;;;
THE LAMP OP OBEDIENCE.
new
invention of
colors, or
new modes
harmonies of
of music, the
The chords
of using them.
general
the
color,
169
principles of the
arrangement of sculptural masses, have been determined long ago, and, in all probability, cannot be added to any more than they can be
much more
are
may
Granting that they
altered.
be,
We
dual inventoi*s.
may have one Van new
as the introducer of a
and the use of that invention
who
be known
will
but he him-
some accidental bye-play or pursuit depend altogether on the popular
will
necessities or instincts of the period.
A man
Eyck,
style once in ten centuries,
self vvdll trace his invention to
of the kind.
such additions or alterations
the work of time and of multitudes than of indivi-
who has
the
Originality depends on nothing
gift, will
take up any style that
is
going, the style of his day, and will work in that, and be great in that,
and make everything that he does in it look it had just come down from heaven.
as fresh as
thought of
he
not take
will
liberties
if
every
do not say that
I
with his materials, or with his rules
I
:
do
not say that strange changes will not sometimes be wrought by his efforts,
or his fancies, in both.
tive, natural, facile,
sought
But those changes
though sometimes marvellous
after as things necessary to his dignity or to his
and those
liberties will
be hke the
liberties that
with the language, not a defiance of larity
;
its
but inevitable, uncalculated, and express
effort to
not.
will
of an art
is
hmitations
rules for the sake of singu-
consequences of an
brilliant
infi-action,
could
be times when, as I have above described, the
manifested in
:
independence
a gTeat speaker takes
what the language, without such
may
There
be instruc-
they will never be
;
its
changes, and in
its
so there are in the hfe of an insect
interest in the state of
;
life
refusal of ancient
and there
is
great
both the art and the insect at those periods
when, by their natural progress and constitutional power, such changes are about to be ^vl'ought. But as that would be both an uncomfortable and foolish caterpillar which, instead of being contented with a caterpillar's
always striving to turn
life
and feeding on
itself into
a chrysalis
an unhappy chrysalis which should
lie
;
awake
lessly in its cocoon, in efforts to turn itself
as that
was would be
and
roll rest-
caterpillar's food,
and
at night
prematurely into a moth
unhappy and unprosperous which, instead of supon the food, and contenting itself with the customs which have been enough for the support and guidance of other arts before it and like it, is struggling and fretting un ier the nutui'al so will that art be
porting
itself
S