of
evil, or even into delight in it. He gathers what he can of instruction
by questioning and prying among half-informed masters; spells out some
knowledge of classical fable; educates himself, by an admirable force, to
the production of wildly majestic or pathetically tender and pure
pictures, by which he cannot live. There is no one to judge them, or to
command him: only some of the English upper classes hire him to paint
their houses and parks, and destroy the drawings afterwards by the most
wanton neglect. Tired of laboring carefully, without either reward or
praise, he dashes out into various experimental and popular works--makes
himself the servant of the lower public, and is dragged hither and
thither at their will; while yet, helpless and guideless, he indulges his
idiosyncrasies till they change into insanities; the strength of his soul
increasing its sufferings, and giving force to its errors; all the
purpose of life degenerating into instinct; and the web of his work
wrought, at last, of beauties too subtle to be understood, his liberty,
with vices too singular to be forgiven--all useless, because magnificent
idiosyncrasy had become solitude, or contention, in the midst of a
reckless populace, instead of submitting itself in loyal harmony to the
Art-laws of an understanding nation. And the life passed away in
darkness; and its final work, in all the best beauty of it, has already
perished, only enough remaining to teach us what we have lost.

159. These are the opposite effects of Law and of Liberty on men of the
highest powers. In the case of inferiors the contrast is still more
fatal: under strict law, they become the subordinate workers in great
schools, healthily aiding, echoing, or supplying, with multitudinous
force of hand, the mind of the leading masters: they are the nameless
carvers of great architecture--stainers of glass--hammerers of iron--
helpful scholars, whose work ranks round, if not with, their master's,
and never disgraces it. But the inferiors under a system of license
for the most part perish in miserable effort;* a few struggle into
pernicious eminence--harmful alike to themselves and to all who admire
them; many die of starvation; many insane, either in weakness of insolent
egotism, like Haydon, or in a conscientious agony of beautiful purpose
and warped power, like Blake. There is no probability of the persistence
of a licentious school in any good accidentally discovered by th