it does not matter what
actual rate of division we assume, for the mere object of comparison
with other modes of employing the money; but let us say these L5000 are
divided among five hundred persons, giving on an average L10 to each.
And let us suppose these L10 to be a fortnight's maintenance to each.
Then, to maintain them through the year, twenty-five such books must be
published; or to keep certainly within the mark of the probable cost of
our autumnal gift-books, suppose L100,000 are spent by the public, with
resultant supply of 100,000 households with one illustrated book, of
second or third-rate quality each (there being twenty different books
thus supplied), and resultant maintenance of five hundred persons for
the year, at severe work of a second or third-rate order, mostly
mechanical.

94. Now, if the mind of the nation, instead of private, be set on public
work, there is of course no expense incurred for multiplication, or
mechanical copying of any kind, or for retail dealing. The L5000,
instead of being given for five thousand _copies_ of the work, and
divided among five hundred persons, are given for one original work, and
given to one person. This one person will of course employ assistants;
but these will be chosen by himself, and will form a superior class of
men, out of whom the future leading artists of the time will rise in
succession. The broad difference will therefore be, that, in the one
case, L5000 are divided among five hundred persons of different classes,
doing second-rate or wholly mechanical work; and in the other case, the
same sum is divided among a few chosen persons of the best material of
mind producible by the state at the given epoch. It may seem an unfair
assumption that work for the public will be more honestly and earnestly
done than that for private possession. But every motive that can touch
either conscience or ambition is brought to bear upon the artist who is
employed on a public service, and only a few such motives in other modes
of occupation. The greater permanence, scale, dignity of office, and
fuller display of Art in a National building, combine to call forth the
energies of the artist; and if a man will not do his best under such
circumstances, there is no "best" in him.

95. It might also at first seem an unwarrantable assumption that fewer
persons would be employed in the private than in the national work,
since, at least in architecture, quite as many subordinate