picture.  Nobody dared to whisper that the
Art of painting had, in anywise been
improved or worthily enlarged in its sphere by
any modern professors; for one nobleman
who was ready to buy one genuine, modern
picture at a small price, there were twenty
noblemen ready to buy twenty more than
doubtful old pictures at great prices.  The
consequence was, that some of the most famous
artists of the English school, whose pictures
are now bought at auction sales for fabulous
prices, were then hardly able to make an
income.  They were a scrupulously patient and
squeamishly conscientious body of men, who
would as soon have thought of breaking into
a house, or equalising the distribution of
wealth, on the highway, by the simple
machinery of a horse and pistol, as of making
Old Masters to order.  They sat resignedly
in their lonely studios, surrounded by unsold
pictures which have since been covered again
and again with gold and bank-notes by eager
buyers at auctions and show-rooms, whose
money has gone into other than the painter's
pockets: who have never dreamed that the
painter, had the smallest moral right to a
farthing of it.  Year after year, they still stood
up invincibly, palette in hand, fighting the old
invariable battle of individual merit against
contemporary dulness—fighting bravely,
patiently, independently; and leaving to Mr.
Pickup and his pupils a complete monopoly
of all the profit which could be extracted, in
their line of business, from the feebly-buttoned
pocket of the patron, and the inexhaustible
credulity of the connoisseur.

Now all this is changed.  Traders and
makers of all kinds of commodities have
effected a revolution in the picture-world, never
dreamt of by the noblemen and gentlemen of
ancient lineage, and consistently protested
against to this day by the very few of them
who still remain alive.  The daring innovators
started with the new notion of buying a
picture which they themselves could admire and
appreciate, and for the genuineness of which
the artist was still living to vouch.  These
rough and ready customers were not to be
led by rules or frightened by precedents.
They were not to be easily imposed upon,
for the article they wanted was not to be
easily counterfeited.  Sturdily holding to their
own opinions, they thought incessant repetitions
of Saints, Martyrs, and Holy Families,
monotonous and uninteresting,—and said so.
They thought little pictures of ugly Dutchwomen
scouring pots, and drunken Dutchmen
playing cards, dirty and dear at the price
—and said so.  They saw that trees were
green in nature, and brown in the Old Masters,
and they thought the latter colour not an
improvement on the former—and said so. They
wanted interesting subjects; variety, resemblance
to nature; genuineness of the article,
and fresh paint; they had no ancestors whose
feelings, as founders of galleries, it was necessary
to consult; no critical gentlemen and
writers of valuable works to snub them
when they were in spirits; nothing to lead
them by the nose but their own shrewdness,
their own interests, and their own tastes—so
they turned their backs valiantly on the Old
Masters, and marched off in a body to the
living men.  From that time good modern
pictures have risen in the scale; even as
articles of commerce and safe investments
for money, they have now (as some disinterested
collectors who dine at certain annual
dinners I know of, can testify) distanced the
old pictures in the race.  The modern painters
who have survived the brunt of the battle,
have lived to see pictures for which
they once asked hundreds, selling for
thousands, and the young generation making
incomes by the brush in one year, which
it would have cost the old heroes of the
easel ten to accumulate.  The posterity
of Mr. Pickup still do a tolerable stroke
of business (making bright, modern masters
for the market which is glutted with the
dingy old material) and will, probably,
continue to thrive and multiply in the future:
the one venerable institution of this world
which we can safely count upon as likely to
last, being the institution of human folly.
Nevertheless, if a wise man of the reformed
taste wants a modern picture, there are
places for him to go to now where he may
be sure of getting it genuine; where, if the
artist is not alive to vouch for his work,
the facts at any rate have not had time to
die which vouch for the dealer who sells it.
In my time matters were rather different.  The
painters we throve by had died long enough
ago for pedigrees to get confused, and
identities disputable; and if I had been desirous
of really purchasing a genuine Old Master
for myself—speaking as a practical man—I
don't know where I should have gone to ask
for one, or whose judgment I could have
safely relied on to guard me from being
cheated, before I bought it.

But while I am tracing (in outline) the progress
of the wonderful Art-revolution of these
modern times, I am forgetting the calm and
corrupt days of old, and leaving myself
unnoticed in Mr. Ishmael Pickup's Gallery of
Art.  Let me resume the unrolling of the
various folds of my narrative—let the Rogue
return to the business of roguery.

I was left for some time alone in the
manufactory of Old Masters before my friend
rejoined me.  When he at last opened
the door of the gallery, he approached me
confidentially, and spoke in a mysterious
whisper.

"Pickup is suspicious,"  said he;  "and I
have had all the difficulty in the world to
pave your way smoothly for you at the
outset.  However, if you can contrive to make
a small Rembrandt, as a specimen, you may
consider yourself employed here until further
notice.  I am obliged to particularise
Rembrandt, because he is the only Old Master