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12 "They may be," says the reviewer, "at least more impartial judges of nature than her professed imitators." Granting the truth of this very paradoxical sentiment; we are then to understand that the judgment and advice of the connoisseurs expressed to the artists, will tend to the correction of those errors to which these latter are blind. But is the advice and judgment of such connoisseur, changed by his belonging to the Academy? Will not his advice be as valuable out of the Academy as in it? I must leave to the good sense of the reader, who takes any interest in this discussion, the pursuit of the other errors of the reviewer, having the same unfortunate source with those already considered. I should regret if any thing I have said, in defence of our Academy against an attack from so respectable a quarter, should be construed into the slightest disrespect towards the genuine connoisseur; he is a character as highly to be respected, as he is rarely to be found. Neither do I attack any other institution; if there are any which have, by a misnomer, been called Academies of Arts, it is unfortunate. The Artists have called their Society by the name which has ever been applied to the purposes for which they are associated, and if deceived, by a mere similarity of name, the Reviewer has found the Artists by themselves, in a separate society, and believes from that circumstance, that they are opposed to associations of gentlemen for the encouragement of the Arts, I will venture to say he has mistaken their views. For my own part, I wish all success to every well directed effort to encourage the Arts; but I do profess to claim for my brother Artists the ability to manage an Institution, which, like all other institutions of the name and character in the civilized world, is exclusively under the direction of Artists. Having discussed the nature of an Academy of Arts, I will now consider the second point to which the Reviewer objects, viz. my sentiments on the subject of purchasing old pictures. In the note appended to the discourse, (and which contains all that I say on the subject,) I warn the public against the danger