him puzzled by the epithet "silver," as applied to the
orange blossom,--evidently never having seen anything silvery about an
orange in his life, except a spoon. Nay, he leaves us not to conjecture
his calibre from internal evidence; he candidly tells us (Oct. 1842)
that he has been studying trees only for the last week, and bases his
critical remarks chiefly on his practical experience of birch. More
disinterested than our friend Sancho, he would disenchant the public
from the magic of Turner by virtue of his own flagellation;
Xanthias-like, he would rob his master of immortality by his own powers
of endurance. What is Christopher North about? Does he receive his
critiques from Eaton or Harrow--based on the experience of a week's
birds'-nesting and its consequences? How low must art and its interests
sink, when the public mind is inadequate to the detection of this
effrontery of incapacity! In all kindness to Maga, we warn her, that,
though the nature of this work precludes us from devoting space to the
exposure, there may come a time when the public shall be themselves able
to distinguish ribaldry from reasoning, and may require some better and
higher qualifications in their critics of art, than the experience of a
school-boy, and the capacities of a buffoon.

It is not, however, merely to vindicate the reputation of those whom
writers like these defame, which would but be to anticipate by a few
years the natural and inevitable reaction of the public mind, that I am
devoting years of labor to the development of the principles on which
the great productions of recent art are based. I have a higher end in
view--one which may, I think, justify me, not only in the sacrifice of
my own time, but in calling on my readers to follow me through an
investigation far more laborious than could be adequately rewarded by
mere insight into the merits of a particular master, or the spirit of a
particular age.

It is a question which, in spite of the claims of Painting to be
called the Sister of Poetry, appears to me to admit of considerable
doubt, whether art has ever, except in its earliest and rudest stages,
possessed anything like efficient moral influence on mankind. Better the
state of Rome when "magnorum artificum frangebat pocula miles, ut
phaleris gauderet equus," than when her walls flashed with the marble
and the gold, "nec cessabat luxuria id agere, ut quam plurimum incendiis
perdat." Better the state of religion in Italy