MR PRESIDENT, - In the last lecture I pointed out that in the exercise and display of the great excellencies of the fine arts each must depend upon and mutually assist the other; and that in a superior state of polished society the value of painting, sculpture, and architecture has at all times been duly appreciated, and each of those arts equally admired and cultivated. The artist who truly feels and appreciates the beauties of either of the arts of design must possess a competent taste for, and knowledge of, the others, although it cannot be expected from the shortness of life and the extent and difficulties of art that the mind of one man should be so comprehensive as to embrace and excel equally in the practice of all. This was not attained even by the great masters of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, yet many of them possessed that complete knowledge of the fine arts in general which must be seated in the same mind in order to attain such excellence as to command the admiration of posterity.

If the higher excellencies of art are felt by an enlightened public, taste and elegance soon become generally diffused. The light and elegant ornaments, the varied compartments in the ceilings of Mr Adam (imitated from the baths and villas of the Romans), were soon applied in designs for chairs, tables, carpets, and other species of furniture.

Manufacturers also of every kind felt, as it were, the electric power of this revolution in art. Our printed linens and paperhangings exhibited such specimens of decoration as the admirers of the Loggia of the Vatican might regard with satisfaction.

The taste for elegant forms thus kindled, the works of the Etruscans were not overlooked. The patriotic exertions of Mr Wedgwood, aided by the talents of Flaxman, Devaer, Webber and other distinguished young artists of that day, soon have a celebrity to the productions of modern Etruria, only surpassed by the labours of the ancient Etruscans.

The novelty and elegance of this manufacture was not confined to vases and other ornamental works. The spirit of refinement became general, and the whole of the pottery of Etruria was an assemblage of delicacy and elegant taste.