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haps there is not a fault, but what take may

shelter under the most venerable authorities yet that style only is perfect, in which the noblest principles are uniformly pursued; and those masters only are entitled to the first rank in our estimation, who have enlarged the boundaries of their art, and have raised it to its highest dignity, by exhibiting the general ideas of nature.

On the whole, it seems to me that there is but one presiding principle, which regulates, and gives stability to every art. The works, whether of poets, painters, moralists, or historians, which are built upon general nature, live for ever; while those which depend for their existence on particular customs and habits, a partial view of nature, or the fluctuation of fashion, can only be coeval with that which first raised them from obscurity. Present time and future may be considered as rivals, and he who solicits the one must expect to be discountenanced by

the other.

DISCOURSE V.

DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS OF

THE ROYAL ACADEMY,

ON THE

DISTRIBUTION OF THE PRIZES.

DECEMBER 10, 1772.

VOL. I.

DISCOURSE V.

CIRCUMSPECTION REQUIRED IN ENDEAVOURING TO UNITE CONTRARY EXCELLENCIES.—THE EXPRESSION OF A MIXED PASSION NOT TO BE ATTEMPTED.-£XAMPLES OF THOSE WHO EXCELLED IN THE GREAT. STYLE; RAFFAELLE, MICHAEL ANGELO, THOSE TWO EXTRAORDINARY MEN COMPARED WITH EACH OTHER, -THE CHARACTERISTICAL STYLE-SALVATOR ROSA MENTIONED AS AN EXAMPLE OF THAT STYLE; AND OPPOSED TO CARLO MARATTI.—SKETCH OF THE CHARACTERS OF POUSSIN AND RUBENS. THESE TWO PAINTERS ENTIRELY DISSIMILAR, BUT CONSISTENT WITH THEMSELVES. THIS CONSISTENCY REQUIRED IN ALL PARTS OF THE ART.

GENTLEMEN,

IPURPOSE to carry on in this discourse. the subject which I began in my last. It was my wish upon that occasion to incite you to pursue the higher excellencies of the art. But I fear that in this particular I have been misunderstood. Some are ready to imagine when any of their favourite acquirements in the art are properly classed, that they are

utterly disgraced. This is a very great mistake nothing has its proper lustre but in its proper place. That which is most worthy of esteem in its allotted sphere, becomes an object, not of respect, but of derision, when it is forced into a higher, to which it is not suited; and there it becomes doubly a source of disorder, by occupying a situation which is not natural to it, and by putting down from the first place what is in reality of too much magnitude to become with grace and proportion that subordinate station, to which something of less value would be much better suited.

My advice in a word is this: keep your principal attention fixed upon the higher excellencies. If you compass them, and cómpass nothing more, you are still in the first class. We may regret the innumerable beauties which you may want; you may be very imperfect but still, you are an imperfect artist of the highest order.

If, when you have got thus far, you can add any, or all, of the subordinate qualifi

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