The friends of art who have for several years been associated at Weimar are surely privileged to speak of their relation to the general public, because (and this is the final test) they have always expressed similar convictions and have been guided by well tried principles. Not that, limited to certain modes of apprehending matters, they have obstinately maintained a single point of view. On the contrary, they willingly confess that they have learned much from diverse expression of opinion, all the more so as they now learn with pleasure that their efforts in behalf of culture are constantly becoming more closely allied to the general progress of higher education in Germany. With much gratification they call attention to the _Propyloea_, to the critical and descriptive programs of no less than six exhibitions of painting and statuary, to the many expressions of opinion in the _Jenaisische Litteraturzeitung, and to the published translation of the Life of Benvenuto Cellini. Although these writings have not been printed and bound in the same volumes and do not form parts of a single work, they have, nevertheless, all been written in the same spirit. They have proved a leaven to the whole, as we are learning slowly, but not without gratification; so that there is no longer occasion to remember ingratitude often experienced, and open or secret opposition. The present publication is an immediate sequel to the foregoing works, and of its contents we mention here only the most important. PLAN FOR A HISTORY OF ART DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY The historical conception of related conditions promotes the more rapid development of the artist as well as of the man. Every individual, especially if he be a man of capacity, at first seems far too important to himself. Trusting in his independent power, he is inclined to champion far too quickly this or that maxim; he strives and labors with energy along the path he has himself chosen; and when at length he becomes conscious of his one-sidedness and his error, he changes just as violently, enters upon another perhaps equally erroneous course, and clings to principles equally faulty. Not until late in life does he become aware of his own history and realize how much further a constant development in accordance with well tested principles might have led him. If the connoisseur owes his insight to history alone, which embodies the ideas which give rise to art, for the young artist the history of art is of the greatest importance. [Illustration: WINCKELMANN]