he 'men of the schools' with regard to their conception of
art, their definition of the Beautiful. Erudite as they may be, their
response to our question is scarcely more satisfactory. The Beautiful,
in their estimation, is but the realization of _known rules_, fixed and
sanctioned by long usage. Such men are the connoisseurs in art, the
students of manuals, who are familiar with all the acknowledged _chefs
d'oeuvre_, and all the possible resources of art; they have traced for
genius itself the path in which it must walk, and will accept none as
true artists who wander from it. They are not ashamed to take a poet
such as Shakespeare, to compare his wonderful creations with the rules
they have acquired with so much labor, and, seeking in his living dramas
only the application of the principles with which _they_ are familiar,
scruple not to condemn the immortal works of the greatest of all
uninspired writers. Madame de Stael truly says: 'Those who believe
themselves qualified to pronounce sentence upon the Beautiful, have more
vanity than those who believe they possess genius.' Taste in the fine
arts, like fashion in society, is indeed considered as a proof of
_haut-ton_, a claim to fashionable and personal distinction.
Should a man of the most cultivated mind and soul, venture to pronounce a
judgment upon the character of some great architectural work,
without being versed in the terms and technics of scientific
architecture--remark with what profound contempt his opinion on its
effect will be received by the pompous men of the schools! Or, let him
venture to take pleasure in a musical composition not approved by the
musical savants, in which they have detected various crimes against the
laws of harmony, the fixed rules of counter point--and behold the men of
the schools, how they will shrug their classic shoulders in contempt at
his name and besotted ignorance! Or, should he venture to delight in the
original and naive lyrics of some untaught bard of nature, without being
able to justify his admiration by learned citations from Virgil and
Horace, to say nothing of the categories of Aristotle--he is considered
as an ignoramus, who might possibly impose upon those ignorant as
himself, but who should at least have the modesty to yield up at once
his opinion to the conclusive decisions of the great literary pundits!
In vain may he assert that such and such a passage is touching and
noble; in vain, may he say it has appealed t