M2GILL 
 UNIVERSITY 
 LIBRARY 
 
u 
 
 IN A UG URAL ADDRESS. 17 
 
 one day I was upwards of two hours vainly 
 trying to render, with perfect accuracy, the 
 curves of two leaves of the brocaded silk. The 
 English travellers used to walk through the 
 room in considerable numbers; and were in¬ 
 variably directed to the picture by their laquais 
 de place, if they missed seeing it themselves. 
 And to this painting—in which it took me six 
 weeks to examine rightly two figures—I found 
 that on an average, the English traveller who 
 was doing Italy conscientiously, and seeing 
 everything u as he ought,” gave about half 
 or three quarters of a minute; but the flying 
 or fashionable traveller, who came to do as 
 much as he could in a given time, never gave 
 more than a single glance, most of such people 
 turning aside instantly to a bad landscape hung 
 on the right, containing a vigorously painted 
 white wall, and an opaque green moat. What 
 especially impressed me, however, was that 
 none of the ladies ever stopped to look at the 
 dresses in the Veronese. Certainly, they were 
 far more beautiful than any in the shops in the 
 great square, yet no one ever noticed them. 
 Sometimes when any nice, sharp-looking, bright¬ 
 eyed girl came into the room, I used to watch 
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l8 MR. RUSK IN’S 
 
 her all the way, thinking— “ Come, at least 
 you'll see what the Queen of Sheba has got on.” 
 But no—on she would come carelessly, with a 
 little toss of the head, apparently signifying 
 “ nothing in this room worth looking at except 
 myself/’ and so trip through the door, and away. 
 
 The fact is, we don’t care for pictures: in very 
 deed we don’t. The Academy exhibition is a 
 thing to talk of and to amuse vacant hours; 
 those who are rich amongst us buy a painting 
 or two, for mixed reasons, sometimes to fill the 
 corner of a passage—sometimes to help the 
 drawing-room talk before dinner—sometimes 
 because the painter is fashionable—occasionally 
 because he is poor—not unfrequently that we 
 may have a collection of specimens of painting, 
 as we have specimens of minerals or butterflies 
 —and in the best and rarest case of all, because 
 we have really, as we call it, taken a fancy to 
 the picture; meaning the same sort of fancy 
 which one would take to a pretty arm-chair or 
 a newly-shaped decanter. But as for real love 
 of the picture, and joy of it when we have got 
 it, I do not believe it is felt by one in a thousand. 
 
 I am afraid this apathy of ours will not be 
 easily conquered; but even supposing it should, 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 x 9 
 
 and that we should begin to enjoy pictures 
 properly, and that the supply of good ones in¬ 
 creased, as in that case it would increase—then 
 comes another question. Perhaps some of my 
 hearers this evening may occasionally have 
 heard it stated of me that I am rather apt to 
 contradict myself. I hope I am exceedingly 
 apt to do so. I never met with a question yet, 
 of any importance, which did not need, for the 
 right solution of it, at least one positive and 
 one negative answer, like an equation of the 
 second degree. Mostly, matters of any con¬ 
 sequence are three-sided, or four-sided, or poly¬ 
 gonal ; and the trotting round a polygon is 
 severe work for people any way stiff in their 
 opinions. For myself, I am never satisfied 
 that I have handled a subject properly, till I 
 have contradicted myself at least three times: 
 but once must do for this evening. I have just 
 said that there is no chance of our getting good 
 Art unless we delight in it: next I say, and 
 just as positively, that there is no chance of our 
 getting good Art unless we resist our delight 
 in it. We must love it first, and restrain our 
 love for it afterwards. 
 
