338 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



with a resonance that is almost altogether lacking in modern art and 

 work. We concentrate too much upon the medium ; they always kept the 

 inward ideal before them. I trust you will pardon this digression, which 

 is in one sense not a digression, but part of the logical argument as to 

 what is implied in the term. 



I know the ingrained tendency in the mind of an ardent horticulturist 

 is to relegate the classicalist to the class of the pedant, saying that his 

 disciplined and drilled ideas lack freshness, as does also the modern 

 impressionist artist, who proclaims that he lives in the greeneries and 

 receives his inspirations fresh from the bosom of Nature, and he dubs the 

 classical as the glue-pot form of art, describing their way as that of adding 

 or sticking piece to piece in order to secure thereby a semblance to that 

 which has life, and which appellation, I doubt not, certain dry-as-dust 

 professors of the academic persuasion warrant. 



I counsel, however, that you give the subject a fair hearing and be 

 not carried away with hasty persuasion, and you will come to the con- 

 clusion that most do whose mental education matures, although we may 

 resent the great, august presence of the classic at first, which looms upon 

 our artistic vision in somewhat the same fashion as a resurrected school- 

 master would, nevertheless you will hail it in the end. The classic or the 

 Kenaissance is really the storehouse and compiler of that which we glean 

 in the fields of experiment, eliminating from it what is non-essential, and 

 as a certain cute Scotchman (an artist and not a gardener this time) said : 

 " Every man who begins with the Dutch style of art finishes with the 

 classic." For, although like him, I prefer the romantic sentiment of hap- 

 hazard which is a synonym for what is English abroad, both in gardenage and 

 in the charm of our old-world villages, together with the quaint unstudied 

 dignity of our provincial boroughs with their traditions and periods 

 written on their time-stained edifices, yet for myself I will back Wilkie, 

 the Scotchman. He succeeded admirably with such rustic subjects as 

 " The Village Politicians " and all their picturesque and untidy litter, and 

 with combinations of rough and tumble-down architecture and the mazy 

 intermixture of country swains as in " The Village Feast " in the National 

 Gallery, but the classic, in which he tried hard to star, proved too much 

 for him. Nevertheless his axiom is true. Every man who begins with 

 the rustic style of art if properly educated ends with the classic. 



Every artist who progresses educationally in his art must gravitate 

 towards that which has definite order, where the individual is suppressed. 

 Many of our artists, Eeynolds, Romney, Opie, and others, including 

 Wilkie himself, tried to excel in classical compositions and failed in the 

 attempt ; the personality in each proved too strong to suppress. 



Others might be cited who could produce classic compositions and 

 had to come down to landscape transcript and topographical art in order 

 to gain a livelihood, for the public does not understand or appreciate the 

 suppression of the Ego. There are one or two living artists so proficient 

 in the classic that they can render it popular and eminently picturesque. 

 The classic is, however, the hidden and the misunderstood type of beauty, 

 corresponding to the quality which is so much needed in a city, in the 

 individual, and in its architecture, in fact in everything : namely, the 

 suppression of the individual for the public good, and every man, to apply 



