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picturesque effect, induced me to enquire 

 into the various causes or sources of the 



' as may be exhibited in the case of some extensive 

 ' prospects. Many things too, as you illustrate well 

 ' in the instance of deer, are not capable of represen- 

 ' tation in a picture at all; and of this sort must every 

 ' thing be that depends on motion and succession. But 

 ' in the next place, tlie beauties of nature itself, and 

 ' which painting can exhibit, are many, and most of 

 ' them, probabl)' of a sort which have nothing to do 

 ' with the purposes of habitation, and are even wholly 

 ' inconsistent with them. A scene of a cavern, with 

 ' banditti sitting by it, is the favourite subject of Sal- 

 ' vator Rosa; but are we therefore to live in caves, or 

 ' encourage the neighbourhood of banditti ? Gainsbo- 

 ' rough's Countiy Girl is a more picturesque object 

 ' than a child neatly dressed in a white frock; but is 

 ' that a reason why our children are to go in rags ? 

 ' Yet this is just the proposition which Mr. Knight 

 ' maintains in the contrast which he exhibits of the 

 ' same place, dressed in the modern style, and left, as 

 ' he thinks, it ought to be. The whole doctrine is so 

 ' absurd, that when set forth in its true shape, no one 

 ' will be hardy enough to stand by it; and accordingly 

 ' they never do so set it forth, nor exhibit it in any dis- 

 ' tinct shape at all, but only take a general credit for 

 ' their attachment to principles which every body is 

 ' attached to as well as they; and where the only qucs- 

 ' tion is of the application which they afford you no 

 ' means of making. They are lovers of picturesque 



