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may before the project of popular education, service and the useful arts. It may be, that when the great work about which the world is now occupied, is accomplished, a new school of art of proportional grandeur, may arise; but we fear that its best days are past. We cannot but rejoice at this progress of society: still we must wish, that this good it brings might be purchased without so great a sacrifice. We could not withhold the light of knowledge, for fear it should dissipate the most poetical phantom of the imagination; but we may be allowed to look back on their old haunts, laid open to the vulgar day, with some feeling of regret.

This influence of the age may be doubted, because the disposition to encourage the arts seem still to remain unimpaired in the public. But its earliest effects must not be looked for there: the mind of the artist is its first victim. It chills his enthusiasm, and encourages him to [[page torn]] what perhaps he might

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