ut of this there is no danger, since the council
has determined to supply the academy with a variety of subjects; and
indeed those laws which they have drawn up, and which the secretary will
presently read for your confirmation, have in some measure precluded me
from saying more upon this occasion. Instead, therefore, of offering my
advice, permit me to indulge my wishes, and express my hope, that this
institution may answer the expectations of its royal founder; that the
present age may vie in arts with that of Leo X. and that "the dignity of
the dying art" (to make use of an expression of Pliny) may be revived
under the reign of George III.

A DISCOURSE
Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution of
the Prizes, December 11, 1769, by the President.

Gentlemen,--I congratulate you on the honour which you have just
received. I have the highest opinion of your merits, and could wish to
show my sense of them in something which possibly may be more useful to
you than barren praise. I could wish to lead you into such a course of
study as may render your future progress answerable to your past
improvement; and, whilst I applaud you for what has been done, remind you
of how much yet remains to attain perfection.

I flatter myself, that from the long experience I have had, and the
unceasing assiduity with which I have pursued those studies, in which,
like you, I have been engaged, I shall be acquitted of vanity in offering
some hints to your consideration. They are indeed in a great degree
founded upon my own mistakes in the same pursuit. But the history of
errors properly managed often shortens the road to truth. And although
no method of study that I can offer will of itself conduct to excellence,
yet it may preserve industry from being misapplied.

In speaking to you of the theory of the art, I shall only consider it as
it has a relation to the method of your studies.

Dividing the study of painting into three distinct periods, I shall
address you as having passed through the first of them, which is confined
to the rudiments, including a facility of drawing any object that
presents itself, a tolerable readiness in the management of colours, and
an acquaintance with the most simple and obvious rules of composition.

This first degree of proficiency is, in painting, what grammar is in
literature, a general preparation to whatever species of the art the
student may afterwards choose for