"Towers and Battlements it sees Bosom'd high in tufted trees."--MILTON, L'ALL. 17: Mr. Hodges. DISCOURSE XIV. _Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution of the Prizes, December 10, 1788._ CHARACTER OF GAINSBOROUGH:--HIS EXCELLENCIES AND DEFECTS. In the study of our art, as in the study of all arts, something is the result of _our own_ observation of nature; something, and that not a little, the effect of the example of those who have studied the same nature before us, and who have cultivated before us the same art, with diligence and success. The less we confine ourselves in the choice of those examples, the more advantage we shall derive from them; and the nearer we shall bring our performances to a correspondence with nature and the great general rules of art. When we draw our examples from remote and revered antiquity--with some advantage, undoubtedly, in that selection--we subject ourselves to some inconveniencies. We may suffer ourselves to be too much led away by great names, and to be too much subdued by overbearing authority. Our learning, in that case, is not so much an exercise of our judgment as a proof of our docility. We find ourselves, perhaps, too much overshadowed; and the character of our pursuits is rather distinguished by the tameness of the follower than animated by the spirit of emulation. It is sometimes of service that our examples should be _near_ us; and such as raise a reverence, sufficient to induce us carefully to observe them, yet not so great as to prevent us from engaging with them in something like a generous contention.