no NOTES. 



1 N O T E LI. VERSE 715. 

 'While free from -prejudice your atfive eye 

 Preferves its fir ft unfullied purity. 



'Prejudice is generally ufed in a bad fenfe, to imply a pre- 

 dilection, not founded on reafon or nature, in favour of a 

 particular matter, or a particular manner, and therefore to be 

 oppofed with all our force; but totally to eradicate in advanced 

 age what has fo much aflifted. us in our youth, is a point to 

 .which we cannot hope to arrive ; the difficulty of conquering 

 this prejudice is to be confiderediry the. number of thofe caufes 

 - which makes excellence fo very rare. 



Whoever would make a rapid progrefs in any art or fcience, 

 muft begin by having great confidence in, and even prejudice 

 in favour of, his inttru&or; but to continue to think him 

 infallible, would be continuing for ever in a ftate of infancy. 

 It is impoflible to draw a line when the Artift mall begin 

 to dare to examine and criticife the works of his Mafter, or 

 of the greateft mafler-pieces of art; we can only fay, that it 

 will be gradual. In proportion as the Scholar learns' to analyfe 

 the excellence of the Matters he efteems ; in proportion as he 

 . comes exaftly to dittinguifh in what that excellence con fitts, 

 and refer it to fome precife rule and fixed ttandard, in that 

 proportion he becomes free. -When he has once laid hold of 

 their principle, he will fee when they deviate from it, or fail 

 , to come up to it ; fo that it is in reality through his extreme 

 , admiration of, and blind deference to, thefe Matters, (without 

 which he never would have employed an intenfe application 

 to, discover the rule and fcheme of their work) that he is 

 enabled, if I may ufe the expreffion, to emancipate himfelf, 

 even to get above them, and to become the judge of thofe of 

 whom he was at firft the humble difciple. R. 



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