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for despatch sake, with the fourth : that he adopted the 

 plays of other authors— old manuscripts from the property 

 chests of the theatre— and accepted partnership in his 

 labours with humbler men, early and late in life. 



The reply to these charges is, that it is obviously im- 

 proper for us to attach to productions of this kind the 

 rule which we would apply to laboured literary effusions 

 of the present day. The whole cycle of thought is 

 changed. The nature of the audience, the conditions of 

 publication, are widely different. The same laws do not 

 hold with respect to artistic results produced under oppo- 

 site, almost antagonistic circumstances. The fact that a 

 result is produced, in the direct exercise of a profession 

 for subsistence, or wholly for reputation's sake, materi- 

 ally alters the case. A difference also should be esti- 

 mated between that which is produced, in the assurance 

 of celebrity, and that which is wrought only in the hope 

 or behef of fame, though that belief be of the strongest 

 kind. To illustrate by a sister art, Mr. Chantrey, in his 

 later years, it is asserted, on good authority, allowed 

 works to issue from his atelier which he had worked on 

 very slightly, or not at all : and this from two causes— one, 

 that though there was great difference between his labours 

 and that of others, that difference was not likely, in 

 the general ignorance which prevailed in art, to be 

 soon detected, or if detected, seriously regarded; the 

 other, that general usage sanctioned it. The fraud was 

 trivial, because the persons apprized ot their loss could 

 not estimate the extent or even nature of their wrong. 

 The fraud was not considered criminal, no one being injured 

 by it. It ceased even to possess that element of deceit 

 which would justify my use of the word, though in 

 every other sense it is fraud to accept pecuniary con- 

 sideration for that which is not what it professes to 

 be. Fashion preferred what was not the labour of his 



