I know several who admire and love painting, and yet who regard the objects of their admiration in that art with coolness enough in comparison of that warmth with which they are animated by affecting pieces of poetry or rhetoric.

Among the common sort of people, I never could perceive that painting had much influence on their passions.

It is true that the best sorts of painting, as well as the best sorts of poetry, are not much understood in that sphere.

But it is most certain that their passions are very strongly roused by a fanatic preacher, or by the ballads of Chevy Chase, or the Children in the Wood, and by other little popular poems and tales that are current in that rank of life.

I do not know of any paintings, bad or good, that produce the same effect.