No picture is exactly like the original; nor is a picture good in
proportion as it is like the original. When Sir Thomas Lawrence paints a
handsome peeress, he does not contemplate her through a powerful
microscope, and transfer to the canvass the pores of the skin, the
bloodvessels of the eye, and all the other beauties which Gulliver
discovered in the Brobdignagian maids of honour. If he were to do this,
the effect would not merely be unpleasant, but unless the scale of the
picture were proportionably enlarged, would be absolutely false. And,
after all, a microscope of greater power than that which he had
employed, would convict him of innumerable omissions.
* * * * *
It is calculated that Rome has derived from Spain, for matrimonial
briefs, and other machinery of the Papal court, since the year 1500--no
less than 76,800,000_l_. or about three millions and a half per Pope!
This is preachee and payee too!
* * * * *