fore, to have continual recourse to her. In this intercourse, there is no end of his improvement; the longer he lives, the nearer he approaches to the true and perfect idea of art. DISCOURSE XIII. DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY, ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE PRIZES, DECEMBER 11. 1786. DISCOURSE XIII. ART NOT MERELY IMITATION, BUT UNDER THE DIRECTION - IN WHAT MANNER POETRY, OF THE IMAGINATION. PAINTING, ACTING, GARDENING, AND ARCHITECTURE, DEPART FROM NATURE. GENTLEMEN, To discover beauties, or to point out faults, in the works of celebrated Masters, and to compare the conduct of one Artist with another, is certainly no mean or inconsiderable part of criticism; but this is still no more than to know the art through the Artist. This test of investigation must have two capital defects; it must be narrow, and it must be uncertain. To enlarge the boundaries of the Art of Painting, as well as to fix its principles, it will be necessary, that, that art, and those principles, should be considered in their correspondence with the principles of the other arts, which, like this, address themselves primarily and principally to the imagination. When those connected and kindred principles are brought together to be compared, another comparison will grow out of this; that is, the comparison of them all with those of human nature, from whence arts derive the materials upon which they are to produce their effects. When this comparison of art with art, and of all arts with the nature of man, is once made with success, our guiding lines are as well ascertained and established, as they can be in matters of this description. This, as it is the highest style of criticism, is at the same time the soundest; for it refers to the eternal and immutable nature of things. You are not to imagine that I mean to open to you at large, or to recommend to your research, the whole of this vast field of science. It is certainly much above my faculties to reach it; and though it may not be above yours to comprehend it fully, if it were fully and properly brought before you, yet perhaps the most perfect criticism requires habits of speculation and abstraction, not very |