eT a 
1826.) Letters from the United States of North America. 27 
writers, and bad critics, and presumptuous authors, who have been 
making poetry about them for two hundred years ?— Not much, Iam afraid ; 
not more than we know of, not more than we care for the painters of 
Mexico and Peru now. 
A pretty story, indeed, for a painter of our day to talk about being 
above what an author may say, or beyond the reach of a quill; a pretty 
story, faith! when, if a great painter wishes to be remembered, what 
does he do? does he trust altogether to his work; or would he, if. his 
name had never appeared in print, and he knew that it never would— 
(just imagine the case), would he leave the picture to say for him what- 
ever he might have to say; or would he not throw himself into the next 
horse-pond? No, no: he appeals from the pencil to the pen; he knows 
that his immortality is not to be trusted to the brush, and he therefore 
gets a friend to secure him a niche for posterity, beyond the reach of 
accident, by scribbling a biography for him, or a critique. That's the 
way !—If not—if no friend appears—if there be no other mode, he goes 
to work himself, in search of perpetuity—How ? with the brush? No, 
indeed, no; but with the pen. 
Lord! Lord !—just imagine for a breath or two, my dear P., that all 
the writers of our age were to enter into a conspiracy not to speak of 
any poor devil of a painter, who may hereafter arise, or who may not 
have a name already; what on earth would become of painters, what 
of painting, do you suppose, before another generation had passed away ? 
For my own part—a page or two back if you please—for my own part, 
I say that, instead of being qualified, a man is disqualified for proper 
criticism on painting and painters, by being himself a painter. But why ? 
—Because, if he be not a good painter, who would care a fig for his 
opinion? It would not necessarily be better, and it might be, and pro- 
bably would be much worse, than the opinion of another wholly ignorant 
of the practical part of the trade, or profession; especially if that other 
should happen to be a connoisseur, as well as an amateur. The profane 
dauber would be sure to have prejudices, which the writer would not be 
likely to have; prejudices the more absurd and the more inveterate in 
proportion to his badness. But if the critic be a good painter? Why, 
so much the worse. He never will speak the truth in such a case; and 
if lie do, nobody will ever believe him. If he be a good painter, it can 
only be after years of labour and study, at the end of which time, he 
must be full of the esprit du corps (1 hate French, where it can be avoided) ; 
he has not the courage to own that his life was wasted, even though it 
should be so; nor would he be likely to know it, even if it were so; he 
is imbued with all the deeper though more refined prejudices of the art, 
like Reynolds, when he fought up the Roman school as he did, at the 
expense of the Venetian ; or when he advised the pupil to begin with 
shutting his eyes to defect, however obvious it might be to his view, in 
the eC of the old masters; or like a multitude more that I know of, 
who after an age of study, have studied themselves into a notion, that 
every thing, which other people who have not studied, have an aversion 
for, is all the better for it; and that all their own first impressions, 
while their taste was natural, and while whatever they saw, they saw with 
an eye of nature and a heart of truth, were unspeakably absurd. “ As if 
_that were a charm or a beauty, which it requires a great while to perceive ; 
“or that, which it requires a life to make one pleased with—a life passed 
‘in severe study,: to say nothing of the prejudice that men feel for their 
craft, nor of the interest which they have in upholding the character. of 
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