"In revising my discourses, it is no small satisfaction to be assured that I have in no part of them lent my assistance to foster _newly-hatched unfledged opinions_, or endeavoured to support paradoxes, however tempting may have been their novelty, or however ingenious I might, for the minute, fancy them to be; nor shall I, I hope, anywhere be found to have imposed on the minds of young students declamation for argument, a smooth period for a sound precept. I have pursued a plain and _honest method_; I have taken up the art simply as I found it exemplified in the practice of the most approved painters. That approbation which the world has uniformly given, I have endeavoured to justify by such proofs as questions of this kind will admit; by the analogy which painting holds with the sister arts, and consequently by the common congeniality which they all bear to our nature. And though in what has been done no new discovery is pretended, I may still flatter myself that from the discoveries which others have made from their own intuitive good sense and native rectitude of judgment (in allusion to the works of the old masters) I have succeeded in establishing the rules and principles of our art on a more firm and lasting foundation than that on which they formerly had been placed." It is worthy of note, as yet another proof of Sir Joshua's justice of judgment and objectivity, that, speaking of portrait-painting (_Discourse III._), he puts it low in rank among the various departments of painting. He strove with all his power to elevate English art methods, to lead artists to practice what he named the "grand style," and it was on this account that he ever and always held up to imitation the gods of his idolatry, Michael Angelo and Raffaelle. What he writes concerning _pittori improvisatori_ may well be laid to heart to-day when Impressionism threatens to swamp genuine study and careful draughtsmanship. Indeed, looked at from all sides, Sir Joshua's _Discourses_ worthily take rank among the English classics, and it has been truly said that "with Reynolds' literature was the playmate of art, and art became the handmaiden of literature." That detractors have not been lacking is a matter of course, but Reynolds, like others, can console himself with Goethe's lines-- "Die schlechsten Früchte sindd es nichtt Woran die Wespen nagen." Some of these objections merit reproduction. Who can read, for instance, without a smile, the words of Blake, that sweet, childlike mind, which was at once so penetrative and so uncritical? The smile will of course be one of gentle sympathy, such as one ever accords to that wayward genius. He writes in his notes--