The PREFACE.
bras is not to be included under it. It would be a piece of foolish fondness to purchase at a great expence, or preserve with a particular care, the unfinished works of every tolerable painter; and yet it is esteemed a mark of fine taste to procure, at almost any price, the rough sketches and half-form'd designs of a Raphael, a Rembrandt, or any celebrated master. If the elegant remains of a Greek or Roman statuary, though maimed and defective, are thought worthy of a place in the cabinets of the polite admirers of antiquity; and the learned world thinks it self obliged to laborious critics for handing down to us the half intelligible scraps of an antient Classic; no reason can, I think, be assigned, why a Genius of more modern date should not be entitled to the same privilege, except we will absurdly and enthusiastically fancy, that time gives a value to wri-tings,