 This sounds strange; and yet I assure you 
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2Q MR. BUSKIN’S 
 
 it is true. In fact, whenever anything does 
 not sound strange, you may generally dou t 
 its being true; for all truth is wonderful. But 
 take an instance in physical matters, of the 
 same kind of contradiction. Suppose you were 
 explaining to a young student in astronomy 
 how the earth was kept steady in its orbit; you 
 would have to state to him—would you not? 
 —that the earth always had a tendency to fall 
 to the sun ) and that also it always had a ten¬ 
 dency to fly away from the sun. These are two 
 precisely contrary statements for him to digest 
 at his leisure, before he can understand how 
 the earth moves. Now, in like manner, when 
 Art is set in its true and serviceable course, 
 it moves under the luminous attraction of plea¬ 
 sure on the one side, and with a stout moral 
 purpose of going about some useful business on 
 the other. If the artist works without delight, 
 he passes away into space, and perishes of cold: 
 if he works only for delight, he falls into the 
 sun, and extinguishes himself in ashes. On 
 the whole, this last is the fate, I do not say the 
 most to be feared, but which Art has generally 
 hitherto suffered, and which the great nations 
 of the earth have suffered with it. 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 21 
 
 For, while most distinctly yon may perceive 
 in past history that Art lias never been pro¬ 
 duced, except by nations who took pleasure in 
 it, just as assuredly, and even more plainly, 
 you may perceive that Art has always destroyed 
 the power and life of those who pursued it for 
 pleasure only. Surely this fact must have 
 struck you as you glanced at the career of the 
 great nations of the earth: surely it must have 
 occurred to you as a point for serious question¬ 
 ing, how far, even in our own days, we were 
 wise in promoting the advancement of pleasures 
 which appeared as yet only to have corrupted 
 the souls and numbed the strength of those who 
 attained to them. I have been complaining 
 of Englaud that she despises the Arts; but I 
 might, with still more appearance of justice, 
 complain that she does not rather dread them 
 than despise. For, what has been the source 
 of the ruin of nations since the world began ? 
 Has it been plague, or famine, earthquake- 
 shock or volcano-flame? None of these ever 
 prevailed against a great people, so as to make 
 their name pass from the earth. In every 
 period and place of national decline, you will 
 find other causes than these at work to bring 
 
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 MR. BUSKIN'S 
 
 it about, namely, luxury, effeminacy, love of 
 pleasure, fineness in Art, ingenuity in enjoy¬ 
 ment. What is the main lesson which, as far 
 as we seek any in our classical reading, we 
 gather for our youth from ancient history ? 
 Surely this—that simplicity of life, of language, 
 and of manners gives strength to a nation; and 
 that luxuriousness of life, subtlety of language, 
 and smoothness of manners bring weakness and 
 destruction on a nation. While men possess 
 little and desire less, they remain brave and 
 noble: while they are scornful of all the arts 
 of luxury, and are in the sight of other nations 
 as barbarians, their swords are irresistible and 
 their sway illimitable: but let them become 
 
 sensitive to the refinements of taste, and quick 
 in the capacities of pleasure, and that instant 
 the fingers that had grasped the iron rod fail 
 from the golden sceptre. You cannot charge 
 me with any exaggeration in this matter; it 
 is impossible to state the truth too strongly, 
 or as too universal. For ever you will see the 
 rude and simple nation at once more virtuous 
 and more victorious than one practised in the 
 arts. Watch how the Lydian is overthrown by 
 the Persian; the Persian by the Athenian; the 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 Athenian by the Spartan; then the whole of 
 polished Greece by the rougher Roman; the 
 Roman, in his turn refined, only to be crushed 
 by the Goth: and at the turning point of the 
 middle ages, the liberty of Europe first asserted, 
 the virtues of Christianity best practised, and 
 its doctrines best attested, by a handful of 
 mountain shepherds, without art, without liter¬ 
 ature, almost without a language, yet remaining 
 unconquered in the midst of the Teutonic 
 chivalry, and uncorrupted amidst the hierarchies 
 of Rome.* 
 
 I was strangely struck by this great fact 
 during the course of a journey last summer 
 among the northern vales of Switzerland. My 
 mind had been turned to the subject of the 
 ultimate effects of Art on national mind before 
 I left England, and I went straight to the chief 
 fields of Swiss history: first to the centre of 
 
 * I ought perhaps to remind the reader that this statement 
 refers to two different societies among the Alps; the Waldenses 
 in the 13th, and the people of the Forest Cantons in the 14th 
 and following centuries. Protestants are perhaps apt some¬ 
 times to forget that the virtues of these mountaineers were 
 shown in connection with vital forms of opposing religions; 
 and that the patriots of Schwytz and Uri were as zealous 
 Homan Catholics as they were good soldiers. We have to lay 
 to their charge the death of Zuinglius as well as of Gessler. 
 
