e great expenses which attend the study of Art and the
production of its wonders, are often guilty of most undesigned
cruelty, and do things which it would grieve their hearts to have
done, if they only knew the facts. They have read essays on the uses
of adversity in developing genius, and they are not sufficiently
afraid to administer a dose of adversity beyond what the forces of
the patient can bear. Laudanum in drops is useful as a medicine, but a
cupful kills downright.

Beside this romantic idea about letting artists suffer to develop
their genius, the American Maecenas is not sufficiently aware of
the expenses attendant on producing the work he wants. He does not
consider that the painter, the sculptor, must be paid for the time
he spends in designing and moulding, no less than in painting and
carving; that he must have his bread and sleeping-house, his workhouse
or studio, his marbles and colors,--the sculptor his workmen; so that
if the price be paid he asks, a modest and delicate man very commonly
receives _no_ guerdon for his thought,--the real essence of the
work,--except the luxury of seeing it embodied, which he could not
otherwise have afforded, The American Maecenas often pushes the price
down, not from want of generosity, but from a habit of making what are
called good bargains,--i.e. bargains for one's own advantage at the
expense of a poorer brother. Those who call these good do not believe
that

"Mankind is one,
And beats with one great heart."

They have not read the life of Jesus Christ.

Then the American Maecenas sometimes, after ordering a work, has been
known to change his mind when the statue is already modelled. It is
the American who does these things, because an American, who either
from taste or vanity buys a picture, is often quite uneducated as to
the arts, and cannot understand why a little picture or figure costs
so much money. The Englishman or Frenchman, of a suitable position to
seek these adornments for his house, usually understands better than
the visitor of Powers who, on hearing the price of the Proserpine,
wonderingly asked, "Isn't statuary riz lately?" Queen Victoria of
England, and her Albert, it is said, use their royal privilege to get
works of art at a price below their value; but their subjects would be
ashamed to do so.

To supply means of judging to the American merchant (full of kindness
and honorable sympathy as beneath the crust he so ofte