Notwithstanding my diligence I do not presume to offer this as a work to which much might not be added. It has never happened that a history, embracing so many objects, is at once produced perfect; though it may gradually be rendered so. The history earliest in point of time, becomes, in the end, the least in authority; and its greatest merit is in having paved the way to more finished performances. Perfection is still less to be expected in a compendium. The reader is here presented with the names of many artists and authors; but many others might have been admitted, whom want of leisure or opportunity, but not of respect, has obliged us to omit. Here he will find a variety of opinions; but to these many others might have been added. There is no man, of whom all think alike. Baillet, just before mentioned, is a proof of this, with regard to writers on literary subjects; and he who thinks the task worthy of his pains might demonstrate it much more fully with respect to different painters. Each judges by principles peculiar to himself: Bonarruoti stigmatized as drivelling, Pietro Perugino and Francia, both luminaries of the art; Guido, if we may credit history, was disapproved of by Cortona; Caravaggio by Zucchero; Guercino by Guido; and, what seems more extraordinary, Domenichino by most of the artists who flourished at Rome, when he painted his finest pictures.[20] Had these artists written of their rivals they either would have condemned them, or spoken less favourably of them than unprejudiced individuals. Hence it is that connoisseurs will frequently be found to approach nearer the truth, in forming their estimate, than artists; the former adopt the impartial feelings of the public, while the latter allow themselves to be influenced by motives of envy or of prejudice. Innumerable similar disputes are still maintained concerning several artists, who, like different kinds of aliment, are found to be disagreeable or grateful to different palates. To hold the happy mean, exempted from all party spirit, is as impossible as to reconcile the opinions of mankind, which are as multifarious as are the individuals of the species.