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obstacles to this progress. The peculiar difficulties that beset them, are in themselves, and therefore within their control. They live in an age unpropitious to the development of that high enthusiasm, which produces the greatest works of art, but, nevertheless, 'the fault is not in their stars, but in themselves, if they are underlings. Great minds may resist even the pressure of the age; nay, to resist it, requires only a steady pursuit of acknowledged principles. If the artist will not be seduced by examples, which he cannot approve: if he will disregard the fashion of the day and the practice of his contemporaries; if he will confine himself to his profession, and so avoid the seductions of society, which would lead him away from the contemplation of nature, he may still redeem this reputation of his age and country, and place himself in as high an eminence, as he could have reached, if he had lived in the most fashionable period. That this can be

Transcription Notes:
Weird ground with the first word because it is a continuation of a word from another page so we do not have the whole word. Truncated word made 'whole' on previous page.