in self & the hindering of act in another; This is Vice, but all Act is Virtue. To hinder another is not an act; it is the contrary; it is a restraint on action both in ourselves & in the person hinder’d, for he who hinders another omits his own duty at the same time.

Murder is Hindering Another.

Theft is Hindering Another.

Backbiting, Undermining, Circumventing, & whatever is Negative is Vice. But the origin of this mistake in Lavater & his cotemporaries is, They suppose that Woman’s Love is Sin; in consequence all the Loves & Graces with them are Sins.

Man can have no idea of any thing greater than Man, as a cup cannot contain more than its capaciousness. But God is a man, not because he is so perceiv’d by man, but because he is the creator of man.

Think of a white cloud as being holy, you cannot love it; but think of a holy man within the cloud, love springs up in your thoughts, for to think of holiness distinct from man is impossible to the affections. Thought alone can make monsters, but the affections cannot.

Appearances are the first Things from which the human Mind forms its Understanding, and it cannot shake them off but by an Investigation of the Cause, and if the Cause is very deep, it cannot investigate it, without keeping the Understanding some Time in spiritual Light....

This Man can do while in the body.

These three Degrees of Altitude are named Natural, Spiritual and Celestial.... Man, at his Birth, first comes into the natural Degree, and this increases in him by Continuity according to the Sciences, and according to the Understanding acquired by them, to the Summit of Understanding which is called Rational.

Study Sciences till you are blind, Study intellectuals till you are cold, Yet science cannot teach intellect. Much less can intellect teach Affection. How foolish then is it to assert that Man is born in only one degree, when that one degree is reception of the 3 degrees, two of which he must destroy or close up or they will descend; if he closes up the two superior, then he is not truly in the 3d, but descends out of it into meer Nature or Hell.... Is it not also evident that one degree will not open the other, & that science will not open intellect, but that they are discrete & not continuous so as to explain each other except by correspondence, which has nothing to do with demonstration; for you cannot demonstrate one degree by the other; for how can science be brought to demonstrate intellect without making them continuous & not discrete?

But still Man, in whom the spiritual Degree is open, comes into that Wisdom when he dies, and may also come into it by laying asleep the Sensations of the Body, and by Influx from above at the Same time into the Spirituals of his Mind.

This is while in the Body.

This is to be understood as unusual in our time, but common in ancient.

... for the natural Man can elevate his Understanding to superior Light as far as he desires it, but he who is principled in Evils and thence in Things false, does not elevate it higher than to the superior Region of his natural Mind; ...

Who shall dare to say after this that all elevation is of self & is Enthusiasm & Madness, & is it not plain that self-derived intelligence is worldly demonstration?

Heaven & Hell are born together.

To defend the Bible in this year 1798 would cost a man his life.

The Beast & the Whore rule without control.

It is an easy matter for a Bishop to triumph over Paine’s attack, but it is not so easy for one who loves the Bible.

The Perversions of Christ’s words & acts,are attack’d by Paine & also the perversions of the Bible; Who dare defend either the Acts of Christ or the Bible Unperverted?

But to him who sees this mortal pilgrimage in the light that I see it, Duty to his country is the first consideration & safety the last.

Read patiently: take not up this Book in an idle hour: the consideration of these things is the whole duty of man & the affairs of life & death trifles, sports of time. But these considerations [are the] business of Eternity.

I have been commanded from Hell not to print this, as it is what our Enemies wish....

If this first Letter is written without Railing & Illiberality I have never read one that is. To me it is all Daggers & Poison; the sting of the serpent is in every Sentence as well as the glittering Dissimulation. Achilles’ wrath is blunt abuse: Thersites’ sly insinuation; such is the Bishop’s. If such is the Characteristic of a modern polite gentleman we may hope to see Christ’s discourses Expung’d. I have not the Charity for the Bishop that he pretends to have for Paine. I believe him to be a State trickster. Dishonest Misrepresentation. Priestly Impudence. Contemptible Falsehood & Detraction. Presumptuous Murderer. Dost thou, 0 Priest, wish thy brother’s death when God has preserved him? Mr. Paine has not extinguish’d, & cannot Extinguish, Moral rectitude; he has Extinguish’d Superstition, which took the Place of Moral Rectitude. What has Moral Rectitude to do with Opinions concerning historical fact?

