Essays

Gentlemen,—The value and rank of every art is in proportion to the mental labour employed in it, or the mental pleasure produced by it.  As this principle is observed or neglected, our profession becomes either a liberal art or a mechanical trade.  In the hands of one man it makes the highest pretensions, as it is addressed to the noblest faculties, In those of another it is reduced to a mere matter of ornament, and the painter has but the humble province of furnishing our apartments with elegance.

Gentlemen,—I purpose to carry on in this discourse the subject which I began in my last.  It was my wish upon that occasion to incite you to pursue the higher excellences of the art.  But I fear that in this particular I have been misunderstood.  Some are ready to imagine, when any of their favourite acquirements in the art are properly classed, that they are utterly disgraced.  This is a very great mistake: nothing has its proper lustre but in its proper place.  That which is most worthy of esteem in its allo

Gentlemen,—When I have taken the liberty of addressing you on the course and order of your studies, I never proposed to enter into a minute detail of the art.  This I have always left to the several professors, who pursue the end of our institution with the highest honour to themselves, and with the greatest advantage to the students.

Gentlemen,—It has been my uniform endeavour, since I first addressed you from this place, to impress you strongly with one ruling idea.  I wished you to be persuaded, that success in your art depends almost entirely on your own industry; but the industry which I principally recommended, is not the industry of the hands, but of themind.