Richard Payne, author of an essay on the Principles of Taste, and a distinguished patron of art and learning in England, was born at Wormsley Grange, in Hereford, in 1750. From an early age he devoted himself to the study of Greek literature and antiquities. On his father's death he succeeded to a princely fortune, of which he devoted a large proportion to the purchase of antiques, especially Greek coins and bronzes. He continued collecting till his death, in 1824, and bequeathed his magnificent cabinet (valued at £50,000) to the British Museum. Of his numerous works, the most generally interesting is his Analytical Inquiry into the Principles of Taste, which, though severely reviewed by the periodical press, and especially by the Edinburgh Review, passed through several editions. He maintained that the most important, and indeed, the only considerable part of beauty, depended upon association, though he insisted that there is a beauty independent of association, prior to it and more original and fundamental—the primitive and natural beauty of colours and sounds. (See art. BEAUTY.) His other works were—An Account of the Remains of the Worship of Priapus lately existing at Isernia, in the Kingdom of Naples; an Knights. Analytical Essay on the Greek Alphabet, 4to, Lond. 1791; and three poems, The Landscape, 1794; The Progress of Civil Society, 1796; and the Romance of Alfred, in 1823. He also contributed to the Edinburgh and other reviews. His prose works all exhibit learning and acuteness, which, if bestowed on subjects other than whims and hobbies, might have made him a lasting name among the scholars of Great Britain. His poems have not the slightest shadow of a claim to that title. There was probably no kind of composition for which their author was not better fitted than poetry.