PREFACE, xiii 



ftreet being an illuftration of Livy ? Paint- 

 ing has been circumfcribed within as Iclfifh 

 bounds as ftatuary ; hiftoric compofitions 

 totally negle(fted. Reynolds and Ramfay 

 have wanted fubje6bs, not genius. There 

 is another artiil, who feems born for an age 

 of naval glory, and is equal to it, Mr. Scott. 

 Architecture, the moft fuitable field in 

 which the genius of a people, arrived at fu- 

 periority, may range, feems reviving. The 

 tafte and fkill of Mr. Adam is formed for 

 public works. Mr. Chambers's treatife * is 

 the moft fcnfible book and the moft exempt 

 from prejudices that ever was written on 

 that fcience. But of all the works that 

 diftinguifti this age, none perhaps excell 

 thofe beautifull editions of Baibec and Pal- 

 myra — not publifhed at the command of a 

 Louis quatorze, or at the expence of a car- 

 dinal nephew, but undertaken by private 

 curiofity and good fenfe, and trufted to the 

 tafte of a polifhed nation. When I endea- 

 vour to do juftice to the editions of Fal- 

 myra and Baibec, I would not confine the 

 encomium to the fculptures ; the books have 

 far higher merit. The modeft defcriptions f 



* On civil architedure, folio, 1759. 

 t By Mr. Wood. 



prefixed 