To what does the Bishop attribute the English Crusade against France? Is it not to State Religion? Blush for shame. Folly & Impudence. Does the thorough belief of Popery hinder crimes, or can the man who writes the latter sentiment be in the good humour the bishop Pretends to be? If we are to expect crimes from Paine & his followers, are we to believe that Bishops do not Rail? I should Expect that the man who wrote this sneaking sentence would be as good an inquisitor as any other Priest. Conscience in those that have it is unequivocal. It is the voice of God. Our judgment of right & wrong is Reason. I believe that the Bishop laught at the Bible in his slieve & so did Locke. Virtue is not Opinion.

Virtue & honesty, or the dictates of Conscience, are of no doubtful Signification to anyone. Opinion is one Thing. Principle another. No Man can change his Principles. Every Man changes his opinions. He who supposes that his Principles are to be changed is a Dissembler, who Disguises his Principles & calls that change. Paine is either a Devil or an Inspired man. Men who give themselves to their Energetic Genius in the manner that Paine does are no Examiners. If they are not determinately wrong they must be Right or the Bible is false; as to Examiners in these points they will be spewed out. The Man who pretends to be a modest enquirer into the truth of a self evident thing is a Knave. The truth & certainty of Virtue & Honesty, i.e. Inspiration, needs no one to prove it; it is Evident as the Sun & Moon. He who stands doubting of what he intends, whether it is Virtuous or Vicious, knows not what Virtue means. No man can do a Vicious action & think it to be Virtuous. No man can take darkness for light. He may pretend to do so & may pretend to be a modest Enquirer, but he is a Knave.

The Bible says that God formed Nature perfect, but that Man perverted the order of Nature, since which time the Elements are fill’d with the Prince of Evil, who has the power of the air. Natural Religion is the voice of God & not the result of reasoning on the Powers of Satan. Horrible! The Bishop is an Inquisitor. God never makes one man murder another, nor one nation. There is a vast difference between an accident brought on by a man’s own carelessness & a destruction from the designs of another. The Earthquakes at Lisbon etc. were the Natural result of Sin, but the distruction of the Canaanites by Joshua was the Unnatural design of wicked men. To Extirpate a nation by means of another is as wicked as to destroy an individual by means of another individual, which God considers (in the Bible) as Murder & commands that it shall not be done. Therefore the Bishop has not answer’d Paine....

That the Jews assumed a right Exclusively to the benefits of God will be a lasting witness against them & the same will it be against Christians....

Jesus could not do miracles where unbelief hindered, hence we must conclude that the man who holds miracles to be ceased puts it out of his own power to ever witness one. The manner of a miracle being performed is in modem times considered as an arbitrary command of the agent upon the patient, but this is an impossibility, not a miracle, neither did Jesus ever do such a miracle. Is it a greater miracle to feed five thousand men with five loaves than to overthrow all the armies of Europe with a small pamphlet? Look over the events of your own life & if you do not find that you have both done such miracles & lived by such you do not see as I do. True, I cannot do a miracle thro’ experiment & to domineer over & prove to others my superior power, as neither could Christ. But I can & do work such as both astonish & comfort me & mine. How can Paine, the worker of miracles, ever doubt Christ’s in the above sense of the word miracle? But how can Watson ever believe the above sense of a miracle, who considers it as an arbitrary act of the agent upon an unbelieving patient, whereas the Gospel says that Christ could not do a miracle because of Unbelief?

If Christ could not do miracles because of Unbelief, the reason alledged by Priests for miracles is false; for those who believe want not to be confounded by miracles. Christ & his Prophets & Apostles were not Ambitious miracle mongers....

Prophets, in the modern sense of the word, have never existed. Jonah was no prophet in the modern sense, for his prophecy of Nineveh failed. Every honest man is a Prophet; he utters his opinion both of private & public matters. Thus: If you go on So, the result is So. He never says, such a thing shall happen let you do what you will. A Prophet is a Seer, not an Arbitrary Dictator. It is man’s fault if God is not able to do him good, for he gives to the just & to the unjust, but the unjust reject his gift....

Nothing can be more contemptible than to suppose Public RECORDS to be True. Read, then, & Judge, if you are not a Fool.

