“My success and continued improvement in my art, if I may be allowed that expression, may be ascribed in a good measure to a principle which I will boldly recommend to imitation: I mean the principle of honesty; which in this, as in all other instances, is, according to the vulgar proverb, certainly the best policy.--I always endeavoured to do my best. Great or vulgar, good subjects or bad, all had nature, by the exact representation of which, or even by the endeavour to give such a representation, the painter cannot but improve in his art. “My principal labour was employed on the whole together, and I was never weary of changing and trying different modes and different effects. I had always some scheme in my mind, and a perpetual desire to advance. By constantly endeavouring to do my best I acquired a power of doing that with spontaneous facility which was at first the whole effort of my mind; and my reward was threefold: the satisfaction resulting from acting on this just principle, improvement in my art, and the pleasure derived from a constant pursuit after excellence. “I was always willing to believe that my uncertainty of proceeding in my works--that is, my never being sure of my hand, and my frequent alterations--arose from a refined taste which could not acquiesce in anything short of a high degree of excellence. I had not an opportunity of being early initiated in the principles of colouring; no man, indeed, could teach me. If I have never been settled with respect to colouring, let it at the same time be remembered that my unsteadiness in this respect proceeded from an inordinate desire to possess every kind of excellence that I saw in the works of others, without considering that there is in colouring, as in style, excellencies which are incompatible with each other; however, this pursuit, or, indeed, any similar pursuit, prevents the artist from being tired of his art. “We all know how often those masters who sought after colouring changed their manner, while others, merely from not seeing various modes, acquiesced all their lives in that with which they set out. On the contrary, I tried every effect of colour; and leaving out every colour in its turn, showed every colour that I could do without it. As I alternately left out every colour, I tried every new colour, and often, it is well known, failed. The former practice, I am aware, may be compared by those whose chief object is ridicule to that of the poet mentioned in the _Spectator_ who, in a poem of twenty-four books, contrived in each book to leave out a letter. But I was influenced by no such idle or foolish affectation. My fickleness in the mode of colour arose from an eager desire to attain the highest excellence. This is the only merit I assume to myself from my conduct in that respect.” * * * * *