less capable class than those of painting. The general public, and I say
it with sorrow, because I know it from observation, have little to do
with the encouragement of the school of painting, beyond the power which
they unquestionably possess, and unmercifully use, of compelling our
artists to substitute glare for beauty. Observe the direction of public
taste at any of our exhibitions. We see visitors at that of the Society
of Painters in Water Colors, passing Tayler with anathemas and Lewis
with indifference, to remain in reverence and admiration before certain
amiable white lambs and water-lilies, whose artists shall be nameless.
We see them, in the Royal Academy, passing by Wilkie, Turner and
Callcott, with shrugs of doubt or of scorn, to fix in gazing and
enthusiastic crowds upon kettles-full of witches, and His Majesty's
ships so and so lying to in a gale, etc., etc. But these pictures attain
no celebrity because the public admire them, for it is not to the public
that the judgment is intrusted. It is by the chosen few, by our nobility
and men of taste and talent, that the decision is made, the fame
bestowed, and the artist encouraged.

6. Not so in architecture. There, the power is generally diffused. Every
citizen may box himself up in as barbarous a tenement as suits his taste
or inclination; the architect is his vassal, and must permit him not
only to criticise, but to perpetrate. The palace or the nobleman's seat
may be raised in good taste, and become the admiration of a nation; but
the influence of their owner is terminated by the boundary of his
estate: he has no command over the adjacent scenery, and the possessor
of every thirty acres around him has him at his mercy. The streets of
our cities are examples of the effects of this clashing of different
tastes; and they are either remarkable for the utter absence of all
attempt at embellishment, or disgraced by every variety of abomination.