hair-dressers, and tailors, in their various schools of deformity.

However the mechanic and ornamental arts may sacrifice to fashion, she
must be entirely excluded from the art of painting; the painter must
never mistake this capricious changeling for the genuine offspring of
nature; he must divest himself of all prejudices in favour of his age or
country; he must disregard all local and temporary ornaments, and look
only on those general habits that are everywhere and always the same. He
addresses his works to the people of every country and every age; he
calls upon posterity to be his spectators, and says with Zeuxis, _In
aeternitatem pingo_.

The neglect of separating modern fashions from the habits of nature,
leads to that ridiculous style which has been practised by some painters
who have given to Grecian heroes the airs and graces practised in the
court of Louis XIV.; an absurdity almost as great as it would have been
to have dressed them after the fashion of that court.

To avoid this error, however, and to retain the true simplicity of
nature, is a task more difficult than at first sight it may appear. The
prejudices in favour of the fashions and customs that we have been used
to, and which are justly called a second nature, make it too often
difficult to distinguish that which is natural from that which is the
result of education; they frequently even give a predilection in favour
of the artificial mode; and almost every one is apt to be guided by those
local prejudices who has not chastised his mind, and regulated the
instability of his affections, by the eternal invariable idea of nature.

Here, then, as before, we must have recourse to the ancients as
instructors. It is from a careful study of their works that you will be