Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Notes on Some of the Principal Pictures: Exhibited in the Rooms of the Royal Academy; And the Society of Painters in Water Colours
It has lately, I observe, in consequence, sought to amuse its readers by some account of my private affairs; of which - if the writer of the article in question is not ashamed of his name - I shall be happy to fur nish him with more accurate details, as well as to recommend him to a school where he may learn what will not in future be disadvantageous to his writi'ngs - a little more astronomy and optics.
But, as touching these N otes, of which I hope to continue the series yearly, I trust that the reader will feel that I have given him the best guarantee in my power of their 'sincere purpose, in signing them. If he thinks I always see the brightest colours in the works of my friends, or that it can only be in rooted malice that I point out an error in perspective, I have put it in his power to inquire into these matters, and to ascertain for himself whether indeed it is always a friend's work that I praise, or whether the transgres sor of perspective law is conscious of any personal enmity between himself and me. And truly, it is a sorrowful thing to me, and one bearing witness, very bitterly, to the dishonesty of criticism in general, that people should be so ready to call every kind of faultfinding hostility, the moment they can bring it home to a known person. One would think, to hear them, that there was no right or wrong in art; that every Opinion which men formed of it was dictated by prejudice, and expressed in passion; that all praise was treacherous - all rebuke malignant - and silence itself merely a pause of hesitation between Flattery and Slander.
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