Of Refinement in the Arts (1777) [ Concepts ]
… nations. They flock into cities; love to receive and communicate knowledge; to show their wit or their breeding; their taste in conversation or living, in clothes or furniture. Curiosity allures the wise; vanity the foolish; and pleasure … ascribe the ruin of their state to the arts and riches imported from the East: Insomuch that Sallust represents a taste for painting as a vice, no less than lewdness and drinking. And so popular were these sentiments, during the later … elegant writer in the world; nay, employs preposterous digressions and declamations to this purpose, though a model of taste and correctness. But it would be easy to prove, that these writers mistook the cause of the disorders in …
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Anthology