What Is A Well-chosen Collection Of Pictures,

Every Art, Like Our Own, Has In Its Composition Fluctuating As Well As Fixed Principles. It Is An Attentive Inquiry Into Their Difference That Will Enable Us To Determine How Far We Are Influenced By Custom And Habit, And What Is Fixed In The Nature Of Things.

The Greatest Man Is He Who Forms The Taste Of A Nation; The Next Greatest Is He Who Corrupts It.

Poetry Operates By Raising Our Curiosity, Engaging The Mind By Degrees To Take An Interest In The Event, Keeping That Event Suspended, And Surprising At Last With An Unexpected Catastrophe. The Painter's Art Is More Confined, And Has Nothing That Corresponds With, Or Perhaps Is Equivalent To, This Power And Advantage Of Leading The Mind On, Till Attention Is Totally Engaged. What Is Done By Painting, Must Be Done At One Blow; Curiosity Has Received At Once All The Satisfaction It Can Ever Have.

The Young Mind Is Pliable And Imitates, But In More Advanced States Grows Rigid And Must Be Warmed And Softened Before It Will Receive A Deep Impression.

Let Me Recommend To You Not To Have Too Great Dependence On Your Practice Or Memory, However Strong Those Impressions May Have Been Which Are There Deposited. They Are Forever Wearing Out, And Will Be At Least Obliterated, Unless They Are Continually Refreshed And Repaired.