40 



any other person to define picturesque ob- 

 jects to be those which please from some 

 striking effect of form, colour, or light and 

 shadow, — such a definition would indeed 

 give but a very indistinct idea of the thing 

 defined; but it would be hardly more 

 vague, and at the same time much less con- 

 fined than the others, for it would not have 

 an exclusive reference to a particular art. 



I hope to shew in the course of this 

 work, that the picturesque has a character 

 not less separate and distinct than either 

 the sublime or the beautiful, nor less inde- 

 pendent of the art of painting. It has in- 

 deed been pointed out and illustrated by 

 that art, and is one of its most striking 

 ornaments; but has not beauty been pointed 

 out and illustrated by that art also, nay, 

 according to the poet, brought into exist- 

 ence by it? 



Si Venerem Cpus nunquam posuisset Apelles, 

 Mersa sub aequoreis ilia lateret aquis. 



Examine the forms of the early Italian 



