S 33

ON GENERAL NATURE 39

ON RULES 45

ON COPYING 47

ON THE LIGHT AND SHADE OF COLOUR; AND REFLEXES 52

HARMONY AND CONTRAST 61

EFFECT, ACCIDENT, RELIEF, AND KEEPING 63

DEXTERITY AND AFFECTATION 68

OF BACKGROUNDS 71

ON WATER-COLOUR 73

OF TINTS 75

REFERENCE TO THE PLATES ON COLOUR 76

DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES 78

COMPOSITION.

'GENIUS is the power of making efforts.'

Erroneous opinions, once formed, seldom fail to affect the taste of a
man's character through his whole life. It is, therefore, of the utmost
necessity that his conduct be rightly directed.

'Art will not descend to us, we must be made to reach and aspire to it.'

'The great art to learn much,' says Locke, 'is to undertake a little at
a time.' And Dr. Johnson has very forcibly observed--'That all the
performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are
instances of the resistless force of _perseverance_: it is by this that
the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that distant countries are united by
canals. If a man were to compare the effect of a single stroke with a
pickaxe, or of one impression of a spade, with the general design and
last result, he would be overwhelmed with the sense of their
disproportion; yet those petty operations, incessantly continued, in
time surmount the greatest difficulties; and mountains are levelled, and
oceans bounded, by the slender force of human beings.

'It is, therefore, of the utmost importance, that those who have any
intention of deviating from the beaten roads of life, and of acquiring a
reputation superior to names hourly swept away by time, among the refuse
of fame, should add to their reason and spirit the power of _persisting_
in their purposes; acquire the art of sapping what they cannot batter;
and the habit of vanquishing obstinate resistance by obstinate attacks.'

To the many, of different ages, of different pursuits, of different
degrees of advancement, who may