conversant with the poets in some language or other, that he may

imbibe a poetical spirit and enlarge his stock of ideas. He ought

to acquire a habit of comparing and divesting his notions. He

ought not to be wholly unacquainted with that part of philosophy

which gives him an insight into human nature, and relates to the

manners, characters, passions, and affections. He ought to know

something concerning the mind, as well as a great deal concerning

the body of man.

For this purpose, it is not necessary that he should go into such a

compass of reading, as must, by distracting his attention,

disqualify him for the practical part of his profession, and make

him sink the performer in the critic. Reading, if it can be made

the favourite recreation of his leisure hours, will improve and

enlarge his mind without retarding his actual industry.

What such partial and desultory reading cannot afford, may be

supplied by the conversation of learned and ingenious men, which is

the best of all substitutes for those who have not the means or

opportunities of deep study. There are many such men in this age;

and they will be pleased with communicating their ideas to artists,

when they see them curious and docile, if they are treated with

that respect and deference which is so justly their due. Into such

society, young artists, if they make it the point of their

ambition, will by degrees be admitted. There, without formal

teaching, they will insensibly come to feel and reason like those

they live with, and find a rational and systematic taste

imperceptibly formed in their minds, which they will know how to

reduce to a standard, by applying general truth to their own

purposes, better perhaps than those to whom they owed the original

sentiment.

Of these studies and this conversation, the desired and legitimate

offspring is a power of distinguishing right from wrong, which