Here is an Acknowledgment of all that I could wish But if it is True. Why are we to be

told that Masters who Could Think had not the judgment to Perform the Inferior Parts

of Art as Reynolds artfully calls them. But that we are to Learn to Think from Great

Masters & to Learn to Perform from Underlings? Learn to Design from Rafael & to

Execute from Rubens [line cut away]?

[P xxxi] Thus Bacon became a great thinker, by first entering into and making himself master of

the thoughts of other men.

[This is the Character of a Knave]

Begin Page 639

[Pp xxxiii-xxxiv, Burke on Reynolds] . . . He . . . owed his first disposition to generalize. . . to

old Mr. Mudge. . . a learned and venerable old man. . . much conversant in the Platonick

Philosophy,. . . originally a dissenting minister; . . .

Slang Villainy

[To call generalizing "the Platonick Philosophy" was Slang; for a dissenting minister to preach it

was Villainy.--D.V.E.]

[P xxxviii footnotes 24 and 25] [On the painters' having obtained a royal charter; Reynolds is not

named among the eight "principal artists" active in "this scheme"; William Chambers is credited

with helpful "access" to the King.]

[Reynolds. . . thought. . . but Painters ?attention without xxx Reynolds Sir Wm

Chambers. . . ? through]

[Pp xli-xlv, note 28: Malone scotching rumors that the Discourses were written by Johnson or

Burke. ]

The Contradictions in Reynolds's Discourses are Strong Presumptions that they are

the Work of Several Hands But this is no Proof that Reynolds did not Write them The

Man Either Painter or Philosopher who Learns or Acquires all he Knows from Others.

Must be full of Contradictions

[P xlvii, Reynolds' eulogy of George Moser as "the FATHER of the present race of Artists".]

I was once looking over the Prints from Rafael & Michael Angelo. in the Library of

the Royal Academy Moser came to me & said You should not Study these old Hard

Stiff & Dry Unfinishd Works of Art, Stay a little & I will shew you what you should