1 827.] On Means mid Ends. 235 



" Set but a Scotsman on a hill ; 

 Say such is royal George's will, 



And there's the foe : 

 His only thought is how to kill 



Twa at a blow." 



I apprehend, with his own countrymen or ours, all the love and loyalty 

 would come- to little, but for their hatred of the array opposed to them. It 

 is the resistance, " the two to kill at a blow/' that is the charm, and 

 makes our fingers'-ends tingle. The Greek cause makes no progress with 

 us for this reason : it is one of pure sympathy, but our sympathies must arise 

 out of our antipathies ; they were devoted to the Queen to spite the King. 

 We had a wonderful affection for the Spaniards the secret of which was 

 that we detested the French. Our love must begin with hate. It is so 

 far well that the French are opposed to us in almost every way ; for the 

 spirit of contradiction alone to foreign fopperies and absurdities keeps us 

 within some bounds of decency and order. When an English lady of 

 quality introduces a favourite by saying, " This is his lordship's physician, 

 and my atheist," the humour might become epidemic ; but we can stop it 

 at once by saying, "That is so like a Frenchwoman!" The English 

 excel in the practical and mechanic arts, where mere plodding and 

 industry are expected and required ; but they do not combine business and 

 pleasure well together. Thus, in the Fine Arts, which unite the mecha- 

 nical with the sentimental, they will probably never succeed ; for the one 

 spoils and diverts them from the other. An Englishman can attend but to 

 one thing at a time. He hates music at dinner. He can go through any 

 labour or pain with prodigious fortitude; but he cannot make a pleasure of 

 it, or persuade himself he is doing a fine thing, when he is not. ' Again, 

 they are great in original discoveries, which come upon them by surprise, 

 and which they leave to others to perfect. It is a question whether, if 

 they foresaw they were about to make the discovery, at the very point of 

 projection as it were, they would not turn their backs upon it, arid leave it 

 to shift for itself ; or obstinately refuse to take the last step, or give up 

 the pursuit, in mere dread and nervous apprehension lest they should not 

 succeed. Poetry is also their undeniable element ; for the essence of 

 poetry is will and passion, " and it alone is highly fantastical." French 

 poetry is verbiage or dry detail. 



I have thus endeavoured to shew why it is the English fail as a people 

 in the Fine Arts, because the idea cf \he end absorbs that of the means. 

 Hogarth was an exception to this rule ; but then every stroke of his pencil 

 was instinct with genius. As it has been well said, that " we read his 

 works, so it might be said he wrote them. Barry is an instance more to 

 my purpose. No one could argue better about gusto in painting, and yet 

 no one ever painted with less. His pictures were dry, coarse, and wanted 

 all that his descriptions of those of others indicate. For example, he speaks 

 of " the dull, dead, watery look" of the Medusa's head of Leonardo, in 

 a manner that conveys an absolute idea of the character : had he copied it, 

 you would never have suspected any thing of the kind. His pen grows 

 almost wanton in praise of Titian's nymph-like figures. What drabs 

 he has made of his own sea-nymphs, floating in the Thames, with Dr. 

 Burney at their head, with his wig on ! He is like a person admiring the 

 grace of an accomplished rope-dancer; place him on the rope himself, and 

 his head turns ; or he is like Luther's comparison of Reason to a drunken 

 man on horseback " set him up on one side, and he tumbles over on the 



M.M. New Series VOL. IV. No. 21. 2 H 



