le bits--blots and splashes, ducks, chickweed, ears of corn--all
that was clever and petite; and the real picture--the full
development of the artist's mind--was left on his hands. How can I,
or any one else, with a conscience, advise him after this to aim at
anything more than may be struck out by the cleverness of a quarter
of an hour. Cattermole, I believe, is earthed and shackled in the
same manner. He began his career with finished and studied pictures,
which, I believe, never paid him--he now prostitutes his fine talent
to the superficialness of public taste, and blots his way to
emolument and oblivion. There is commonly, however, fault on both
sides; in the artist for exhibiting his dexterity by mountebank
tricks of the brush, until chaste finish, requiring ten times the
knowledge and labor, appears insipid to the diseased taste which he
has himself formed in his patrons, as the roaring and ranting of a
common actor will oftentimes render apparently vapid the finished
touches of perfect nature; and in the public, for taking less real
pains to become acquainted with, and discriminate, the various
powers of a great artist, than they would to estimate the excellence
of a cook or develop the dexterity of a dancer.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

It is with much regret, and partly against my own judgment, that I
republish the following chapters in their present form. The particular
circumstances (stated in the first preface) under which they were
originally written, have rendered them so unfit for the position they
now hold as introductory to a serious examination of the general
functions of art, that I should have wished first to complete the
succeeding portions of the essay, and then to write another introduction
of more fitting character. But as it may be long before I am able to do
this, and as I believe what I have already written may still be of some
limited and partial service, I have suffered it to reappear, trusting to
the kindness of the reader to look to its intention rather than its
temper, and forgive its inconsideration in its earnestness.

Thinking it of too little substance to bear mending, wherever I have
found a passage which I thought required modification or explanation, I
have cut it out; what I have left, however imperfect, cannot I think be
dangerously misunderstood: something I have added, not