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    botanists , and generally familiar with the mechanical arts—those arts which , with so much contemptible pride , they commonly affect to look down upon . Architects are sometimes ridiculed by builders , under the name of paper constructors , ' who can only build on paper that which could not be done with any other materials . Why is this 1 Because they have never made themselves

    familiar with the details of their subject . They handle no ' plumb and rule , ' and they construct false theories impossible to verify in practice . Why have the Dutch paintings been so much admired ? For their truth and fidelity to the subjects . I do not hold them very praiseworthy as a matter of taste ; therein differing from the fourth George , whose greatest delight was , in beholding a scene of vulgarity , i . e ., coarse vulgarity , or a cabbage and piece of bacon , well transferred to canvass ; but whence arose their

    accuracy r From the artist being perfectly familiar with the whole subject ! There is a picture by Wilkie , of a Spanish posada , ' most admirably done . Whoever is acquainted with the subject , will see , at a glance , that everything in it was familiar to the artist . The table-cloth , the salt-cellar , the salad , the table , the

    building , all are true to fact : that salad every traveller must recognize , and the horn spoon could bear an affidavit . The glazed cocked hats and rusty baize cloaks of the students , belong to no country on earth but Spain ; and the libertine look of one of the wearers , savours of the haram-master who was his Moorish

    ancestor by the mother ' s side . But the posadera , the mistress of the inn ! Where but in Spain could there be found a mixer of salads , a drawer of wine from a goat-skin , a compounder of ollas podridaa , a frier of salt fish in oil , a simrnerer of garlic stews , clothed in unclean garments , with so divine a face , tempting the beholder again and again to return to it to look upon its beauty ? This picture is perfect and minute as ever Dutchman painted , — -

    true to life , and treating only of common -subjects ; yet , through- ? out , there is no spark of vulgarity . Were painters of other sub * jects to gird themselves with equal knowledge ere they commenced their task , how glorious might be the result I But alas ! were they highly educated , they would not at this time be painters ; they would become writers , if their object were the desire of fame and profit . For one person who looks upon a successful paint * ing , perhaps one thousand look upon a successful book . The

    painting cannot be multiplied ; the book may , and may be sent to the ends of the earth , riveting the link of connexion , perhaps , amongst millions of minds , all dwelling with pleasure on their mutual thoughts of the author . It is not in human nature to resist a temptation like unto this ; for all love the approval and admiration of their fellows , A man will not waste his life for posthumous fame in one branch of art , who has it in his power to discount it for ready enjoyment in another .

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    ID On the State of the Fine Arts in England .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1833, page 10, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2606/page/10/