240 CURSORY OBSERVATIONS 



a few minutes* reflection will reject the supposition as altogether 

 unfounded, and derogatory to the powers of painting. 



To look at home : can any unprejudiced person retain an opinion 

 that there is no information, no moral lesson, to be derived from 

 Hogarth's jMarriage a-la-mode — ^his Idleness and Industry — Harlot's 

 and Rake's Progress, and his other admirable works ? Is there no 

 information to be gained from all the works of Reynolds — ^from 

 West's battles of the Boyne and La Hogue — and Cromwell dissolv- 

 ing the Parliament ? My restricted limits, not my will, prevent me 

 from referring to a number of other striking instances of speaking 

 productions, from the pencils of living British artists. 



Here I adduce the opinion of an eminent living painter. Sir Mar- 

 tin Archer Shee, the president of the Royal Academy, the most com- 

 petent and eloquent modern writer on this subject. " The advan- 

 tage which poetry possesses over painting, in continued narration 

 and successive impression, cannot be advanced as a peculiar merit of 

 the poet, since it results from the nature of language, and is com- 

 mon to prose. The eye of the painter is required to be as much 

 more sensitive and acute than the eye of the poet, as the accuracy 

 of him who imitates should exceed that of him who only describes. 

 What is the verbal expression of a passion, compared to its visible 

 presence ? the narration, to the action itself brought before 5^our 

 view ? What are the verba ardentia of the poet, to the breathing 

 beauties, the living lustre of the pencil, rivalling the noblest produc- 

 tions of nature, expressing the characteristics of matter and mind, 

 the powers of soul, the perfection of form, the brightest bloom of 

 colour, the golden glow of light ? Can the airy shadows of poetical 

 imagery be compared to the embodied realities of art .''" 



From the preceding observations on the powers of painting, I 

 shall now advert to the prejudice respecting the license allowed to 

 painters, noticed in the commencement of this essay ; and I will ex- 

 emplify it by a censure passed upon some parts of Mc'Clise's won- 

 derful painting, " The Installation of Captain Rock," which has 

 been exhibited at the Athenaeum, in Worcester, and is now in the 

 Birmingham Exhibition. An objection has been particularly made 

 to the introduction of the bevy of very handsome girls, on the right 

 side of the canvass. Their youthful bloom and playful vivacity are. 



