(1) How careful is Sir Joshua, even in a parenthesis, to insinuate the
obligations of this great genius to others, as if he would have been
nothing without them.
(2) If Sir Joshua had an offer to exchange a Luca Giordano in his
collection for a Claude Lorraine, he would not have hesitated long about
the preference.
(3) Written in 1788.
(4) Gainsborough.
(5) Sir Joshua himself wanted academic skill and patience In the details
of his profession. From these defects he seems to have been alternately
repelled by each theory and style of art, the simply natural and
elaborately scientific, as it came before him; and in his impatience of
each, to have been betrayed into a tissue of inconsistencies somewhat
difficult to unravel.
(6) He had been before speaking of Boucher, Director of the French
Academy, who told him that 'when he was young, studying his art, he
found it necessary to use models, but that he had left them off for many
years.'