"A watchmaker may say, 'The watch which I have made for you is as good as Quare, or Tompion, or any other man could have made.' If it really is so, he is neither called vain nor branded with infamy, but deemed an honest and fair man for being as good as his word. Why should not the same privilege be allowed to a painter? The modern artist, though he will not warrant his works as the watchmaker, has the impudence to demand twice as much money for painting them as was charged by those whom he acknowledges his superiors in the art. "Of the mighty talents said to be requisite for portrait-painting I had not the most exalted opinion, and thought that, if I chose to practise in this branch, I could at least equal my contemporaries, for whose glittering productions I really had not much reverence. In answer to this there are who will say with Peachum in the play, 'All professions be-rogue one another;' but let it be taken into the account that men with the same pursuits are naturally rivals, and when put in competition with each other must necessarily be so,--what racer ever wished that his opponent might outrun him? what boxer ever chose to be beat in pure complaisance to his antagonist? The artist who pretends to be pleased and gratified when he sees himself excelled by his competitor must have lost all reverence for truth, or be totally dead to that spirit which I believe to be one great source of excellence in all human attempts; and if he is so polite and civil as to confess superiority in one he knows to be his inferior, he must be either a fool or an hypocrite, perhaps both. If he has temper enough to be silent, it is surely sufficient; but this I have seldom seen, even amongst the most complaisant and liberal of the faculty. "Those who will honestly speak their feelings must confess that all this is natural to man. One of the highest gratifications of superiority arises from the pleasure which attends instructing men who do not know so much as ourselves; but when they verge on being rivals, the pleasure in a degree ceases. Hence the story of Rubens advising Vandyke to paint horses and faces, to prevent, as it is said, his being put in competition with himself in history-painting. Had either of these great artists lived in England at this time, they would have found men of very moderate parts--mere face painters--who, if they chanced to be in vogue, might with ease get a thousand a year, when they with all their talents would scarcely have found employment.