Our Exhibitions [the Royal Academy] Have... A

Excellence Is Never Granted To Man But As The Reward Of Labor. It Argues No Small Strength Of Mind To Persevere In Habits Of Industry Without The Pleasure Of Perceiving Those Advances, Which, Like The Hand Of A Clock, Whilst They Make Hourly Approaches To Their Point, Yet Proceed So Slowly As To Escape Observation.

Poetry Operates By Raising Our Curiosity, Engaging The Mind By Degrees To Take An Interest In The Event, Keeping That Event Suspended, And Surprising At Last With An Unexpected Catastrophe. The Painter's Art Is More Confined, And Has Nothing That Corresponds With, Or Perhaps Is Equivalent To, This Power And Advantage Of Leading The Mind On, Till Attention Is Totally Engaged. What Is Done By Painting, Must Be Done At One Blow; Curiosity Has Received At Once All The Satisfaction It Can Ever Have.

I Do Not See In What Manner Practice Alone Can Be Sufficient For The Production Of Correct, Excellent, And Finished Pictures. Works Deserving This Character Never Were Produced, Nor Ever Will Arise, From Memory Alone.

Nothing Is Denied To Well-directed Labor.

In Portraits, The Grace And, We May Add, The Likeness Consists More In Taking The General Air Than In Observing The Exact Similitude Of Every Feature.