But,  it  may  be  asked,  is  not  the  best  writing,  like  the
best  painting,  spontaneous,  and  does  not  the  practiced  be
come  the  ready  hand  ?  Did  not  Cervantes  say  that  the
jests  of  Sancho  fell  from  him  like  drops  of  rain  when  he
least  thought  of  it,  and  do  not  the  works  of  Raphael  and
Rubens  seem  to  have  cost  them,  as  Hazlitt  says,  no  more
labor  than  if  they  "  had  drawn  in  their  breath,  and  puff
ed  it  forth  "  !  Are  not  many  fine  literary  productions
thrown  off'  like  the  beautiful  Dresden  Madonna,  which
Raphael  painted  without  any  previous  studies  or  draw
ings  ?  We  answer,  yes  ;  the  best  writing  is  spontaneous,
but  it  is  the  spontaneousness  of  a  second  and  disciplined
nature.  It  is  the  experience  of  the  veteran  accomplishing
with  ease  what  seemed  impossible  to  the  raw  recruit.  It
was  because  Gibbon  wrote  slowly  "  until  he  had  got  his
one  tune  by  heart,"  that  he  was  able  to  send  the  last
three  volumes  of  the  Decline  and  Fall  in  the  first  draught
to  press.  It  was  after  years  of  laborious  self -training  and
experience,  that  Raphael  was  able  to  throw  his  whole


STYLE,  85

idea,  in  all  its  perfection  and  completeness,  upon  the  can
vas,  without  the  necessity  of  realizing  it  by  piecemeal  in
intermediate  attempts.  In  all  such  cases,  where  miracles
of  swiftness  seem  to  have  been  performed,  the  miracle
will  melt  if  we  scrutinize  it  closely.  We  shall  find  that
the  picture  has  been  painted,  and  the  book  written,  with
such  ease,  because  years  of  study  and  "practice  have  so
lubricated  the  mental  instruments,  that,  when  the  mo
tive  power  is  applied,  they  work,  to  a  great  extent,  with
the  precision  and  regularity  of  a  machine.
