one with whose arrangements, after their selection, they should by no means interfere. And supposing the worst, that they have actually made an unfortunate choice – what then? They have made an experiment at no very great cost, and may obliterate whatever is a disgrace. The works of other painters were obliterated in the Sistine Chapel to make room for Michael Angelo. Nor was there any hesitation in destroying the labours of previous artists, and even the suspended operations of his old master, Perugino, that the whole space might be open to the genius of the youth Raffaelle. It is whole, entire responsibility that makes great men. Throw upon the persons you select the whole weight, and thereby give them the benefit of all the glory; and whatever be their powers, you tax them to the utmost. We would have them by no means interfered with, any more than we would cripple the commander of our armies abroad with the petty counsels and restrictions of bureau-manufacture. Nor should they be too strictly limited as to time, nor subjected to the continual questionings of an ungenerous impatience. Let the trust be conferred upon them as an honour which they are to wear and enjoy, not as a notice of their servility, but of their freedom. That trust is less likely to be abused the more generously it is given. To fulfil it then, becomes an ambition; and the daily habit of this higher feeling, by making the given work the all in all of life, renders the men more fit for it. Let the nation, expecting liberality from the "Liberal Arts," bestow it – hold out high rewards, leave the artists in all respects unshackled; and, the intention of a work being approved of, let not the time it is to occupy be in the stipulation. And it would be well to look to the promise of the young as well as actual performances; for the power to do will grow. Of thirty-eight competitors convened at Florence, Lorenzo Ghiberti, only twenty-three years of age, was chosen to execute the celebrated doors; the work occupied forty years of his life. The work is immortal, if human work can be; and obtained this eulogium from Michael Angelo, that "they were worthy of being the gates of Paradise." He conferred honour upon his city, and received such as was worthy the city to bestow. "His labours were justly appreciated, and ably rewarded by his fellow citizens, who, besides granting him whatever he demanded, assigned him a portion of land, and elected him Gonfaloniere, or chief magistrate of the state. His bust was afterwards placed in the baptistery." Was the confidence, the full trust, in the power of the young Raffaelle misplaced? What wonders did he not perform in his too short life! Had he lived longer, he would without question have reached the highest honours his country had to bestow.
One word more on this subject of generosity – of national generosity. We seem to think it a great thing to bestow a knighthood upon an artist of eminence here and there, yet give not the means of keeping the dignity from conspicuous shame, of maintaining a decent hospitality among his brethren artists, by which much general improvement might evidently arise. All our real substantial honours are conferred upon soldiers and lawyers. They have estates publicly given, and are raised to the peerage; yet it is doubtful if one man of genius, in literature and the arts, does not deserve better of his country, and confer upon it more glory, than any ten of the other more favoured professions: and more than this, the name of one such genius will be remembered, perhaps with some sense of the disgrace of neglect, when all the others are forgotten. Let a lawyer be but a short period of his life upon the woolsack, he will find means to raise to himself a fortune, and retire back upon private life with an annual pension of thousands; while the man of genius in arts and literature is too often left in old age uncheered by any acknowledgment, and perhaps weighed down to death by embarrassments, from which a delighted, improved, and at the same time an ungrateful country will not relieve him. A government should know that it is for the crown to honour a profession, and thereby to make it worthy the honour. We live in a country where distinctions do much, and are worse than profitless without adequate means to sustain them. It would be well if sometimes selections were made in other directions than the law and army, and if our peerage were not unfrequently radiated with the glory of genius. Why should a barren baronetcy have been conferred on the author of Waverley? Had he been a conqueror in fifty battles, could he have conferred more benefit than he has conferred upon his country? Why is it that there is always in our government a jealousy of literature and the arts? There has not been a decent honour bestowed on either since the reign of the unfortunate Charles. Poets, painters, and sculptors, it is vulgarly thought, are scarcely "alendi," and certainly "non saginandi." The arts might at least be given a position in our universities. This, as a first step, would do much, – it would tend, too, mainly to raise the public taste, which is daily sinking lower and lower. We should be glad to see Mr Eastlake made professor of painting at Oxford, with an adequate establishment there to enable him not only to lecture, but to teach more practically by design, in the very place of all others in the kingdom where there is most in feeling congenial with art. We mention Mr Eastlake, not making an invidious distinction, but because his acquirements in literature, and his valuable contributions to it, seem most readily to point to him as a fit occupant for the professor's chair. We have repeatedly, in the pages of Maga, insisted upon the importance of establishing the fine arts in our universities, and at one time entertained a hope that the Taylor Legacy would have taken this direction. We are not, however, sorry altogether that it did not do so, for it would surely be more advantageous that such a movement should begin with the Government. It would remedy, too, more evils than one; it would give an occupation of mind, congenial with their academic studies, to our youth, and preserve them from a dangerous extravagance both of purse and of opinions. The hopes, however, of any thing really advantageous to the fine arts arising from our Government, unless very strongly urged to it, are small. They do not seem inclined at all to favour the profession; they would look upon it as solely addicted to the labour of the hand with a view to small profits – a portion of which profits, too, upon some strange principles of the political economists, they would appropriate to the nation as a fine, the penalty of genius. One would imagine, from the proposition of the Board of Trade to take 10 per cent from subscriptions to art-unions for the purchasing pictures for the National Gallery, that they considered the epithet "fine" so appropriated to the arts as intended originally to suggest a tax. They would not allow the profession a free trade. Whatever is obtained by exhibiting works of artists, should be as much their property as would the product of any other manufacture be the property of the respective adventurers, and the art-union subscriptions are undoubtedly a portion of these profits. What, in common justice, have the public to do with them? The proposed scheme is a step towards communism, and may have been borrowed from the French provisional seizure of their railroads. With equal justice might they require that every butcher and baker and tailor should give a portion of his meat, his bread, and his cloth to feed and clothe our army and navy; and this not as of a common taxation, but as an extra compliment and advantage to these trades. There is a great deal too much here of the beggarly utilitarian view. We advocate not the cause of art-unions – we think them perfectly mischievous, and would gladly see them suppressed; but surely to invite and tempt the poor artists to paint their twenty and five-and-twenty pound pictures, and coolly to take 10 per cent out of their pockets to purchase to yourself a gallery of art, is not very consonant to our general ideas of what is due to the liberal arts. The liberality is certainly not reciprocal.
Nor, indeed, when we view the state of our National Gallery, considering the building as well as what it contains, can we be induced to think that the Government are very much in earnest in their profession of a desire to raise its importance. The National Gallery has its committee, and there is the Commission of Fine Arts. The former like not a questioning Parliament, and have not sufficient confidence in themselves to disregard the uncomplimentary animadversions of a critical press; and so the National Gallery advances not. The latter appear to treat art too much as a taxable commodity, and as having a right to levy specimens, and take for the public the profit of them, when they are required to cater for any national works. We do not, however, doubt their sincere desire to promote the arts; but we do doubt if they are perfectly alive to the real importance of the work they have to do, and fear their efforts are rendered less useful by the number and conflicting tastes of the members. Divisions and subdivisions of responsibility terminate too frequently in many little things which, put together, do not make one great one.
However deficient, or however faulty in our taste, there seems to be at the present moment a more general desire to become acquainted with art and its productions in former ages. Publications of historical and critical importance are not wanting; but it is singular that the prevailing patronage is little influenced as yet
