10- 
thing or place that has no connexion with it; when 
we at last come to the picture or statue itself, we 
are told that it is on wood or on canvass, 4 ½ long 
by 4 broad, which information is considered quite 
sufficient, and the writer's conscience is at rest. 
We poor artists accustomed to use the brush 
more than the pen, are always liable to be flayed 
alive by newspaper critics, or clever Grecians, who 
think, that because they construe Thucydides or Pin¬ 
dar without the aid of a dictionary, they must be 
first rate judges in art, not only theoretically but 
practically. A learned book was lately written to 
prove, that Turner and even many others of the 
modern English school, have completely beaten 
Claude; the Poussins and Salvator Rosa. In Claude 
the figures and even the costume of these figures are 
found fault with; in Poussin or Salvator, I forget 
which, the strata of the rocks are found wrong, they 
are not “geologically correct;” be it so; I have no 
objection to philosophers and painters reading “ser¬ 
mons in stones,” when they are in the humour for 
it, but I certainly should feel inclined to use even 
a geological hammer if I had one in my possession 
toftos 
1l 
If a lady or gentleman wishe to write on Botany, Astro- 
nomy or Geology, or in fact on any logy whatsoever, they must 
go through a dry course of severe study and reading, which is 
both tedious and disagreeable; but on art, why any body who has 
eyes to see with and a hand to hold a pen with, can write a book 
on this subject: any one who can tell a pretty woman from an ugly 
one, can surely also point out the prettiest face in a picture.