§3. 



IDEAS OF THE MAKERS. 173 



turns out to be the result of pure accident — a copy, perhaps, 

 of some model selected at random, which, as the maker (on 

 being questioned) admits, had merely the recommendation of 

 novelty, being hitherto unknown in his particular trade. 

 Besides this, the copyist frequently spoils the original by 

 some capricious change of his own, introduced without any 

 reason, totally at variance with its general motive, and with 

 no other plea than a crude notion "of varying" (or if he has 

 the vanity to suppose it, "of improving") what he should 

 have left unaltered. Hence, if you praise one of these acci- 

 dental works, or suggest an improvement in another, or 

 censure a bad alteration already introduced, the unconscious 

 maker is at a loss to understand the reason of the praise, the 

 necessity of any change, or the merits of the censure ; and 

 then, in order not to appear ignorant in the matter, having 

 invited your admiration to some other object of the most 

 unmitigated barbarism, he at once proclaims how pure an 

 accident it was that led him to copy at all from a good work. 

 You turn to another, and make a remark about its deficiency 

 in a certain part, which has probably been one of his own 

 " improvements ;" when he thinks at once to overwhelm your 

 objection by, " The original, sir, from which that is copied, 

 was found at Pompeii," and remains fully persuaded that 

 you know nothing about the matter. For to be found at 

 Pompeii is his criterion of excellence ; and his incapacity for 

 judging prevents its occurring to him that, even if exactly the 

 counterpart of a Pompeian model, it may still be faulty, even 

 without the several improvements the work has been doomed 

 to undergo during its transmutation from the ancient model 

 to the English copy. Utterly ignorant ivhy one thing is 

 good, another bad, or how small an alteration may spoil the 

 whole effect of the best work, these people still have precon- 

 ceived notions ; and it is curious to listen to the crude and 

 fallacious dogmas they may have laid down, or borrowed from 



