THE delay occasioned by the want of punctuality in the several artists who had undertaken to etch, engrave, and colour the plates for this Volume*, *[This passage, of course, refers to the original edition. J. C. L.] has exposed me to anticipation in several parts of my work.-This is the case in Mr. Price's ingenious Essay on the Picturesque, which its author calls "a direct and undisguised attack on the art;" and which, in fact, is also a "caustic" satire upon the taste of the present century; and particularly on those gentlemen, who not having been so fortunate as to consider "drawing and painting" to be the first requisites in a polite education, have never been taught to refer each object of sight to its effect upon canvas. The attack on the Art itself, I have already answered in a Letter, which is here reprinted as a note.- That letter was written under the immediate impression of surprise, on my first perusing the work, of which I had not the most distant idea; or I should certainly have been more guarded in my conversations with its author, who has frequently adopted my ideas; and has, in some instances, robbed me of originality; particularly in that observation concerning the prevalence of lines in architecture; on which subject the Right Honourable Mr. Burke, in a letter to me, says, "I have no sort of doubt that you are in the right; your observation seems not more acute and ingenious than solid; and I believe it is quite new, at least I do not recollect to have seen it anywhere else: nor has it, in my thoughts on the subject, ever occurred to myself.
