the exertions of genius will henceforward be directed to their

proper objects. It will not be as it has been in other schools,

where he that travelled fastest only wandered farthest from the

right way.

Impressed as I am, therefore, with such a favourable opinion of my

associates in this undertaking, it would ill become me to dictate

to any of them. But as these institutions have so often failed in

other nations, and as it is natural to think with regret how much

might have been done, and how little has been done, I must take

leave to offer a few hints, by which those errors may be rectified,

and those defects supplied. These the professors and visitors may

reject or adopt as they shall think proper.

I would chiefly recommend that an implicit obedience to the rules

of art, as established by the great masters, should be exacted from

the YOUNG students. That those models, which have passed through

the approbation of ages, should be considered by them as perfect

and infallible guides as subjects for their imitation, not their

criticism.

I am confident that this is the only efficacious method of making a

progress in the arts; and that he who sets out with doubting will

find life finished before he becomes master of the rudiments. For

it may be laid down as a maxim, that he who begins by presuming on

his own sense has ended his studies as soon as he has commenced

them. Every opportunity, therefore, should be taken to

discountenance that false and vulgar opinion that rules are the

fetters of genius. They are fetters only to men of no genius; as

that armour, which upon the strong becomes an ornament and a

defence, upon the weak and misshapen turns into a load, and

cripples the body which it was made to protect.

How much liberty may be taken to break through those rules, and, as