Faith, Homer, and Shakspeare; and from these we may
go down step by step among the mighty men of every age, securely and
certainly observant of diminished lustre in every appearance of
restlessness and effort, until the last trace of true inspiration
vanishes in the tottering affectations or the tortured insanities of
modern times. There is no art, no pursuit, whatsoever, but its results
may be classed by this test alone; everything of evil is betrayed and
winnowed away by it, glitter and confusion and glare of color,
inconsistency or absence of thought, forced expression, evil choice of
subject, over accumulation of materials, whether in painting or
literature, the shallow and unreflecting nothingness of the English
schools of art, the strained and disgusting horrors of the French, the
distorted feverishness of the German:--pretence, over decoration, over
division of parts in architecture, and again in music, in acting, in
dancing, in whatsoever art, great or mean, there are yet degrees of
greatness or meanness entirely dependent on this single quality of
repose.

Sec. 6. Instances in the Laocoon and Theseus.

Particular instances are at present both needless and cannot but be
inadequate; needless, because I suppose that every reader, however
limited his experience of art, can supply many for himself, and
inadequate, because no number of them could illustrate the full extent
of the influence of the expression. I believe, however, that by
comparing the disgusting convulsions of the Laocoon, with the Elgin
Theseus, we may obtain a general idea of the effect of the influence, as
shown by its absence in one, and presence in the other, of two works
which, as far as artistical merit is concerned, are in some measure
parallel, not that I believe, even in this respect, the Laocoon
justifiably comparable with the Theseus. I suppose that no group has
exercised so pernicious an influence on art as this, a subject ill
chosen, meanly conceived and unnaturally treated, recommended to
imitation by subtleties of execution and accumulation of technical
knowledge.[24]

Sec. 7. And in altar tombs.

In Christian art, it would be well to compare the feeling of the finer
among the altar tombs of the middle ages, with any monumental works
after Michael Angelo, perhaps more especially with works of Roubilliac
or Canova.

In the Cathedral of Lucca, near the entrance door of the north transept,
there is a monument of Jacopo della Qu