§3. THE PUBLIC IN FAULT. 17<> 



man; and any one might have expected that the growing 

 desire for objects of good form would have ensured their sale 

 and encouraged his efforts ; but going one day to give him 

 an order for another tazza, I found his shop crowded with the 

 most tawdry, ill-proportioned vases of a different manufac- 

 ture, each looking as if, while still in a plastic state, it had 

 been pulled up by the neck to increase its length. " What," 

 I asked, " has made you give up good things for bad ones ? 

 Have you abandoned all that was in proper taste for a new 

 caprice, or did you only make good things by chance?" " It 

 is not that" he said ; " these things sell, and I must live ; 

 I can find plenty of purchasers for them, and few for the 

 others." What could be said? It was the purchaser here 

 who wanted taste : and as long as the public is deficient in it, 

 vainly indeed may the manufacturer possess it. " But why 

 not," I asked, " have them of good proportion, why so elon- 

 gated beyond all reason ? " " This," he said, " it is out of 

 my power to prevent. I buy them ; they are made by others, 

 and I mast take them as they are; for they are sold by the 

 height at so much an inch ! and to require the height to be 

 diminished in accordance with the breadth would only be 

 considered a ruse to decrease the price." And yet these 

 profess to be objects of ornament and taste ! 



" Why," I remarked to an Italian, " do you not make 

 copies of such and such beautiful objects so justly admired 

 in Italy ? you would find many to purchase them, and you 

 would do good by causing them to be generally known." " I 

 have already made several of them, but they did not sell, and 

 now I confine myself to those that do ;" and then showing 

 me some of the most commonplace ornaments, he said, 

 " These I can always sell, and I have a family to support." 

 Among them were dogs, and flowers, Canova's three lanky 

 Graces, and elongated vases equally deficient in proportion, 

 form, and decoration. 



