260 Mr Wilson's Observations en some of the 



are better understood on the Continent than with us ; and the 

 subject has been deemed of so much importance that parlia- 

 mentary inquiries have been made into the causes of our in- 

 feriority, which inquiries have been followed by active exer- 

 tions on the part of Government to promote improvement of 

 taste amongst the manufacturing classes, by the establishment 

 of Schools of Design in London and elsewhere, also by the 

 passing of a Copyright Bill, by which an effort has been made 

 to protect the authors and proprietors of novel designs from 

 the piracy which has been so injuriously practised. 



There can be no doubt that these measures are important 

 steps, and must tend to promote the objects which those who 

 originated them had in view ; but we must not rest here, — we 

 must do much more than has yet been done, or perhaps ever 

 contemplated, before we can hope to meet our neighbours 

 without disadvantage in the display of taste. We must not 

 only, as they do, teach principles of good taste in Schools of 

 Design, and defend honest men from the piracy of knaves, but 

 we must also, as they do, form and throw open to our people 

 extensive museums of art, employ the painter and the sculptor 

 to complete the edifices which are raised by the skill of our 

 architects, call in the aid of the fine arts in commemorating 

 the glories of our country, and unite the labours of the artist 

 with those of the historian. 



We must, I think, attribute the superior taste which our 

 neighbours exhibit in their manufactures and decorative arts* 

 in a great measure to the advancement which they have made 

 in the fine arts. I have been unable, in speaking of the for- 

 mer, to omit allusion to the latter, and I do not wish to sepa- 

 rate them. The divorce which in our day and amongst us has 

 taken place between fine art and ornamental art, has been in 

 many instances fatal to the latter, and certainly has been of 

 no advantage to the former. It has indeed been asserted that 

 taste in manufactures has nothing whatever to do with the 



* By decorative and ornamental art, I mean that art which is not usually 

 classed by us with fine art. Neither the expressions nor the distinction are cor- 

 rect ; but, as I must make a distinction, I use these phrases for want of more 

 appropriate ones in our vocabulary. 



