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troverl any opinions of a man, whose me- 

 mory I so much love and reverence, yet 

 were I to omit doing it, the weight of his au- 

 thority might very justly be brought against 

 me. As his works are, or at least ought to 

 be, in the hands of every man who has the 

 slightest pretension to taste, it will be only 

 necessary for me to mention those points 

 which I wish to consider. 



In this Letter, before he examines Ho- 

 garth's ideas of beauty, Sir Joshua gives us 

 his own : these he founds on the great and 

 general ideas inherent in universal nature, 

 which, according to the practice of the Ita- 

 lian painters, are to be distinguished from 

 the accidental blemishes, that are continu- 

 ally varying the surface of her works. This 

 he illustrates by the leaves of a tree, of which, 

 though no two are exactly alike, yet the ge- 

 neral form is invariable ; and a naturalist, 

 after comparing many, selects, as the painter 

 does, the most beautiful, that is, the most 

 general form. Nature, he goes on to say, is 

 constantly tending towards that determinate 

 Joxm ; and it will be found that she oftener 



