If Deceiving The Eye Were The Only

Our Exhibitions [the Royal Academy] Have... A Mischievous Tendency, By Seducing The Painter To An Ambition Of Pleasing Indiscriminately The Mixed Multitude Of People Who Resort To Them.

Martial Music Has Sudden And Strongly Marked Transitions From One Note To Another Which That Style Of Music Requires; While In That Which Is Intended To Move The Softer Passions, The Notes Imperceptibly Melt Into One Another.

The Greatest Man Is He Who Forms The Taste Of A Nation; The Next Greatest Is He Who Corrupts It.

The Value And Rank Of Every Art Is In Proportion To The Mental Labor Employed In It, Or The Mental Pleasure In Producing It.

A Painter Must Compensate The Natural Deficiencies Of His Art. He Has But One Sentence To Utter, But One Moment To Exhibit. He Cannot, Like The Poet Or Historian, Expatiate, And Impress The Mind.