MB. BUSKIN’8 
 
 her feudal power, Hapsburg, the hawk s nest 
 from which the Swiss Rodolph rose to found 
 the Austrian empire; and then to the heart of 
 her republicanism, that little glen of Morgarten 
 where first in the history of Europe the shep¬ 
 herd’s staff prevailed over the soldier’s spear. 
 And it was somewhat depressing to me to find, 
 as day by day I found more certainly, that 
 this people which first asserted the liberties of 
 Europe, and first conceived the idea of equitable 
 laws, was in all the—shall I call them the 
 slighter, or the higher?—sensibilities of the 
 human mind, utterly deficient; and not only 
 had remained from its earliest ages till now, 
 without poetry, without Art, and without music, 
 except a mere modulated cry; but, as far as 
 I could judge from the rude efforts of their 
 early monuments, would have been, at the time 
 of their greatest national probity and power, in¬ 
 capable of producing good poetry or Art under 
 any circumstances of education. 
 
 I say, this was a sad thing for me to find. 
 And then, to mend the matter, I went straight 
 over into Italy, and came at once upon a curious 
 instance of the patronage of Art, of the character 
 that usually inclines most to such patronage, 
 and of the consequences thereof. 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 25 
 
 From Morgarten and Grutli, I intended to 
 have crossed to the Vaudois Valleys, to examine 
 the shepherd character there; but on the way 
 I had to pass through Turin, where unex¬ 
 pectedly I found the Paul Veroneses, one of 
 which, as I told you just now, stayed me at 
 once for six weeks. Naturally, enough, one 
 asked how these beautiful Veroneses came there; 
 and found they had been commissioned by 
 Cardinal Maurice of Savoy. Worthy Cardinal, 
 I thought: that’s what Cardinals were made 
 for. However, going a little farther in the 
 gallery, one comes upon four very graceful 
 pictures by Albani—these also commissioned 
 by the Cardinal, and commissioned with special 
 directions, according to the Cardinal’s fancy. 
 Four pictures, to be illustrative of the four 
 elements. 
 
 One of the most curious things in the mind 
 of the people of that century is their delight in 
 these four elements, and in the four seasons. 
 They had hardly any other idea of decorating 
 a room, or of choosing a subject for a picture, 
 than by some renewed reference to fire and 
 water, or summer and winter; nor were ever 
 tired of hearing that summer came after spring, 
 
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MR. BUSKIN'S 
 
 and that air was not earth, until these inter¬ 
 esting pieces of information got finally and 
 poetically expressed in that well-known piece 
 of elegant English conversation about the 
 weather, Thomson’s u Seasons.” So the Car¬ 
 dinal, not appearing to have any better idea 
 than the popular one, orders the four elements; 
 but thinking that the elements pure would be 
 slightly dull, he orders them, in one way or 
 another, to be mixed up with Cupids; to have, 
 m his own words, “una copiosa quantita di 
 Amorini.” Albani supplied the Cardinal ac¬ 
 cordingly with Cupids in clusters: they hang 
 in the sky like bunches of cherries; and leap 
 out of the sea like flying fish; grow out of the 
 earth in fairy rings ; and explode out of the fire 
 like squibs. No work whatsoever is done in 
 any of the four elements, but by the Cardinal’s 
 Cupids. They are ploughing the earth with 
 their arrows ; fishing in the sea with their bow¬ 
 strings; driving the clouds with their breath; 
 and fanning the fire with their wings. A 
 few beautiful nymphs are assisting them here 
 and there in pearl-fishing, flower-gathering, and 
 ot ier such branches of graceful industry; the 
 moral of the whole being, that the sea was 
 
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INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 27 
 
 made for its pearls, the earth for its flowers, and 
 all the world for pleasure 
 
 Well, the Cardinal, this great encourager of 
 the arts, having these industrial and social 
 theories, carried them out in practice, as you 
 may perhaps remember, by obtaining a dispen¬ 
 sation from the Pope to marry his own niece, 
 and building a villa for her on one of the slopes 
 of the pretty hills which rise to the east of the 
 city. The villa which he built is now one of 
 the principal objects of interest to the traveller 
 as an example of Italian domestic architecture: 
 n 4 to me, during my stay in the city, it was much 
 
 more than an object of interest; for its deserted 
 gardens were by much the pleasantest place I 
 could find for walking or thinking in, in the 
 hot summer afternoons. 
 
