to rank with the more remote. "What!
Compare a Reynolds or a Gainsborough
with a Murillo or a Titian! Is it possible
that you can see the works of both schools,
hanging side by side, and not detect at a
glance the inferiority of the modern to the
old? Have you eyes? Can you, after
feasting on Murillo, derive any satisfaction
whatever from a contemplation of the old
lady with the green umbrella, whose portrait
hangs in the opposite corner? Almost as
well admire those Leslies in the next room,
and own yourself a Vandal at once."

"Those Leslies"! How lightly esteemed
by the knowers, yet how full of beauties
peculiar to themselves, and of merits belonging
exclusively to the modern time!

There are some opinions on subjects of
the day which spread among us like an
infectious disease. These opinions issue for
the most part from certain circles in London,
which set the fashion in matters of
taste, just as Brummel or D'Orsay did once
in connexion with dress and personal decoration.
It is the custom of these virtuosi to
form themselves into a little committee, and
to sit in judgment upon all works of art,
pictorial, literary, musical, or dramatic:
pronouncing, after due deliberation, a
verdict which the rest of "the world," always
glad to get hold of ready-made opinions, is
very willing to accept. The verdict of these
taste-arbitrators has gone against the
pictures, by Leslie and Stanfield, exhibited,
among the old masters, on the Academy
walls. They are said to suffer to a pitiable
extent by comparison with the works in the
midst of which they are placed, and are
accused of appearing raw, crude, and flimsy,
by contrast. But, surely, on a little
consideration, it might appear plain that there
is abundant room for appeal against this
verdict. The principal charge against these
pictures is that they are deficient in that
uniformity and harmony of general tint
which characterises the old masters; but
does not this simply amount to an accusation
that they are without what it is simply
impossible that they could yet have got—that
general softness and unity of tone, which
nothing but the lapse of time can bestow?
The effect of time in bringing together the
different parts of a picture, and in blending
them into a homogeneous mass, is
powerful and unmistakable. It does not
seem too much to say that if, by means
of some unknown scientific process, the
effect brought about by the lapse of two or
three centuries could be produced in as
many hours, and some modern pictures
could be subjected to it, they would present
the very same mellow and harmonious aspect
which we admire so much in the works of
the older painters; while if, on the other
hand, those very pictures by old masters
could be put through an exactly inverse
process, and deprived of all that they have
gained by lapse of time, and seen as they
came fresh from the easel, they would be
denounced for possessing that very rawness
and discordancy against which fierce exception
is taken.

Such objectors most frequently give
their judgments to the world, not through
the medium of printers' ink and paper,
but viva voce, by means of Talk. There
is a large class in this town of these knowing
Talkers. They hold forth at dinner-
tables; they sicken the soul at Private
Views, and other art assemblies; and they
not unfrequently treat the Doers with pitying
condescension. "You have a certain
amount of mechanical skill;" thus the
Talkers hold forth to the Doers; "you have
a knack of representing what you see
before you; you can turn out a picture
painted with considerable dexterity, and
can get a large sum of money for it; but
you are grossly ignorant of your profession
in all but its business aspect. You know
nothing of the history of art, nothing of
the distinguishing characteristics of the
different schools; the refinements of colouring
and of handling exhibited in the works
of the 'masters' are a dead letter to you.
From you, the Doer, these things are
hidden; but to me, the Talker, they are
revealed. Do not, therefore, expect me to
pay any deference to your Doings, which
are merely the result of knack; but, on the
contrary, do you defer humbly to my
Talkings: which emanate from an amount
of art knowledge, art perception, and art
theory, of which you have not so much
as an inkling."

But the strangest thing is, that this
tendency to treat of modern art as of a thing
in the lowest condition of decadence is not
entirely confined to the amateur critic, but
is sometimes participated in by the artist
himself. There are artists, as well as
amateurs, who talk in this despondent tone.
"What is the use," say they, "of anything
that we can do? We can never approach
those master-pieces produced by the great
men of former times. This is not an age
whose natural way of expressing itself is
through the medium of art. It is not the
thing of the day, as it was once."

Such reasoning as this—if such weak