39 



FINE ARTS. 



The national importance of the Fine Arts is a point now so 

 universally conceded that we deem no apology necessary for 

 devoting to their consideration an adequate share of our pages. 

 A feeling for the Arts has been too coldly cultivated in this country 

 for the fair developement of that genius which the works of the 

 British School, in the nineteenth century, most triumphantly 

 display ; but we cannot help cherishing an expectation (probably 

 born of our hope) that something like the auspicious patronage of 

 the ancients, will at length extend fitting encouragement to — and 

 diffuse a vitality through every branch of the arts of design, that 

 shall put forth fruit in due season, and place us at least on a par 

 with the other nations of Europe. To remove the necessity for 

 calling into exercise the invention of foreigners in preference to 

 that of our own countrymen is, indeed, an end worthy of attain- 

 ment. We by no means admit that such " necessity" does actually 

 exist, but we know that it is alleged in defence of a most injurious 

 and unpatriotic prejudice : and yet how unjustly, past and present 

 experience are not wanting to prove. Aided by British enterprize, 

 British genius in the potteries of Etruria rivalled the most exqui- 

 site conceptions of Grecian beauty and elegance, and under the 

 direction of Flaxman, that sculptor of immortality, the unfashioned 

 and valueless material rose moulded into forms of classical grace 

 and purity, coveted by kings, and worthy of comparison with the 

 happiest creations of antiquity. Many similar proofs could be 

 adduced, to which thousands might be added if once the scales fell 

 from the eyes of our countrymen, and they could be brought to 

 recognize the presence of excellence or of simple merit and accu- 

 racy in a native production. While we would do justice to all — to 

 France, to Italy, to%Germany, or to any other part of the Continent, 

 we would take care that Great Britain maintained her superiority 

 in arts, as she has always done in arms, and we would lead English-' 

 men to an intimate communion with that genius which they have, un- 

 happily, overlooked in a yearning after the productions of antiquity, 

 or of alien contemporaries. We are neither bigot — nor partisan — > 

 but we confess that we are moved by an ardent solicitude for the 

 advancement of all that can contribute to the glory and prosperity 

 of the empire. We profess not that undesirable " liberality" — that 

 frozen philosophy which turns the telescope on the luminary of our 

 *' father-land," and proclaims with unwearied vigilance, the number 

 and magnitude of the spots on its surface -, or which dissects the 

 social and political structure of the same, and apathetically announ- 

 ces the disease that may have abated its strength, or the paralysis 

 that may have warped its proportions. We consider that latitude 



