Richard Payne Knight ‎(‎1751‎-1824‎)‎ was a distinguished connoisseur and critic who played a very significant role in the cultural life of his day‎.‎ This study traces for the first time the way in which Knight‎'‎s thought worked across the whole range of his interests‎,‎ piecing together a coherent philosophical position‎,‎ based on the sensibly regulated pursuit of pleasure‎,‎ which‎,‎ as the nineteenth century advanced‎,‎ was increasingly out of step with the tenor of the times‎.‎ Knight‎'‎s ideas were given concrete expression in his writings and verses‎,‎ of which his Analytic Inquiry into the Principles of Taste was the most influential‎.‎ The study shows how Knight‎'‎s ideas mesh together with each other and how‎,‎ when seen against the background of the culture of the day‎,‎ landscape and architecture can take on potent and even inflammatory meaning‎.‎