Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 8.djvu/92

 252 ARTISTS AND AUTHORS ages, should be considered by them as perfect and infallible guides, as subjects for their imitation, not their criticism. I am confident that this is the only effi- cacious method of making a progress in the arts ; and that he who sets out with doubting, will find life finished before he becomes master of the rudiments. Foi it may be laid down as a maxim, that he who begins by presuming on his own sense, has ended his studies as soon as he has commenced them. Every oppor- tunity, therefore, should be taken to discountenance that false and vulgar opin- ion, that rules are the. fetters of genius. They are fetters only to men of no gen- ius ; as that armor, which upon the strong becomes an ornament and a defence, upon the weak and misshapen turns into a load, and cripples the body which it was made to protect." Each succeeding year, on the distribution of the prizes, Sir Joshua delivered to the students a discourse of equal merit with this ; and perhaps we do not haz- ard too much when we say, that from the whole collected, the lovers of belles- lettres and the fine arts will acquire juster notions of what is meant by taste in general, and better rules for acquiring a correct taste, than from the multitude of those volumes which have been professedly written on the subject. In the autumn of 1785 he went to Brussels, where he expended about ,£1,000 on the purchase of paintings which, having been taken from the different monas- teries and religious houses in Flanders and Germany, were then exposed- to sale by the command of the Emperor Joseph. Gainsborough and he had engaged to paint each other's portrait ; and the canvas for both being actually stretched, Sir Joshua gave one sitting to his distinguished rival ; but to the regret of every ad- mirer of the art, the unexpected death of the latter prevented all further progress. In 1790 he was anxiously desirous to procure the vacant professorship of per- spective in the academy for Mr. Bonomi, an Italian architect ; but that artist not having been yet elected an associate, was, of course, no academician, and it be- came necessary to raise him to those positions, in order to qualify him for being a professor. Mr. Gilpin being his competitor for the associateship, the numbers on the ballot proved equal, when the president, on his casting vote, decided the election in favor of his friend, who was thereby advanced so far toward the pro- fessorship. Soon after this, an academic seat being vacant, Sir Joshua exerted all his influence to obtain it for Mr. Bonomi ; but finding himself out-voted by a majority of two to one, he quitted the chair with great dissatisfaction, and next day sent to the secretary of the academy a formal resignation of the office, which for twenty-one years he had filled with honor to himself and to his country. His indignation, however, subsiding, he suffered himself to be prevailed upon to re- turn to the chair, which, within a year and a half, he was again desirous to quit for a better reason. Finding a disease of languor, occasioned by an enlargement of the liver, to which he had for some time been subject, increase, and daily expecting a total loss of sight, he wrote a letter to the academy, intimating his intention to resign the office of president on account of bodily infirmities, which disabled him from executing the duties of it to his own satisfaction. The academy received