PART III. 



If Taste in the Fine Arts be under the Fashion 



is not to be 



influence of fashion, it may perhaps be comrouied, 

 supposed that fashion may be influenced 

 by the professors of the fine arts; but 

 this has seldom been the case, except in 

 some very extraordinary discovery of 

 novelty. Fashion is neither to be di- 

 rectly opposed nor imperiously guided, 

 either by the theory of authors, or the 

 practice of professors. I have occasion- 

 ally ventured to deliver my opinion freely 

 in theory, but in my practice I have often 

 feared to give offence, by opposing the 

 taste of others, since it is equally danger- 

 ous to doubt a man's taste as his under- 

 standing; especially as those who possess 

 least of either are generally the most 

 jealous of the little they possess. 



In addition to these difficulties, I have 

 had to contend with the opposition of 

 stewards, the presumption or ignorance of 



