DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.30788#0278
[ 254 J
for firft reformers is fure to produce—that
of interefting national vanity in the conti-
nuance and protedtion of their errors. The
*tafk I have taken upon myfelf,has been in all
ages invidious and unpopular, but with re-
gard to Kent, I thought it particularly in-
cumbent upon me to fhew, that he was not
one of thofe great original geniufes, who,
like Michael Angelo, feem born to give the
world more enlarged and exalted ideas of art;
but that on the contrary, in the art he did
profefs, and from which he might be fup-
pofed to have derived fuperior lights on that
of gardening, his ideas were uncommonly
mean, contradted, and perverfe. Were I
not to £hew this plainly and ilrongly, and
without any affedted candour or referve, it
might be faid to me with great reafon—■
you affert that a knowledge of the princi-
ples of painting is the firfl qualihcation for
an
for firft reformers is fure to produce—that
of interefting national vanity in the conti-
nuance and protedtion of their errors. The
*tafk I have taken upon myfelf,has been in all
ages invidious and unpopular, but with re-
gard to Kent, I thought it particularly in-
cumbent upon me to fhew, that he was not
one of thofe great original geniufes, who,
like Michael Angelo, feem born to give the
world more enlarged and exalted ideas of art;
but that on the contrary, in the art he did
profefs, and from which he might be fup-
pofed to have derived fuperior lights on that
of gardening, his ideas were uncommonly
mean, contradted, and perverfe. Were I
not to £hew this plainly and ilrongly, and
without any affedted candour or referve, it
might be faid to me with great reafon—■
you affert that a knowledge of the princi-
ples of painting is the firfl qualihcation for
an