PART II. OF PAINTING. 53 



especially to the artist. It is the art of drawing in water-co- 

 lours. By means of this art, effects may be shewn upon paper 

 before they are produced in scenery ; and thus proprietors or 

 others may conceive more clearly the ideas of those who pro- 

 pose to improve either in landscape or architecture. 



A person accustomed to draw from nature, or good copies, 

 will often, in a degree mechanically, introduce proper and ac- 

 cording objects into his landscapes ; although, in speaking or 

 writing on the subject, he would perhaps be at a loss how to 

 proceed. A striking instance of this I have in my mind at pre- 

 sent. It is a scene in which a painter, once attempting to 

 make a picturesque foreground to a small pond, collected at 

 random a number of round and narrow stones of fantastic 

 forms, incapable of any breadth of light or shade, and of course 

 of all strength of effect, and placed them among ferns and 

 other plants on its margin. Had that painter introduced stones 

 on his canvass for the same purpose, he would have chosen 

 broad massive forms, and given them a breadth of effect suit- 

 able to the nature of the subject ; but he would have done this 

 .evidently from mere feeling, without reason or judgment. 



Every architect must have experienced something of the 

 same kind when he first began to design buildings in perspec- 

 tive. The hand naturally, and without thought, groupes the 



