ore captivated with the powerful impression of nature, which
Gainsborough exhibited in his portraits and in his landscapes, and
the interesting simplicity and elegance of his little ordinary
beggar-children, than with any of the works of that school, since the
time of Andrea Sacchi, or perhaps we may say Carlo Maratti: two painters
who may truly be said to be ULTIMI ROMANORUM.

'I am well aware how much I lay myself open to the censure and ridicule
of the academical professors of other nations in preferring the humble
attempts of Gainsborough to the works of those regular graduates in
the great historical style. _But we have the sanction of all mankind in
preferring genius in a lower rank of art to feebleness and insipidity in
the highest.'_

Yet this excellent artist and critic had said but a few pages before
when working upon his theory--'For this reason I shall beg leave to lay
before you a few thoughts on the subject; to throw out some hints that
may lead your minds to an opinion (which I take to be the true one) that
Painting is not only not to be considered as an imitation operating by
deception, but that it is, and ought to be, in many points of view and
strictly speaking, no imitation at all of external nature. Perhaps it
ought to be as far removed from the vulgar idea of imitation as the
refined, civilised state in which we live is removed from a gross state
of nature; and those who have not cultivated their imaginations, which
the majority of mankind certainly have not, may be said, in regard to
arts, to continue in this state of nature. Such men will always prefer
imitation' (the imitation of nature) 'to that excellence which is
addressed to another faculty that they do not possess; but these are
not the persons to whom a painter is to look, any more than a judge
of morals and manners ought to refer controverted points upon those
subjects to the opinions of people taken from the banks of the Ohio or
from New Holland.'

In opposition to the sentiment here expressed that 'Painting is and
ought to be, in many points of view and strictly speaking, no imitation
at all of external nature,' it is emphatically said in another place:
'Nature is and must be the fountain which alone is inexhaustible, and
from which all excellences must originally flow.'

I cannot undertake to reconcile so many contradictions, nor do I think
it an easy task for the student to derive any simple or intelligible
clue from these conflict