Although the originators of the great Art
Exhibition cannot have been disappointed
at the general results of their scheme, it is
notorious that the hope of its attracting
the humbler classes in sufficient numbers to
occasion a great impulse to their sluggish
appreciation of the Fine Arts, has nearly
failed. The working man has not come forward
eagerly, neither with his shilling, nor
with that glow of enthusiasm for the thing
of beauty, which, it was promised him, would
be a joy for ever. Even when he has been
admitted gratis, the attractions of Knott-Mill
Fair and Belle Vue Gardens have beaten the
Art Treasures hollow. Many of the large
manufacturers in the north- to their honour
be it spoken- paid, not only the admission
fees, but the railway fares, for their work-
people and their families. One gentleman
gave each man, in addition, a neat little
manual of his own composition to guide him
to the subjects to be selected for especial
notice, from the gorgeous array of colour and
canvas. Another gentleman—a Sheffield
manufacturer—gave more material
provender. Having franked fourteen hundred
of his men and their relatives to the
Manchester Exhibition, he calculated that the
odd four hundred would, perhaps, after
a hasty glance, wander away, and not
present themselves at dinner time. He
therefore prudently ordered dinner in the
refreshment department of the building, for no more
than the remaining thousand. But, when the
hour of repast arrived, so far from there being
a remaining thousand, only two hundred had
stayed to dine. It was Whit Monday, and
other more congenial diversions, had
abstracted the great majority of his guests.

It is not difficult to perceive why the
Manchester Exhibition has not proved such a
powerful propaganda of Art as its promoters
predicted. The plain fact is, that a collection
of pictures of various  "schools" excites no
interest, and affords but little pleasure to the
uninstructed eye. The ancient way of
imitating nature at different epochs, or the
manner of copying her in various countries,
is, to the factory- worker or the farm-labourer,
simply unintelligible. The only school he
has the wit to recognise, is the school of
Nature; and that era or that nation in which
she is imitated with the greatest truth and
fervour presents the only school which his
unlearned taste can appreciate. The touch of the
Italian painter or of the Flemish painter, of
the German, French, or English painter,
offers to him no subject for discrimination.
It is the one touch of Nature which makes
the whole world kin. And even that touch
must be distinct: must appeal at once to his
comprehension. If he could pick out from
amidst a tangle of grotesque forms, in some
of the examples of early Christian art, one
of those faces which abound in them,
expressing with astonishing fidelity, suffering,
or adoration, or intense piety, no doubt even
his emotions would be excited. But he cannot.
He sees groups of figures in hard
and falsely-contrasted colours, with hands
like gloves, arms growing angularly out of
trunks like ill-grafted branches, and he looks
no longer and no further. Not having
the gift of connoisseurship, he would not
forgive what he knows to be gross departures
from real forms, in one part of a figure, for
the sake of the exquisite pathos and
vraisemblance which shines forth in another
part of it; supposing he could discover
them. Nor is he blessed with the power of
finding sources of inspiration in distorted
anatomy and distracting perspective. If he
were, he would probably leave the plough
and the loom and take to lecturing young
painters to imitate the defects, as a means
of emulating the genius, of the pre-Raphaelite
masters.

Precisely the same case holds with modern
pictures. The general public—especially the
humbler sections of it—being totally
uninformed on the subject of technicalities, take
not the faintest interest in it. They concern
themselves solely with results, and they refer
those results to the test of those objects and
scenes with which they are most familiar.
That picture delights them most, which most
vividly recalls familiar scenes or familiar
faces to their imagination.

Small blame, therefore, to the Lancashire folk
for not fulfilling the flattering predictions
respecting theiir supposed desire to be made
acquainted with Art. The gigantic Art Treasury
at Manchester can only be enjoyed by
persons who have habitually seen pictures, and
who have acquired a knowledgeof the painters
and of the subjects. These are few in number,
in every station of life. The experience
of the regular frequenter of the Manchester
galleries was, that the majority of the
well-dressed crowd gossiped and grouped
round the music, promenaded and looked at
and admired each other—, did everything, in
short, except examine the pictures. Those
who did vary their amusements by glancing
at the walls, were generally found studying
the portraits. The experience of the true
amateur was no less curious. Amongst the
lounging many, he scarcely could distinguish
the same face twice; but, after a few visits,
he got to know, by sight, the picture-loving
few, by meeting them frequently lingering,
as he lingered, at the most notable masterpieces.

To such visitors, their trip to the
Manchester Exhibition of Art-Treasures will
hereafter be remembered as an era in their
lives. It is scarcely possible that such an
assemblage of all they most desire to see,
can ever again be brought together. Certainly
no such collection will ever be better
arranged. The chronological was the only
plan, capable of evolving order out of chaos;
and great clearness was attained in this
object by Mr. Scharf the younger, who hung