4

FIRST LECTURE.

terials of nature, in a mode that ftrikes with novelty.—*The fifth follows with eompolition and expreffion, thedrefter and the foul of invention; the fixth concludeswith obfervations on colour, drapery and execution.

Such is the regular train of obfervations on an inex-hauftible art, which, if life and circumftances fandtionthe wifh, I mean to fubmit to your conlideration in afuture courfe: at prefent, the exuberance of the fub-jedt, the conlideration due to each part, the variousmodes of treatment that prefented themfelves in thecourfe of ftudy, my ncceffary profelfional avocations,,and fome obftacles which I could as little forefee asavoid, grant fcarcely more than fragments, to lay beforeyou. The firft ledture, or the critical hiftory of ancientand modern flyle, from its extreme richnefs, and as itappears to me, importance, is at prefent divided intotwo. The third will contain materials of the properfubjedts of the art and of invention, extradted from thefecond and the fourth, and connedted by obviousanalogy.

But before I proceed to the hiftory of ftyle itfelf, itfeems to be neceftary that we fhould agree about theterms which denote its objedt and perpetually recur intreating of it; that my vocabulary of technic expreftioni fhould