uiring a knowledge of drawing them. Indefinite observation and
defective memory are improved in the utmost degree by this faculty of
seeing things well defined. Besides, most Sciences are capable of
receiving great assistance from drawing.

The road is familiar to the practised painter, whose many stages he has
passed through so often, and he seldom thinks of revisiting the earlier
tracks of it when he has set up his study at the farther end; therefore,
it behoves us to come back, and lead the pupil through those early
stages of it, until we welcome him at the end, and he becomes as
familiar with the way as ourselves. The lowest steps of a ladder are as
_useful_ as the highest.

COMPOSITION, in drawing, is the art of disposing ideas, either from
hints taken from nature, or from our own minds; of arranging them, with
a view to subsequently dividing them into light and shade; and arraying
them with judicious colour. It is the art of graphically telling a
story, and should be so contrived, that the principal objects we would
impress the minds of others with, should hold that just place in a
picture, in relation to the minor or auxiliary parts, that may at once
impress the mind, and convey our object to the view of the spectator.

To compose well, it will be necessary for the student to diligently
consult the compositions of others; zealously enquiring where the _best_
are to be found, among the numerous instances that exist both in
pictures and prints, that he may carefully avoid those that would
mislead him in his research, and attain his object by consulting only
those that have merited the approval of the best judges, and have come
down to posterity as the best examples for his imitation. By adhering to
this plan, it will readily become such matter of habit with him, that a
comparatively short interval of time will force upon him the conviction
that he is in the right path to future success. It were useless to add
how many have began, and how many have failed, for want of this
precaution at setting out. A splendid and fascinating effect, or a
beautiful display of colour, or something or other that the artist has
dexterously contrived to invest his work with, is generally the cause to
which this failure is ascribable; while in the end, our own sympathies
with a composition, correct in its management, appeal to the feelings
and judgment at once.

In the first place, _much_ knowledge of perspective is not necessary to