Of what consequence is it whether Moses wrote the Pentateuch or no? If Paine trifles in some of his objections it is folly to confute him so seriously in them & leave his more material ones unanswered. Public Records! As if Public Records were True! Impossible; for the facts are such as none but the actor could tell. If it is True, Moses & none but he could write it, unless we allow it to be Poetry & that poetry inspired.

If historical facts can be written by inspiration, Milton’s Paradise Lost is as true as Genesis or Exodus; but the Evidence is nothing, for how can he who writes what he has neither seen nor heard of be an Evidence of The Truth of his history....

I cannot concieve the Divinity of the books in the Bible to consist either in who they were written by, or at what time, or in the historical evidence which may be all false in the eyes of one man & true in the eyes of another, but in the Sentiments & Examples, which, whether true or Parabolic, are Equally useful as Examples given to us of the perverseness of some & its consequent evil & the honesty of others & its consequent good. This sense of the Bible is equally true to all & equally plain to all. None can doubt the impression which he receives from a book of Examples. If he is good he will abhor wickedness in David or Abraham; if he is wicked he will make their wickedness an excuse for his & so he would do by any other book....

... The importance of revelation is by nothing rendered more apparent, than by the discordant sentiments of learned and good men (for I speak not of the ignorant and immoral) on this point.

It appears to me Now that Tom Paine is a better Christian than the Bishop.

I have read this Book with attention & find that the Bishop has only hurt Paine’s heel while Paine has broken his head. The Bishop has not answer’d one of Paine’s grand objections.

Good advice for Satan’s Kingdom [on the title-page].

Is it true or is it false that the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God? This is certain: if what Bacon says is true, what Christ says is false. If Caesar is right, Christ is wrong, both in politics and religion, since they will divide themselves in two.

Everybody knows that this is epicurism and libertinism, and yet everybody says that it is Christian philosophy. How is this possible? Everybody must be a liar and deceiver? No! “Everybody” does not do this; but the hirelings of Kings and Courts, who made themselves “everybody”, and knowingly propagate falsehood. It was a common opinion in the Court of Queen Elizabeth that knavery is wisdom. Cunning plotters were considered as wise Machiavels....

Did not Jesus descend and become a servant? The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman and not a man: he is a Lord Chancellor.

What do these knaves mean by virtue? Do they mean war and its horrors, and its heroic villains?

Thought is act. Christ’s acts were nothing to Caesar’s if this is not so.

The increase of a State, as of a man, is from internal improvement or intellectual acquirement. Man is not improved by the hurt of another. States are not improved at the expense of foreigners.

Bacon calls intellectual arts unmanly: and so they are for kings and wars, and shall in the end annihilate them.

What is fortune but an outward accident, for a few years, sixty at the most, and then gone?

King James was Bacon’s primum mobile.

A tyrant is the worst disease, and the cause of all others.

Everybody hates a king! David was afraid to say that the envy was upon a king: but is this envy or indignation?

This Man was Hired to Depress Art.

This is the Opinion of Will Blake: my Proofs of this Opinion are given in the following Notes.

Advice of the Popes who succeeded the Age of Rafael

Having spent the Vigour of my Youth & Genius under the Opression of Sr Joshua & his Gang of Cunning Hired Knaves Without Employment & as much as could possibly be Without Bread, The Reader must Expect to Read in all my Remarks on these Books Nothing but Indignation & Resentment. While Sr Joshua was rolling in Riches, Barry was Poor & Unemploy’d except by his own Energy; Mortimer was call’d a Madman, & only Portrait Painting applauded & rewarded by the Rich & Great. Reynolds & Gainsborough Blotted & Blurred one against the other & Divided all the English World between them. Fuseli, Indignant, almost hid himself. I am hid.

The Arts & Sciences are the Destruction of Tyrannies or Bad Governments. Why should A Good Government endeavour to Depress what is its Chief & only Support?

The Foundation of Empire is Art & Science. Remove them or Degrade them, & the Empire is No More. Empire follows Art & Not Vice Versa as Englishmen suppose.