 I say thinking, for these gardens often gave 
 me a good deal to think about. They are, as 
 I told you, on the slope of the hill above the 
 city, to the east; commanding, therefore, the 
 view over it and beyond it, westward—a view 
 which, perhaps, of all those that can be obtained 
 north of the Apennines, gives the most com¬ 
 prehensive idea of the nature of Italy, con¬ 
 sidered as one great country. If you glance 
 
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28 
 
 ME. BUSKIN'S 
 
 at the map, you will observe that Turin is 
 placed in the centre of the crescent which the 
 Alps form round the basin of Piedmont; it is 
 within ten miles of the foot of the mountains 
 at the nearest point; and from that point the 
 chain extends half round the city in one un¬ 
 broken Moorish crescent, forming three-fourths 
 of a circle from the Col de Tende to the St. 
 
 Gothard ; that is to say, just two hundred miles 
 of the Alps, as the bird flies. I don’t speak 
 rhetorically or carelessly; I speak as I ought 
 to speak here—with mathematical precision. 
 
 Take the scale on your map; measure fifty f 
 
 miles of it accurately; try that measure from 
 
 the Col de Tende to the St. Gothard, and you 
 
 will find that four chords of fifty miles will 
 
 not quite reach to the two extremities of the 
 
 curve. 
 
 You see, then, from this spot, the plain of 
 Piedmont, on the north and south, literally as 
 far as the eye can reach; so that the plain 
 terminates as the sea does, with a level blue 
 line, only tufted with woods instead of waves, 
 and crowded with towers of cities instead of 
 ships. Then, in the luminous air beyond and 
 behind this blue horizon-line, stand, as it were, 
 

 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 29 
 
 the shadows of mountains, they themselves 
 dark, for the southern slopes of the Alps of 
 the Lago Maggiore and Bellinzona are all with- 
 1 out snow; but the light of the unseen snow- 
 
 % fields, lying level behind the visible peaks, is 
 sent up with strange reflection upon the clouds; 
 an everlasting light of calm Aurora in the 
 north. Then, higher and higher around the 
 approaching darkness of the plain, rise the 
 central chains, not as on the Switzer’s side, 
 a recognizable group and following of succes¬ 
 sive and separate hills, but a wilderness of 
 jagged peaks, cast in passionate and fierce pro- 
 w fusion along the circumference of heaven; pre¬ 
 
 cipice behind precipice, and gulph beyond gulph, 
 filled with the flaming of the sunset, and forming 
 mighty channels for the flowings of the clouds, 
 which roll up against them out of the vast 
 Italian plain, forced together by the narrowing 
 crescent, and breaking up at last against the 
 Alpine wall in towers of spectral spray; or 
 sweeping up its ravines with long moans of 
 complaining thunder. Out from between the 
 cloudy pillars, as they pass, emerge for ever the 
 great battlements of the memorable and per¬ 
 petual hills: Yiso, with her shepherd-witnesses 
 
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 ME. EUSKIN’S 
 
 to ancient faith; Rocca-melone, the highest 
 place of Alpine pilgrimage;* Iseran, who shed 
 her burial sheets of snow about the march of 
 Hannibal; Cenis, who shone with her glacier 
 light on the descent of Charlemain; Paradiso, 
 who watched with her opposite crest the stoop 
 of the French eagle to Marengo; and under¬ 
 neath all these, lying in her soft languor, this 
 tender Italy, lapped in dews of sleep, or more 
 than sleep—one knows not if it is trance, from 
 which morning shall yet roll the blinding mists 
 away, or if the fair shadows of her quietude are 
 indeed the shades of purple death. And, lifted 
 
