"A Critical Examination of those two Paintings on the ceiling of Whitehall, in which Architecture is introduced, so far as relates to the Perspective, together with the discussion of a question which has been the subject of debate among painters. Written many years since, but now first published, by J. Highmore. Printed for Nourse, 1754." The question Mr. Highmore professes to discuss is by himself stated as follows, viz.:-- "Whether a range of columns, standing on a line parallel to the picture, ought to be painted according to the strict rules of perspective; that is, whether those columns, in proportion as they recede from the centre of the picture, should be drawn broader than that directly opposite to the eye, as the rules require; or whether (because they really in nature appear less, in proportion as they are more distant) they ought not to be made less, or at most, equal to each other in the picture?... "Mr. Kirby says, p. 70 of his first part: 'Since the fallacies of vision are so many and great, etc., it seems reasonable not to comply with the strict rules of mathematical perspective, in some particular cases (as in this before us), but to draw the representations of objects as they appear to the eye,' etc. But I would ask, How? By guess, or by some rule? And if by any, by what rule are they to be drawn contrary to, or different from, the strict mathematical perspective rules?" In reply to these and many other strictures contained in the preface, Hogarth wrote some remarks to Mr. Kirby, in which he asks, "Whether an oval or egg can be the true representation of a sphere or ball? or whether buildings should be drawn by any such rule as would make them appear tumbling down, and be allowed to be truly represented, because the designer of them is able to show how a spectator may, in half an hour's time, be placed at such a point as would make them all appear upright? as by a like trick or contrivance the oval may be foreshortened so as to appear a circle." He further asks, "Would a carpenter allow fourteen inches to be the true representation of a foot-rule, since in no situation whatever can the eye possibly see it so?"