and Italian landscapes, of which no words are
scornful enough to befit the utter degradation, hang in the Venetian
Academy in the next room to the Desert of Titian and the Paradise of
Tintoret.[6]

Sec. 8. The value of inferior works of art how to be estimated.

That then which I would have the reader inquire respecting every work of
art of undetermined merit submitted to his judgment, is not whether it
be a work of especial grandeur, importance, or power; but whether it
have _any_ virtue or substance as a link in this chain of truth, whether
it have recorded or interpreted anything before unknown, whether it have
added one single stone to our heaven-pointing pyramid, cut away one dark
bough, or levelled one rugged hillock in our path. This, if it be an
honest work of art, it must have done, for no man ever yet worked
honestly without giving some such help to his race. God appoints to
every one of his creatures a separate mission, and if they discharge it
honorably, if they quit themselves like men and faithfully follow that
light which is in them, withdrawing from it all cold and quenching
influence, there will assuredly come of it such burning as, in its
appointed mode and measure, shall shine before men, and be of service
constant and holy. Degrees infinite of lustre there must always be, but
the weakest among us has a gift, however seemingly trivial, which is
peculiar to him, and which worthily used will be a gift also to his
race forever--

"Fool not," says George Herbert,

"For all may have,
If they dare choose, a glorious life or grave."

If, on the contrary, there be nothing of this freshness achieved, if
there be neither purpose nor fidelity in what is done, if it be an
envious or powerless imitation of other men's labors, if it be a display
of mere manual dexterity or curious manufacture, or if in any other mode
it show itself as having its origin in vanity,--Cast it out. It matters
not what powers of mind may have been concerned or corrupted in it, all
have lost their savor, it is worse than worthless;--perilous--Cast it
out.

Works of art are indeed always of mixed kind, their honesty being more
or less corrupted by the various weaknesses of the painter, by his
vanity, his idleness, or his cowardice; (the fear of doing right has far
more influence on art than is commonly thought,) that only is altogether
to be rejected which is altogether vain, idle, and co