Who will Dare to Say that Polite Art is Encouraged or Either Wished or Tolerated in a Nation where The Society for the Encouragement of Art Suffer’d Barry to Give them his Labour for Nothing, A Society Composed of the Flower of the English Nobility & Gentry?— Suffering an Artist to Starve while he Supported Really what They, under Pretence of Encouraging, were Endeavouring to Depress.—Barry told me that while he Did that Work, he Lived on Bread & Apples.

O Society for Encouragement of Art! O King & Nobility of England! Where have you hid Fuseli’s Milton? Is Satan troubled at his Exposure?

To learn the Language of Art, “Copy for Ever” is My Rule.

The Bible says That Cultivated Life Existed First. Uncultivated Life comes afterwards from Satan’s Hirelings. Necessaries, Accomodations & Ornaments are the whole of Life. Satan took away Ornament First. Next he took away Accomodations, & Then he became Lord & Master of Necessaries.

Liberality! we want not Liberality. We want a Fair Price & Proportionate Value & a General Demand for Art.

Let not that Nation where Less than Nobility is the Reward, Pretend that Art is Encouraged by that Nation. Art is First in Intellectuals & Ought to be First in Nations.

Invention depends Altogether upon Execution or Organization; as that is right or wrong so is the Invention perfect or imperfect. Whoever is set to Undermine the Execution of Art is set to destroy Art. Michael Angelo’s Art depends on Michael Angelo’s Execution Altogether.

Men who have been Educated with Works of Venetian Artists under their Eyes cannot see Rafael unless they are born with Determinate Organs.

I am happy I cannot say that Rafael Ever was, from my Earliest Childhood, hidden from Me. I Saw & I Knew immediately the difference between Rafael & Rubens.

A Lie! The Florid Style, such as the Venetian & the Flemish, Never Struck Me at Once nor At-All.

The Style that Strikes the Eye is the True Style, But A Fool’s Eye is Not to be a Criterion.

If he means that Copying Correctly is a hindrance, he is a Liar, for that is the only School to the Language of Art.

The Contradictions in Reynolds’s Discourses are Strong Presumptions that they are the Work of Several Hands, But this is no Proof that Reynolds did not Write them. The Man, Either Painter or Philosopher, who Learns or Acquires all he knows from Others, Must be full of Contradictions.

I was once looking over the Prints from Rafael & Michael Angelo in the Library of the Royal Academy. Moser came to me & said: “You should not Study these old Hard, Stiff & Dry, Unfinish’d Works of Art—Stay a little & I will shew you what you should Study.” He then went & took down Le Brun’s & Rubens’s Galleries. How I did secretly Rage! I also spoke my Mind....

I said to Moser, “These things that you call Finish’d are not Even Begun; how can they then be Finish’d? The Man who does not know The Beginning never can know the End of Art.”

A Lie! Working up Effect is more an operation of Indolence than the Making out of the Parts, as far as Greatest is more than Least. I speak here of Rembrandt’s & Rubens’s & Reynolds’s Effects. For Real Effect is Making out the Parts, & it is Nothing Else but That.

If Reynolds had Really admired Mich. Angelo, he never would have follow’d Rubens.

Such Men as Goldsmith ought not to have been Acquainted with such Men as Reynolds.

To Generalize is to be an Idiot. To Particularize is the Alone Distinction of Merit. General Knowledges are those Knowledges that Idiots possess.

The Man who does not Labour more than the Hireling must be a poor Devil.

[To a footnote giving a quotation from Pope appropriate to “the ferocious and enslaved Republick of France”, ending with the lines:]

This Whole Book was Written to Serve Political Purposes.

I consider Reynolds’s Discourses to the Royal Academy as the Simulations of the Hypocrite who smiles particularly where he means to Betray. His Praise of Rafael is like the Hysteric Smile of Revenge. His Softness & Candour, the hidden trap & the poisoned feast. He praises Michel Angelo for Qualities which Michel Angelo abhorr’d, & He blames Rafael for the only Qualities which Rafael Valued. Whether Reynolds knew what he was doing is nothing to me: the Mischief is just the same whether a Man does it Ignorantly or Knowingly. I always consider’d True Art & True Artists to be particularly Insulted & Degraded by the Reputation of these Discourses, As much as they were Degraded by the Reputation of Reynolds’s Paintings, & that Such Artists as Reynolds are at all times Hired by the Satans for the Depression of Art—A Pretence of Art, To destroy Art.