 * The summit of Rocca-melone is the sharp peak seen from 
 lunn on the right hand of the gorge of the Cenis, dominant 
 oyer the low projecting pyramid of the hill called by de 
 Saussure Montagne de Musinet. Rocca-melone rises to a 
 
 E™ aW the 6ea - and ** peak is a place of 
 
 pJgmnage to this day, though it seems temporarily to have 
 ceased to be so m the time of de Saussure, who thus speaks 
 
 . y a Cu pendant long-terns sur cette cime, une petite 
 
 7 “*• * «S" 
 
 au moi, <p ,7 ( ! ParS ’ et ° < " m gland nomW ^ s* m aUfliflat 
 
 Ip ,• . n P rooessi on, de Suze et des environs • mais 
 
 n a l 9 r 0 T Uit “ cette chapeUeest8i S 
 
 Li;imtnT m - d : anne& *■*. 11 p-it & 
 
 avoient plutSt consult Te^d/ SaiS1 f° ient ceux 1 “ 
 tomberent en dpfa *11 votion que leurs forces; ila 
 
 nerent en defaillance, et de la dans le precipice.” 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 3i 
 
 a little above this solemn plain, and looking 
 beyond it to its snowy ramparts, vainly guardian, 
 stands this palace dedicate to pleasure, the whole 
 legend of Italy’s past history written before 
 it by the finger of God, written as with an iron 
 pen upon the rock for ever, on all those fronting 
 walls of reproachful Alp; blazoned in gold of 
 lightning upon the clouds that still open and 
 close their unsealed scrolls in heaven; painted 
 in purple and scarlet upon the mighty missal 
 pages of sunset after sunset, spread vainly be¬ 
 fore a nation’s eyes for a nation’s prayer. So 
 stands this palace of pleasure; desolate as it 
 deserves—desolate in smooth corridor and glit¬ 
 tering chamber—desolate in pleached walk and 
 planted bower—desolate in that worst and bit¬ 
 terest abandonment which leaves no light of 
 memory. No ruins are here of walls rent by 
 war, and falling above their defenders into 
 mounds of graves: no remnants are here of 
 chapel-altar, or temple-porch, left shattered or 
 silent by the power of some purer worship: 
 no vestiges are here of sacred hearth and sweet 
 homestead, left lonely through vicissitudes of 
 fate and heaven-sent sorrow. Nothing is here 
 but the vain apparellings of pride sunk into dis- 
 
 PRICE SIXPENCE, 
 
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 honour • and vain appanages of delight now n 
 more delightsome. The, hill-waters, that once 
 
 flowed and flashed in the garden fountains, now 
 trickle sadly through the weeds that encumber 
 their basins, with a sound as of tears: the creep 
 ing, insidious, neglected flowers weave theii 
 burning nets about the white marble of the 
 balustrades, and rend them slowly, block from 
 block, and stone from stone: the thin, sweet- 
 scented leaves tremble along the old masonry 
 joints as if with palsy, at every breeze j and the 
 dark lichens, golden and grey, make the foot¬ 
 fall silent in the path’s centre. 
 
 And day by day as I walked there, the same 
 sentence seem whispered by every shaking leaf, 
 and every dying echo of garden and chamber— 
 
 u Thus end all the arts of life, only in death ; 
 and thus issue all the gifts of man, only in his 
 dishonour, when they are pursued or possessed 
 in the service of pleasure only.” 
 
 This then is the great enigma of Art History, 
 you must not follow Art without pleasure, nor 
 must you follow it for the sake of pleasure. 
 And the solution of that enigma is simply this 
 fact; that wherever Art has been followed only 
 for the sake of luxury or delight, it has con- 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 33 
 
 tributed, and largely contributed, to bring about 
 the destruction of the nation practising it: but 
 wherever Art has been used also to teach any 
 truth, or supposed truth—religious, moral, or 
 natural—there it has elevated the nation prac¬ 
 tising it, and itself with the nation. 
 
