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O F

CRITICISM.

THE SEVENTH EDITION.

WITH THE

AUTHOR'S LAST CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS.

VOLUME I.

EDINBURGH:

PRINTED FOR JOHN BELL AND WILLIAM CREECH; AND FOR T. CADELL, G. G. J. AND J. ROBINSON,

LONDON.

M,DCC,LXXXVIII.

TO THE

KING.

SIR,

HE Fine Arts have ever been en

THE

couraged by wife Princes, not fingly for private amusement, but for their beneficial influence in fociety. By uniting different ranks in the fame elegant pleafures, they promote benevolence: by cherishing love of order, they enforce fubmiffion to government: and by infpiring delicacy of feeling, they make regular government a double bleffing,

THESE Confiderations embolden me to hope for your Majefty's patronage in behalf of the following work, which treats of the Fine Arts, and attempts to form a ftandard of tafte, by unfolding those principles that ought to govern the tafte of every individual.

IT is rare to find one born with fuch delicacy of feeling, as not to need inftruction it is equally rare to find one fo low in feeling, as not to be capable of inftruction. And yet, to refine our taste with respect to beauties of art or of nature, is fcarce endeavoured in any feminary of learning; a lamentable defect, confidering how early in life tafte is fufceptible of culture, and how difficult to reform it if unhappily perverted. To furnish materials for fupplying that defect, was an additional motive for the present undertaking.

To