The Neglect of Fuseli’s Milton in a Country pretending to the Encouragement of Art is a Sufficient Apology for My Vigorous Indignation, if indeed the Neglect of My own Powers had not been. Ought not the Employers of Fools to be Execrated in future Ages? They Will and Shall! Foolish Men, your own real Greatness depends on your Encouragement of the Arts, & your Fall will depend on their Neglect & Depression. What you Fear is your true Interest. Leo X was advised not to Encourage the Arts; he was too Wise to take this Advice.

The Rich Men of England form themselves into a Society to Sell & Not to Buy Pictures. The Artist who does not throw his Contempt on such Trading Exhibitions, does not know either his own Interest or his Duty.

Reynolds’s Opinion was that Genius May be Taught & that all Pretence to Inspiration is a Lie & a Deceit, to say the least of it. For if it is a Deceit, the whole Bible is Madness. This Opinion originates in the Greeks’ calling the Muses Daughters of Memory.

The Enquiry in England is not whether a Man has Talents & Genius, But whether he is Passive & Polite & a Virtuous Ass & obedient to Noblemen’s Opinions in Art & Science. If he is, he is a Good Man. If Not, he must be Starved.

Minute Discrimination is Not Accidental. All Sublimity is founded on Minute Discrimination.

I do not believe that Rafael taught Mich. Angelo, or that Mich. Angelo taught Rafael, any more than I believe that the Rose teaches the Lilly how to grow, or the Apple tree teaches the Pear tree how to bear Fruit. I do not believe the tales of Anecdote writers when they militate against Individual Character.

Imitation is Criticism.

Are we to understand him to mean that Facility in Composing is a Frivolous pursuit? A Facility in Composing is the Greatest Power of Art, & Belongs to None but the Greatest Artists, the Most Minutely Discriminating & Determinate.

Mechanical Excellence is the Only Vehicle of Genius.

Execution is the Chariot of Genius.

The Lives of Painters say that Rafael Died of Dissipation. Idleness is one Thing & Dissipation Another. He who has Nothing to Dissipate Cannot Dissipate; the Weak Man may be Virtuous Enough, but will Never be an Artist.

Painters are noted for being Dissipated & Wild.

The Labour’d Works of Journeymen employ’d by Correggio, Titian, Veronese & all the Venetians, ought not to be shewn to the Young Artist as the Works of original Conception any more than the Engravings of Strange, Bartolozzi, or Wollett. They are Works of Manual Labour.

After having been a Fool, a Student is to amass a Stock of Ideas, &, knowing himself to be a Fool, he is to assume the Right to put other Men’s Ideas into his Foolery.

Instead of Following One Great Master he is to follow a Great Many Fools.

Contemptible Mocks!

Reynolds Depreciates the Efforts of Inventive Genius. Trifling Conceits are better than Colouring without any meaning at all.

No one can ever Design till he has learn’d the Language of Art by making many Finish’d Copies both of Nature & Art & of whatever comes in his way from Earliest Childhood. The difference between a bad Artist & a Good One Is: the Bad Artist Seems to copy a Great deal. The Good one Really does Copy a Great deal.

Nonsense! Every Eye sees differently. As the Eye, Such the Object.

General Principles Again! Unless you Consult Particulars you Cannot even Know or See Mich. Ango. or Rafael or any Thing Else.

But as mere enthusiasm will carry you but a little way ...

Meer Enthusiasm is the All in All! Bacon’s Philosophy has Ruin’d England. Bacon is only Epicurus over again.

The Man who asserts that there is no such Thing as Softness in Art, & that every thing in Art is Definite & Determinate, has not been told this by Practise, but by Inspiration & Vision, because Vision is Determinate & Perfect, & he Copies That without Fatigue, Every thing being Definite & determinate. Softness is Produced alone by Comparative Strength & Weakness in the Marking out of the Forms. I say These Principles could never be found out by the Study of Nature with Con—, or Innate, Science.

A work of Genius is a Work “Not to be obtain’d by the Invocation of Memory & her Syren Daughters, but by Devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all utterance & knowledge & sends out his Seraphim with the hallowed fire of his Altar to touch & purify the lips of whom he pleases.” MILTON.

