1828-] Modern Pictures. 365 
to enable it to do without these, at least with any prospect of progressing, 
or even of maintaining its present station. We have (to say nothing of 
“ two, or one” great painters) many good ones, who may become great by 
proper treatment. But we have none—not even one—who (like many 
of the great ones of other times) must and will become great by the 
mere force of their genius alone, and in spite of all things that can 
oppose or hold themback. And the reason of this is to be found, not in 
the different natural constitution of men’s minds, but in the different 
circumstances under which those minds are nowadays subject to be bred 
up and moulded. In a highly refined state of society, it is next to impos- 
sible that a genius, strongly marked by nature, should retain those marks 
long after its possessor quits his cradle. This is at present as little to be 
looked for, as that a piece of money should retain the sharpness of its 
stamp for any great length of time, while forming part of the “ circu- 
lating medium” of a great commercial country. As little is it to be 
expected, that minds of the finest natural perceptions (and such the mind 
of a great painter must necessarily be) should consent to run the risks, 
and undergo the consequences, almost certainly attendant on the early 
pursuit of a profession like painting, in an age and country where we 
acknowledge but one unpardonable crime—that of poverty ; and but 
one unfailing source of real personal distinction—that of wealth. 
But our limits warn us that we must turn at once to the more imme- 
diate object of this paper,—which is, not so much to argue the impolicy 
of withholding the encouragement of enlightened and judicious public 
praise from the painters of our day, as to shew its manifest injustice, by 
a reference to their actual merits and pretensions. And with this view, 
it is our intention simply to describe a few of the latest novelties that 
have been presented to the British public in this department of Fine Art, 
and which are still before it for proof and illustration of our remarks. 
We shall commence with Mr. Martin’s Fall of Nineveh. 
If it were necessary to adduce proof that the actual condition of Art 
among us is any thing but contemptible, and its prospects far from dis- 
couraging, this picture alone would answer the purpose in view. It is 
not only a production of real genius, but it is one which could not have 
been produced except under circumstances highly favourable to the- 
future development of talent and genius of a similar kind. What we 
mean is, that this picture cannot be looked upon as a single and distinct 
result of the art of painting merely—a result which might have been 
produced at any given time, or by any person gifted with mental quali- 
ties and habits similar to those possessed by its author. It supposes, in addi- 
tion to mere genius and great pictorial acquirement, a high state of mental 
refinement, not only in the artist, but in the general public to whom 
his work is addressed. Without meaning to place it above, or even on a 
level with, some of the productions of the fifteenth and sixteenth centu- 
ries in Italy, we will venture to assert that no painter living in those 
centuries could have produced it ; and if for no other reason, simply for 
this—that at that time the public taste was not in a condition to receive 
and appreciate it. Let us not be mistaken. The public taste of that day 
was of a higher and rarer cast than any which has prevailed since ; and 
the productions of Art which were offered to it were of a higher quality 
in proportion ; each acting reciprocally upon the other, as these are 
always found todo. The chief productions of the time of which we 
speak, were more highly endowed with those highest of all endowments in 
works of Fine Art, individual passion and character ;--as, indeed, the 