 Thus the Art of Greece rose, and did service 
 to the people, so long as it was to them the 
 earnest interpreter of a religion they believed 
 in: the Arts of northern sculpture and archi¬ 
 tecture rose, as interpreters of Christian legend 
 and doctrine: the Art of painting in Italy, not 
 only as religious, but also mainly as expressive 
 of truths of moral philosophy, and powerful in 
 pure human portraiture. The only great painters 
 in our schools of painting in England have either 
 been of portrait—Reynolds and Gainsborough; 
 of the philosophy of social life—Hogarth; or of 
 the facts of nature in landscape—Wilson and 
 Turner. In all these cases, if I had time, I 
 could show you that the success of the painter 
 depended on his desire to convey a truth, rather 
 than to produce a merely beautiful picture; that 
 is to say, to get a likeness of a man, or of a 
 place; to get some moral principle rightly stated, 
 
 or some historical character rightly described, 
 • 
 
 i 
 
34 MR. RUSKIIPS 
 
 rather than merely to give pleasure to the eyes. 
 Compare the feeling with which a Moorish 
 architect decorated an arch of the Alhambra, 
 with that of Hogarth painting the “Marriage 
 k la mode,” or of Wilkie painting the “ Chelsea 
 Pensioners,” and you will at once feel the differ¬ 
 ence between Art pursued for pleasure only, 
 and for the sake of some useful principle or im¬ 
 pression. 
 
 Hut what you might not so easily discern is, 
 that even when painting does appear to have 
 been pursued for pleasure only, if ever you find 
 it rise to any noble level, you will also find that 
 a stem search after truth has been at the root 
 of its nobleness. You may fancy, perhaps, that 
 Titian, Veronese, and Tintoret were painters for 
 the sake of pleasure only: but in reality they 
 were the only painters who ever sought entirely 
 to master, and who did entirely master, the 
 truths of light and shade as associated with 
 colour, in the noblest of all physical created 
 things, the human form. They were the only 
 men who ever painted the human body; all 
 other painters of the great schools are mere 
 anatomical draughtsmen compared to them; 
 rather makers of maps of the body, than painters 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 35 
 
 of it. The Venetians alone, by a toil almost 
 superhuman, succeeded at last in obtaining a 
 power almost superhuman; and were able finally 
 to paint the highest visible work of God with 
 unexaggerated structure, undegraded colour, and 
 unaffected gesture. It seems little to say this; 
 but I assure you it is much to have done this— 
 so much, that no other men but the Venetians 
 ever did it: none of them ever painted the 
 human body without in some degree caricaturing 
 the anatomy, forcing the action, or degrading 
 the hue. 
 
 Now, therefore, the sum of all is, that you 
 who wish to encourage Art in England have to 
 do two things with it: you must delight in it, 
 in the first place; and you must get it to serve 
 some serious work, in the second place. I don’t 
 mean by serious, necessarily moral: all that I 
 mean by serious is in some way or other useful, 
 not merely selfish, careless, or indolent. I had 
 indeed intended, before closing my address, to 
 have traced out a few of the directions in which, 
 as it seems to me, Art may be seriously and 
 practically serviceable to us in the career of 
 civilization. I had hoped to show you how 
 many of the great phenomena of nature still 
 
 $ 
 
36 ME. BUSKIN'8 
 
 remained unrecorded by it, for us to lecord, 
 how many of the historical monuments of Europe 
 were perishing without memorial, foi the want 
 of but a little honest, simple, laborious, loving 
 draughtsmanship: how many of the most im¬ 
 pressive historical events of the day failed of 
 teaching us half of what they were meant to teach, 
 for want of painters to represent them faithfully, 
 instead of fancifully, and with historical truth 
 for their aim, instead of national self-glorification. 
 I had hoped to show you how many of the best 
 impulses of the heart were lost in frivolity or 
 sensuality, for want of purer beauty to con¬ 
 template, and of noble thoughts to associate 
 with the fervour of hallowed human passions; 
 how, finally, a great part of the vital power of 
 our religious faith was lo3t in us, for want of 
 such art as would realize in some rational, pro¬ 
 bable, believable way, those events of sacred 
 history which, as they visibly and intelligibly 
 occurred, may also be visibly and intelligibly 
 represented. But all this I dare not do yet. 
 
