( 2 6o ) 



The idea is good : but certainly thefe 

 effects are common enough to have been 

 often the object of every one's obfervation. 

 He will not, I fuppofe, take the comnioneft 

 objefts as he finds them. And if he felect 

 his objefts - y why not the moji beautiful mode 

 of exhibiting them ? The great effects of morn- 

 ing and evening funs, of mifts, and ftorms, 

 are not more uncommon, than natural com- 

 binations of beautiful objects. But the real 



truth feems to be, that fuch effects are the 

 moft difficult to manage, and require great 

 ftudy, and obfervation. The artift therefore, 

 who paints for his bread, rather than his 

 character (an evil attending the art, which 

 can never be removed) choofes fuch an ex- 

 hibition of light, and made, as is the mofl 

 eafy to himfelf j and may likewife be mofl 

 pleafing to the generality of his undiflin- 

 guifhing employers. Hence we have fo great 

 a number of glaring landfcapes, which depend 

 on nothing, but the beauty, and colouring 

 of a few particular objects ; without any 

 attention to thofe grand effects, which make 

 landfcape by many degrees, the moft fublime, 

 and interefting. 



It is perhaps one of the great errors in 

 painting (as indeed it is in literary, as well 



as 



