Excerpt from Notes on Some of the Principal Pictures Exhibited in the Rooms of the Royal Academy 1875 But Fortune has so sternly reversed her wheel during these recent years, that I am more likely now to be accused of malice than of equity; and I am therefore at the pains to beg the honest reader to believe, that, having perhaps as much pleasure as other people, both in backing my friends, and fronting my enemies, I have never used, and shall never use, my power of criticism to such end; but that I write now, and have always written, so far as I am able, what may show that there is a fixed criterion of separation between right art and wrong; that no Opinion, no time, and no circumstances can ever in one jot change this relation of their Good and Evil; and that it would be pleasant for the British public to recognize the one, and wise in them to eschew the other. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.