 I felt, as I thought over these things, that the 
 time was not yet come for their declaration: the 
 time will come for it, and I believe soon; but 
 as yet, the man would only lay himself open 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 37 
 
 to the charge of vanity, of imagination, and 
 of idle fondness of hope, who should venture 
 to trace in words the course of the higher 
 blessings which the Arts may have yet in 
 store for mankind. As yet there is no need 
 to do so: all that we have to plead for is an 
 earnest and straightforward exertion in those 
 courses of study which are opened to us day 
 by day, believing only that they are to be 
 followed gravely and for grave purposes, as by 
 men, and not by children. I appeal, finally, 
 to all those who are to become the pupils of 
 these schools, to keep clear of the notion of 
 following Art as dilettantism : it ought to delight 
 you, as your reading delights you—but you 
 never think of your reading as dilettantism. It 
 ought to delight you, as your studies of physical 
 science delight you—but you don’t call physical 
 science dilettantism. If you are determined 
 only to think of Art as a play or a pleasure, 
 give it up at once: you will do no good to 
 yourselves, and you will degrade the pursuit 
 in the sight of others. Better, infinitely better, 
 that you should never enter a picture gallery, 
 than that you should enter only to saunter and 
 to smile: better, infinitely better, that you should 
 
 
 
 PRICE SIXPENCE, 
 
ME. MVS KIN’S 
 
 , 11 _„;i „t all than handle it only 
 
 never handle a penc - gmall dex . 
 
 for the sake of complacency 1 7 
 
 ££ better, infinitely better, that you shouhi 
 
 he wholly uninterested in pictures, and un¬ 
 informed respecting them, than that you should 
 just know enough to detect blemishes m great 
 works,-to give a colour of reasonableness to 
 presumption, and an appearance of acuteness to 
 misunderstanding. Above all, I would plead 
 for this so far as the teaching of these schools 
 may be addressed to the junior Members of the 
 University. Men employed in any kind of 
 manual labour, by which they must live, are 
 not likely to take up the notion that they can 
 learn any other art for amusement only; but 
 amateurs are: and it is of the highest importance, 
 nay, it is just the one thing of all importance, 
 to show them what drawing really means; and 
 not so much to teach them to produce, a good 
 work themselves, as to know it when they see 
 it done by others. Good work, in the stern 
 sense of the word, as I before said, no mere 
 amateur can do; and good work, in any sense, 
 that is to say, profitable work for himself or for 
 any one else, he can only do by being made 
 
IN A UG URAL ADDRESS. 
 
 39 
 
 in the beginning to see what is possible for him, 
 and what not;—what is accessible, and what 
 not; and by having the majesty and sternness 
 of the everlasting laws of fact set before him 
 in their infinitude. It is no matter for appalling 
 him : the man is great already who is made well 
 capable of being appalled; nor do we ever wisely 
 hope, nor truly understand, till we are humili¬ 
 ated by our hope, and awestruck by our un¬ 
 derstanding. Nay, I will go farther than this, 
 and say boldly, that what you have mainly 
 to teach the young men here is, not so much 
 what they can do, as what they cannot—to 
 make them see how much there is in nature 
 which cannot be imitated, and how much in 
 man which cannot be emulated. He only can 
 be truly said to be educated in Art to whom 
 all his work is only a feeble sign of glories 
 which he cannot convey, and a feeble means 
 of measuring, with ever-enlarging admiration, 
 the great and untraversable gulph which God 
 has set between the great and the common 
 intelligences of mankind: and all the triumphs 
 of Art which man can commonly achieve are 
 only truly crowned by pure delight in natural 
 
m V6VUl ASSESS. 
 
 4 ° j hv the sacred and self¬ 
 
 scenes themselves, an‘ y u nobly abashed, 
 
 forgetful veneration w i ^ ^ preS ence of 
 
 and trembling y cxa ’ t is own. 
 
 __ cmV t oreater tnan 
 
 
 j. PALMER, PRINTER, CAMBRIDGE.