"By this idle way of proceeding I grew so profane as to admire nature beyond the first productions of art, and acknowledged I saw, or fancied, delicacies in the life so far surpassing the utmost efforts of imitation, that when I drew the comparison in my mind, I could not help uttering blasphemous expressions against the divinity even of Raphael Urbino, Correggio, and Michael Angelo. For this, though my brethren have most unmercifully abused me, I hope to be forgiven. I confess to have frequently said, that I thought the style of painting which I had adopted, admitting that _my_ powers were not equal to doing it justice, might one time or other come into better hands, and be made more entertaining and more useful than the eternal blazonry and tedious repetition of hackneyed, beaten subjects, either from the Scriptures or the old ridiculous stories of heathen gods; as neither the religion of one or the other requires promoting among Protestants, as it formerly did in Greece, and at a later period in Rome.[17] "For these and other heretical opinions, as I have before observed, I was deemed vain, and accused of enviously attempting what I was unable to execute. "The chief things that have brought much obloquy on me are: First, the attempting portrait-painting; Secondly, writing the _Analysis of Beauty_; Thirdly, painting the picture of 'Sigismunda;' and, Fourthly, publishing the first print of 'The Times.' "In the ensuing pages it shall be my endeavour to vindicate myself from these aspersions, and each of the subjects taken in the order they occurred shall be occasionally interspersed with some thoughts by the way on the state of the arts, institution of a Royal Academy, Society of Arts, etc., as being remotely, if not immediately, connected with my own pursuits. "Though small whole lengths and prints of familiar conversations were my principal pursuit, yet by those who were partial to me I was sometimes employed to paint portraits as large as life, and for this I was most barbarously abused. My opponents acknowledged, that in the particular branches to which I had devoted my attention I had some little merit; but as neither history nor portrait were my province, nothing but what they were pleased to term extreme vanity could induce me to attempt either one or the other; for it would be interfering in that branch of which I had no knowledge, and in which I had therefore no concern.