s the historical painters of the fifteenth, and landscape painters of
the seventeenth, centuries, together, under the general title of "old
masters," as if they possessed anything like corresponding rank in their
respective walks of art. I feel assured that the principles on which they
worked are totally opposed, and that the landscape painters have been
honored only because they exhibited in mechanical and technical qualities
some semblance of the manner of the nobler historical painters, whose
principles of conception and composition they entirely reversed. The
course of study which has led me reverently to the feet of Michael Angelo
and Da Vinci, has alienated me gradually from Claude and Gaspar--I cannot
at the same time do homage to power and pettiness--to the truth of
consummate science, and the mannerism of undisciplined imagination. And
let it be understood that whenever hereafter I speak depreciatingly of
the old masters as a body, I refer to none of the historical painters,
for whom I entertain a veneration, which though I hope reasonable in its
grounds, is almost superstitious in degree. Neither, unless he be
particularly mentioned, do I intend to include Nicholas Poussin, whose
landscapes have a separate and elevated character, which renders it
necessary to consider them apart from all others. Speaking generally of
the older masters, I refer only to Claude, Gaspar Poussin, Salvator Rosa,
Cuyp, Berghem, Both, Ruysdael, Hobbima, Teniers, (in his landscapes,) P.
Potter, Canaletti, and the various Van somethings, and Back somethings,
more especially and malignantly those who have libelled the sea.

It will of course be necessary for me in the commencement of the work to
state briefly those principles on which I conceive all right judgment of
art must be founded. These introductory chapters I should wish to be
read carefully, because all criticism must be useless when the terms or
grounds of it are in any degree ambiguous; and the ordinary language of
connoisseurs and critics, granting that they understand it themselves,
is usually mere jargon to others, from their custom of using technical
terms, by which everything is meant, and nothing is expressed.

Sec. 5. The author's partiality to modern works excusable.

And if, in the application of these principles, in spite of my endeavor
to render it impartial, the feeling and fondness which I have for some
works of modern art escape me sometimes where it should not