ame on the door, and we will make a pet of you at once, and pat you
encouragingly on the back. You shall have little paragraphs of this
kind: "Salvator Smith is studying atmospheric effects in the Brooklyn
Mountains"; or, "Smith, our own Salvator, is making studies from nature
near Roxbury"; or, "He has a grand classical picture on his easel in
Green Street, representing a celebrated American in the character of the
infant Hercules, strangling the British lion with one hand and the
Gallic cock with the other." Few of our readers may have heard of Smith,
but they read these iterated notices, and soon believe Smith to be
somebody. And he has the sweet sensation of seeing his name in print at
no expense to himself, and the rare luck of fame before it is earned. In
the circle he adorns he will be looked upon as a judge in all matters
aesthetical. It is only necessary to have painted a poor picture in order
to be an authority in architecture, music, poetry, dress, decoration,
furniture, private theatricals, and fancy balls.

At this moment the fashionable world is an oyster, which with his
spatula an artist may open. A picture mania rages. Good works bring
enormous prices, and any discoloration of canvas in a gilt frame finds a
ready purchaser, if signed by a known name. We are a commercial people,
and are satisfied with a first-rate indorsement. The patron of art can
soon educate himself for the position. The pet little phrases--"chalky,"
"sketchy," "tone," "repose," "opaque coloring," and all the rest of the
technical vocabulary--are soon learned; and then if Lorenzo is able and
willing to give ten thousand dollars for a picture, he may hold a court
of artists and be sure of having a number of pleasant fellows about him.
They, too, will be sure of champagne and oysters. All the schools,
however different their theories of art may be, agree, I believe, that
both of these compositions are excellent.

Lastly, I should like to say a few words in favor of my own noble
profession, newspaper editing. Mr. Carlyle may spitefully call it "the
California of the spiritually vagabond," but there is a proud pleasure
in knowing that we gentlemen of the press furnish the great American
people with their ideas and their phrases ready made, just as Brooks
Brothers and Oak Hall provide them with their clothes. All very much
alike, it is true,--"our spring style,"--and often ill-fitting and
graceless; but we seem to fill a national want. Our