indeed, could he:  the temptation to follow, which his youthful admiration had excited, was met by an interdiction not easily withstood,—­the decree of his own genius.  And yet the decree had probably never been heard but for these very masters.  Their presence stirred him; and, when he thought of serving, his teeming mind poured out its abundance, making him a master to future generations.  To the forms of Michael Angelo he was certainly indebted for the elevation of his own; there, however, the inspiration ended.  With Titian he was nearly allied in genius; yet he thought rather with than after him,—­at times even beyond him.  Titian, indeed, may be said to have first opened his eyes to the mysteries of nature; but they were no sooner opened, than he rushed into them with a rapidity and daring unwont to the more cautious spirit of his master; and, though irregular, eccentric, and often inferior, yet sometimes he made his way to poetical regions, of whose celestial hues even Titian himself had never dreamt.

We might go on thus with every great name in Art.  But these examples are enough to show how much even the most original minds, not only may, but must, owe to others; for the social law of our nature applies no less to the intellect than to the affections.  When applied to genius, it may be called the social inspiration, the simple statement of which seems to us of itself a solution of the oft-repeated question, “Why is it that genius always appears in clusters?” To Nature, indeed, we must all at last recur, as to the only true and permanent foundation of real excellence.  But Nature is open to all men alike, in her beauty, her majesty, her grandeur, and her sublimity.  Yet who will assert that all men see, or, if they see, are impressed by these her attributes alike?  Nay, so great is the difference, that one might almost suppose them inhabitants of different worlds.  Of Claude, for instance, it is hardly a metaphor to say that he lived in two worlds during his natural life; for Claude the pastry-cook could never have seen the same world that was made visible to Claude the painter.  It was human sympathy, acting through human works, that gave birth to his intellect at the age of forty.  There is something, perhaps, ludicrous in the thought of an infant of forty.  Yet the fact is a solemn one, that thousands die whose minds have never been born.

We could not, perhaps, instance a stronger confutation of the vulgar error which opposes learning to genius, than the simple history of this remarkable man.  In all that respects the mind, he was literally a child, till accident or necessity carried him to Rome; for, when the office of color-grinder, added to that of cook, by awakening his curiosity, first excited a love for the Art, his progress through its rudiments seems to have been scarcely less slow and painful than that of a child through the horrors of the alphabet.  It was the struggle of one who was learning to think; but, the rudiments being mastered, he found himself suddenly possessed, not as yet of thought, but of new forms of language; then came thoughts, pouring from his mind, and filling them as moulds, without which they had never, perhaps, had either shape or consciousness.