FIRST LECTURE. -

others feemingly.or really more important, has obliged meto difmifs more abruptly or with lefs confederation than,they have a right to claim. The jirft LeEiure exhibits amore critical than an hiftoric fketch of the origin andprogrefs of our art, confining refearch to that period,when fadt and fubfiantial information took place ofconjecture; it naturally divides itfelf into two parts,the art of the ancients, and its reftoration among themodems : each is divided into three periods, that ofpreparation^ that of full eflablifioment , and that of re-finement.—‘The fecond LeEiure treats on the real fubjedtsof painting and the plaftic arts, in contradiftindlion tothe fubjedts exclufively belonging to poetry, endeavour-ing to eftablifh the reciprocal limits of both from theeffential difference of their medium and materials. Iteftablifhes three principal clafies of painting: the epic,the dramatic , and the hifloric\ with their collateralbranches of charadteriftic portrait and landfcape, andthe inferior fubdivifions of imitation.— In the thirdsdefign, corredtnefs, copy, imitation, ftyle, with its de-grees of effential , charaEleriflic , ideal , and deviationinto manner, are confidered, and the claffes of themodels left us in the remains of ancient fculpture, ar-ranged.— The fourth is devoted to invention, in its mod:general and fpecific fenfe, as it difcovers, feledts, com-bines, the pofiible, the probable and the known ma-

b 2 terials