THE 



MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



VOL. IV.] SEPTEMBER, 1827. [No. 21, 



ON MEANS AND ENDS. 



" We work by wit, and not by witchcraft." IAGO. 



IT is impossible to have things done without doing them. This seems 

 a truism ; and yet what is more common than to suppose that we shall 

 find things done, merely by wishing it ? To put the will for the deed is 

 as usual in practice as it is contrary to common sense. There is, in fact, 

 no absurdity, no contradiction, of which the mind is not capable. This 

 weakness is, I think, more remarkable in the English than in any other 

 people, in whom (to judge by what I discover in myself) the will bears 

 great and disproportioned sway. We desire a thing : we contemplate the 

 end intently, and think it done, neglecting the necessary means to accom- 

 plish it. The strong tendency of the mind towards it, the internal effort 

 it makes to give birth to the object of its idolatry, seems an adequate cause 

 to produce the wished-for effect, and is in a manner identified with it. 

 This is more particularly the case in what relates to the Fine Arts, and 

 will account for same phenomena in the national character. 



The English style is distinguished by what are called ebauches* rude 

 sketches, or violent attempts at effect, with a total inattention to the details 

 or delicacy of finishing. Now this, I apprehend, proceeds not exactly 

 from grossness of perception, but from the wilfulness of our characters, our 

 determination to have every thing our own way without any trouble, or 

 delay, or distraction of mind. An object strikes us : we see and feel the 

 whole effect at once. We wish to produce a likeness of it ; but we wish 

 to transfer the impression to the canvas as it is conveyed to us, simulta- 

 neously and intuitively that is> to stamp it there at a blow or, other- 

 wise, we turn away with impatience and disgust, as if the means were 

 an obstacle to tho end, and every attention to the mechanical process were 

 a deviation from our original purpose. We thus degenerate, by repeated 

 failures, into a slovenly style of art; and that which was at first an undis- 

 ciplined and irregular impulse, becomes a habit, and then a theory. It 



* Properly, daubs, 

 M.M. New Series, VOL. IV. No. 21. 2 G 



