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painters of the Dutch school : I shall now 

 speak more fully of that school, in which, 

 after the example of Sir Joshua Reynolds, I 

 mean to include those of the Flemish masters 

 who painted similarsubjects. In the pictures 

 of the Dutch masters few instances of archi- 

 tectural beauty or grandeur occur, yet it 

 is certain that many of the buildings which 

 those masters have represented, though 

 void of those two qualities, attract our at- 

 tention in a high degree by means of others 

 which I have assigned to the picturesque. 

 It may, perhaps, be thought, that the plea- 

 sure arises solely from the exact imitation 

 of familiar objects, and that we again trans- 

 fer to the objects themselves, the pleasure 

 acquired from that imitation : this is a 

 point on which some further discussion will 

 no means foe useless in the present in- 

 quiry ; and I am the more inclined to en- 

 ter upon it, as Mr. Burke has but slightly 

 touched upon it in his Essay on the Sub- 

 lime and Beautiful. 



He there proposes a rule, which, he ob- 

 serves, " tmy inform us with a good degree 

 * Y 2 



