every attempt
in this style has hitherto been the sign either of the presumptuous
egotism of persons who had never really learned to be workmen, or it has
been connected with very tragic forms of the contemplation of death,--it
has always been partly insane, and never once wholly successful.

But we need not feel any discomfort in these limitations of our
capacity. We can do much that others cannot, and more than we have ever
yet ourselves completely done. Our first great gift is in the
portraiture of living people--a power already so accomplished in both
Reynolds and Gainsborough that nothing is left for future masters but to
add the calm of perfect workmanship to their vigour and felicity of
perception. And of what value a true school of portraiture may become in
the future, when worthy men will desire only to be known, and others
will not fear to know them, for what they truly were, we cannot from
any past records of art influence yet conceive. But in my next address
it will be partly my endeavour to show you how much more useful, because
more humble, the labour of great masters might have been, had they been
content to bear record of the souls that were dwelling with them on
earth, instead of striving to give a deceptive glory to those they
dreamed of in heaven.

16. Secondly, we have an intense power of invention and expression in
domestic drama; (King Lear and Hamlet being essentially domestic in
their strongest motives of interest). There is a tendency at this moment
towards a noble development of our art in this direction, checked by
many adverse conditions, which may be summed in one,--the insufficiency
of generous civic or patriotic passion in the heart of the English
people; a fault which makes its domestic affection selfish, contracted,
and, therefore, frivolous.

17. Thirdly, in connection with our simplicity and good-humour, and
partly with that very love of the grotesque which debases our ideal, we
have a sympathy with the lower animals which is peculiarly our own; and
which, though it has already found some exquisite expression in the
works of Bewick and Landseer, is yet quite undeveloped. This sympathy,
with the aid of our now authoritative science of physiology, and in
association with our British love of adventure, will, I hope, enable us
to give to the future inhabitants of the globe an almost perfect record
of the present forms of animal life upon it, of which many are on the
point of being