The following Discourse is particularly Interesting to Block heads, as it endeavours to prove That there is No such thing as Inspiration & that any Man of a plain Understanding may by Thieving from Others become a Mich. Angelo.

Without Minute Neatness of Execution The Sublime cannot Exist! Grandeur of Ideas is founded on Precision of Ideas.

Enthusiastic Admiration is the first Principle of Knowledge & its last. Now he begins to Degrade, to Deny & to Mock.

The Man who on Examining his own Mind finds nothing of Inspiration ought not to dare to be an Artist, & he is a Fool & a Cunning Knave suited to the Purposes of Evil Demons.

The Man who never in his Mind & Thoughts travel’d to Heaven Is No Artist.

Artists who are above a plain Understanding are Mock’d & Destroy’d by this President of Fools.

It is Evident that Reynolds Wish’d none but Fools to be in the Arts & in order to this, he calls all others Vague Enthusiasts or Madmen.

What has Reasoning to do with the Art of Painting?

Singular & Particular Detail is the Foundation of the Sublime.

Knowledge of Ideal Beauty is Not to be Acquired. It is Bom with us. Innate Ideas are in Every Man, Bom with him; they are truly Himself. The Man who says that we have No Innate Ideas must be a Fool & Knave, Having No Con-Science or Innate Science.

One Central Form composed of all other Forms being Granted, it does not therefore follow that all other Forms are Deformity.

All Forms are Perfect in the Poet’s Mind, but these are not Abstracted nor compounded from Nature, but are from Imagination.

The Great Bacon—he is Call’d: I call him the Little Bacon—says that Every thing must be done by Experiment; his first principle is Unbelief, and yet here he says that Art must be produc’d Without such Method. He is Like Sr Joshua, full of Self-Contradiction & Knavery.

What is General Nature? is there Such a Thing? what is General Knowledge? is there such a Thing? Strictly Speaking All Knowledge is Particular.

The Symmetry of Deformity is a Pretty Foolery. Can any Man who Thinks Talk so? Leanness or Fatness is not Deformity, but Reynolds thought Character Itself Extravagance & Deformity. Age & Youth are not Classes, but Properties of Each Class; so are Leanness & Fatness.

Generalizing in Every thing, the Man would soon be a Fool, but a Cunning Fool.

What does this mean, “Would have been” one of the first Painters of his Age? Albert Durer Is, Not would have been. Besides, let them look at Gothic Figures & Gothic Buildings & not talk of Dark Ages or of any Age. Ages are all Equal. But Genius is Always Above The Age.

He is for Determinate & yet for Indeterminate.

Distinct General Form Cannot Exist. Distinctness is Particular, Not General.

... Bacon’s Philosophy makes both Statesmen & Artists Fools & Knaves.

The Two Following Discourses [iv & v] are Particularly Calculated for the Setting Ignorant & Vulgar Artists as Models of Execution in Art. Let him who will, follow such advice. I will not. I know that The Man’s Execution is as his Conception & No better.

All but Names of Persons & Places is Invention both in Poetry & Painting.

Sacrifice the Parts, What becomes of the Whole?

To produce an Effect of True Light & Shadow is Necessary to the Ornamental Style, which altogether depends on Distinctness of Form. The Venetian ought not to be call’d the Ornamental Style.

The Language of Painters cannot be allow’d them if Reynolds says right at p. 97; he there says that the Venetian Will Not Correspond with the Great Style. The Greek Gems are in the Same Style as the Greek Statues.

Reynolds contradicts what he says continually. He makes little Concessions that he may take Great Advantages.

Venetian Attention is to a Contempt & Neglect of Form Itself & to the Destruction of all Form or Outline Purposely & Intentionally.

Mich. Ang. knew & despised all that Titian could do.

If the Venetian’s Outline was Right, his Shadows would destroy it & deform its appearance.

Titian, as well as the other Venetians, so far from Senatorial Dignity appears to me to give always the Characters of Vulgar Stupidity.

Why should Titian & The Venetians be Named in a discourse on Art? Such Idiots are not Artists.

Broken Colours & Broken Lines & Broken Masses are Equally Subversive of the Sublime.

Well Said Enough!

How can that be call’d the Ornamental Style of which Gross Vulgarity forms the Principal Excellence?

