Page:A Treatise on Painting.djvu/19

 number of entries made at different times, without any regard to their subjects, or attention to method, might rather in that state be considered as a chaos of intelligence, than a well-digested treatise. It has now, therefore, for the first time, been attempted to place each chapter under the proper head or branch of the art to which it belongs; and by so doing, to bring together those which (though related and nearly connected in substance) stood, according to the original arrangement, at such a distance from each other as to make it troublesome to find them even by the assistance of an index; and difficult, when found, to compare them together.

The consequence of this plan, it must be confessed, has been, that in a few instances the same precept has been found in substance repeated; but this is so far from being an objection, that it evidently proves the precepts were not the hasty opinions of the moment, but settled and fixed principles in the mind of the Author, and that he was consistent in the expression of his senti- Rh