But compared with ourselves, has our course also been progressive? The affirmative here it is more difficult to prove. Reynolds, Hogarth, Wilson, Gainsborough, all contemporaries, certainly present a rare combination of genius and art. But besides these stars of the first magnitude, every other 'lesser light' twinkles with diminished ray. Now, as respects the general diffusion of most respectable eminence, this is far from being the case at present. In every branch, more than one master of high talent might be mentioned. Again, considering the representatives of each department in the present and in the former age, there can be no hesitation, everything considered, in giving the preference to our contemporaries. A remark of the late learned Fuseli is here quite to the purpose, while in itself perfectly correct: 'The works of Sir Joshua Reynolds are unequal, many of them are indifferent, though some cannot be surpassed; but, on the other hand, even the most inferior picture from the pencil of Sir Thomas Lawrence is excellent.' It is this extended and uniform excellence, as has appeared throughout the whole course of these investigations, which constitutes not only individual superiority, but which tends, most directly and most surely, to the exaltation of art. Hogarth, again, stands alone rather in the peculiar dramatic character of his performances, than in their beauty or science, as bearing upon the promotion of universal improvement, or even as individual pieces of painting. His pictures, also, with few exceptions, are rather isolated representations than general exhibitions of manners; they are scenes displaying the singularities, more than the leading actions and feelings of life. Their effect is broad and true, and the moral powerful; but both are circumscribed by times, and by partial divisions among mankind. Wilkie, whose style of composition most nearly resembles Hogarth's, and with whom, therefore, he is to be compared, while he preserves all the force of individual character and delineation of living nature, has extended a far more comprehensive grasp of mind over the moralities of his subject. He has brought within the pencil's magic sway, and fixed there in permanent reality, the sorrows and the joys, the hopes, fears, and attachments, the occupations, customs, habits, and even amusements, of a whole unchanging class of mankind. This may appear to have been before accomplished, both in the English and Flemish schools. But here lies the distinction: Hogarth represents general ideas by particular signs. His forms and his expressions are individual modifications of the limited society to which they belong. The conceptions of Wilkie are the idealisms of his models. Each figure is not only pregnant with individuality of character and life, but is the true representative of the class whose constituent it is. Each expression, though generally but the index of humble feeling, sends abroad into the heart of every spectator its artless