A History Painter Paints The Hero, & not Man in General, but most minutely in Particular.

Of what consequence is it to the Arts what a Portrait Painter does?

There is No Such a Thing as A Composite Style.

Genius has no Error; it is Ignorance that is Error.

All Equivocation & Self-Contradiction!

Gainsborough told a Gentleman of Rank & Fortune that the Worst Painters always chose the Grandest Subjects. I desired the Gentleman to Set Gainsborough about one of Rafael’s Grandest Subjects, Namely Christ delivering the Keys to St. Peter, & he would find that in Gainsborough’s hands it would be a Vulgar Subject of Poor Fishermen & a Journeyman Carpenter.

The following Discourse is written with the same End in View that Gainsborough had in making the Above assertion, Namely To Represent Vulgar Artists as the Models of Executive Merit.

Passion & Expression is Beauty Itself. The Face that is Incapable of Passion & Expression is deformity Itself. Let it be Painted & Patch’d & Praised & Advertised for Ever, it will only be admired by Fools.

If Reynolds could not see variety of Character in Rafael, Others Can.

Reynolds cannot bear Expression.

Fresco Painting is the Most Minute. Fresco Painting is Like Miniature Painting; a Wall is a Large Ivory.

The Man who can say that Rafael knew not the smaller beauties of the Art ought to be contemn’d, & I accordingly hold Reynolds in Contempt ...

Rafael did as he Pleased. He who does not admire Rafael’s Execution does not Even see Rafael.

According to Reynolds Mich. Angelo was worse still & knew Nothing at all about Art as an object of Imitation. Can any Man be such a fool as to believe that Rafael & Michael Angelo were Incapable of the meer Language of Art & That Such Idiots as Rubens, Correggio & Titian knew how to Execute what they could not Think or Invent?

Damned Fool!

The Great Style is always Novel or New in all its Operations.

Original & Characteristical are the Two Grand Merits of the Great Style.

Salvator Rosa was precisely what he Pretended not to be. His Pictures are high Labour’d pretensions to Expeditious Workmanship. He was the Quack Doctor of Painting. His Roughnesses & Smoothnesses are the Production of Labour & Trick. As to Imagination, he was totally without Any.

Savages are Fops & Fribbles more than any other Men.

All Rubens’s Pictures are Painted by Journeymen &, so far from being all of a Piece, are The most wretched Bungles.

To My Eye Rubens’s Colouring is most Contemptible. His Shadows are of a Filthy Brown somewhat of the Colour of Excrement; these are fill’d with tints & messes of yellow & red. His lights are all the Colours of the Rainbow, laid on Indiscriminately & broken one into another. Altogether his Colouring is Contrary to The Colouring of Real Art & Science.

Opposed to Rubens’s Colouring Sr Joshua has placed Poussin, but he ought to put All Men of Genius who ever Painted. Rubens & the Venetians are Opposite in every thing to True Art & they Meant to be so; they were hired for this Purpose.

Why then does he talk in other places of pleasing Every body?

When a Man talks of Acquiring Invention & of learning how to produce Original Conception, he must expect to be call’d a Fool by Men of Understanding; but such a Hired Knave cares not for the Few. His Eye is on the Many, or, rather, the Money.

Bacon’s Philosophy has Destroy’d [word cut away] Art & Science. The Man who says that the Genius is not Born, but Taught—Is a Knave.

How ridiculous it would be to see the Sheep Endeavouring to walk like the Dog, or the Ox striving to trot like the Horse; just as Ridiculous it is to see One Man Striving to Imitate Another. Man varies from Man mere than Animal from Animal of different Species.

If Art was Progressive We should have had Mich. Angelos & Rafaels to Succeed & to Improve upon each other. But it is not so. Genius dies with its Possessor & Comes not again till Another is Born with It.

Identities or Things are Neither Cause nor Effect. They are Eternal.

Reynolds Thinks that Man Learns all that he knows. I say on the Contrary that Man Brings All that he has or can have Into the World with him. Man is Born Like a Garden ready Planted & Sown. This World is too poor to produce one Seed.

Reynolds: The mind is but a barren soil; a soil which is soon exhausted, and will produce no crop, . . .

