njurious to
our schools; but which is nevertheless in a great degree earnest and
conscientious, and far from being influenced chiefly by motives of
ostentation. Most of our rich men would be glad to promote the true
interests of art in this country: and even those who buy for vanity,
found their vanity on the possession of what they suppose to be best.

It is therefore in a great measure the fault of artists themselves if
they suffer from this partly unintelligent, but thoroughly
well-intended, patronage. If they seek to attract it by eccentricity, to
deceive it by superficial qualities, or take advantage of it by
thoughtless and facile production, they necessarily degrade themselves
and it together, and have no right to complain afterwards that it will
not acknowledge better-grounded claims. But if every painter of real
power would do only what he knew to be worthy of himself, and refuse to
be involved in the contention for undeserved or accidental success,
there is indeed, whatever may have been thought or said to the contrary,
true instinct enough in the public mind to follow such firm guidance. It
is one of the facts which the experience of thirty years enables me to
assert without qualification, that a really good picture is ultimately
always approved and bought, unless it is wilfully rendered offensive to
the public by faults which the artist has been either too proud to
abandon or too weak to correct.

8. The development of whatever is healthful and serviceable in the two
modes of impulse which we have been considering, depends however,
ultimately, on the direction taken by the true interest in art which has
lately been aroused by the great and active genius of many of our
living, or but lately lost, painters, sculptors, and architects. It may
perhaps surprise, but I think it will please you to hear me, or (if you
will forgive me, in my own Oxford, the presumption of fancying that some
may recognise me by an old name) to hear the author of "Modern Painters"
say, that his chief error in earlier days was not in over estimating,
but in too slightly acknowledging the merit of living men. The great
painter whose power, while he was yet among us, I was able to perceive,
was the first to reprove me for my disregard of the skill of his
fellow-artists; and, with this inauguration of the study of the art of
all time,--a study which can only by true modesty end in wise
admiration,--it is surely well that I connect the re