In order to render this subject as plain as possible, it may be advisable to commence by endeavouring to point out what a fine art is. A fine art may he said to be a creation, or composition, intended, through the eye or the ear, to please the mind. Its two essential qualities are to create and to please; the work produced must be a creation of the artist, and must be acknowledged as such, otherwise it would be no work of art; and it must excite pleasing emotions, otherwise it would be no fine art, no art of imagination, of beauty, or of taste. If this chain of reasoning be correct, and the conclusion is fairly derived from the premises, the fundamental principles of the fine arts would appear to he two; appearance of art and mental excitability. We shall endeavour to develope these principles a little more in detail.