The mind that could have produced this Sentence must have been a Pitiful, a Pitiable Imbecillity. I always thought that the Human Mind was the most Prolific of All Things & Inexhaustible. I certainly do Thank God that I am not like Reynolds.

A Very Clever Sentence; who wrote it, God knows.

No Man who can see Michael Angelo can say that he wants either Colouring or Ornamental parts of Art in the highest degree, for he has Every Thing of Both.

He who Admires Rafael Must admire Rafael’s Execution. He who does not admire Rafael’s Execution Cannot Admire Rafael.

A Polish’d Villain who Robs & Murders!

He who can be bound down is No Genius. Genius cannot be Bound; it may be Render’d Indignant & Outrageous.

The Purpose of the following discourse [vn] is to Prove That Taste & Genius are not of Heavenly Origin & that all who have supposed that they Are so, are to be Consider’d as Weak headed Fanatics.

The Obligations Reynolds has laid on Bad Artists of all Classes will at all times make them his Admirers, but most especially for this discourse, in which it is proved that the Stupid are born with Faculties Equal to other Men, Only they have not Cultivated them because they thought it not worth the trouble.

Obscurity is Neither the Source of the Sublime nor of any Thing Else.

The Ancients did not mean to Impose when they affirm’d their belief in Vision & Revelation. Plato was in Earnest: Milton was in Earnest. They believ’d that God did Visit Man Really & Truly & not as Reynolds pretends.

How very Anxious Reynolds is to Disprove & Contemn Spiritual Perception!

He states Absurdities in Company with Truths & calls both Absurd.

The Artifice of the Epicurean Philosophers is to Call all other Opinions Unsolid & Unsubstantial than those which are derived from Earth.

It is not in Terms that Reynolds & I disagree. Two Contrary Opinions can never by any Language be made alike. I say, Taste & Genius are Not Teachable or Acquirable, but are born with us. Reynolds says the Contrary.

Demonstration, Similitude & Harmony are Objects of Reasoning. Invention, Identity & Melody are Objects of Intuition.

God forbid that Truth should be Confined to Mathematical Demonstration!

He who does not Know Truth at Sight is unworthy of Her Notice.

Here is a great deal to do to Prove that All Truth is Prejudice, for All that is Valuable in Knowledge is Superior to Demonstrative Science, such as is Weighed or Measured.

He thinks he has proved that Genius & Inspiration are All a Hum.

He may as well say that if Man does not lay down settled Principles, The Sun will not rise in a Morning.

Here is a Plain Confession that he Thinks Mind & Imagination not to be above the Mortal & Perishing Nature. Such is the End of Epicurean or Newtonian Philosophy; it is Atheism.

Reynolds’s Eye could not bear Characteristic Colouring or Light & Shade.

Reynolds: A picture should please at first sight, and appear to invite the spectator’s attention; ...

Please Whom? Some Men cannot see a Picture except in a Dark Corner.

Violent Passions Emit the Real, Good & Perfect Tones.

A Fool’s Balance is no Criterion because, tho’ it goes down on the heaviest side, we ought to look what he puts into it.

Reynolds: In the midst of the highest flights of fancy or imagination, reason ought to preside from first to last, ...

If this is True, it is a devilish Foolish Thing to be an Artist.

Burke’s Treatise on the Sublime & Beautiful is founded on the Opinions of Newton & Locke; on this Treatise Reynolds has grounded many of his assertions in all his Discourses. I read Burke’s Treatise when very Young; at the same time I read Locke on Human Understanding & Bacon’s Advancement of Learning; on Every one of these Books I wrote my Opinions, & on looking them over find that my Notes on Reynolds in this Book are exactly Similar. I felt the Same Contempt & Abhorrence then that I do now. They mock Inspiration & Vision. Inspiration & Vision was then, & now is, & I hope will always Remain, my Element, my Eternal Dwelling place; how can I then hear it Contemned without returning Scorn for Scorn?

Rembrandt was a Generalizer. Poussin was a Particularizer.

Poussin knew better than to make all his Pictures have the same light & shadows. Any fool may concentrate a light in the Middle.

If you Endeavour to Please the Worst, you will never Please the Best. To please All Is Impossible.

Bad Pictures are always Sr Joshua’s Friends.