400 DRAWING LANDSCAPES. 



fo an habitual meditation? Let the artist who 

 despises or neglects these important means make 

 no pretension to the recompense due to active and 

 sensible minds. There is no reputation for him, 

 to whom a taste for his art does not become his 

 ruling passion ; to whom the hours he employs in 

 its cultivation are not the most delicious of his 

 life ; to whom the study of it does not constitute 

 his real existence and his primary happiness ; to 

 whom the society of artists is not, of all others, the 

 most pleasing ; to him whose watchings, or dreams 

 in the night, are not occupied with the ideas of his 

 art ; who in the morning does not fly with fresli 

 transport to liis painting-room. But, of all others, 

 luihappy is he who descends to flatter the corrupt 

 taste of the age in whicli he lives, w^ho delights 

 himself with applauded trifles, who does not labour 

 for true glory, and the admiration of posterity. 

 Never will he be admired by it ; liis name will 

 never be repeated ; his works will never fire tlie 

 imagination, nor touch the hearts of those fortun- 

 ate mortals who cherish the arts, who honour their 

 favourites, and search after their works.'* 



The Drawing of Landscapes. 



Every one who wishes to learn to draw land- 

 scapes should begin by the study of perspective. 

 This will enable him not only to understand and 

 draw all the parts of buildings which so frequently 

 form a principal feature in views of places, but 

 will also give him true ideas of the method of ex- 

 pressing distances, the winding of roads, and a 

 variety of particulars that are continually occurring. 



Having made himself master of the principal 

 difficulties in perspective, he should next copy 



