cted as thoroughly original, thoroughly honest, free from
affectation, manly in manner, frequently successful in cool color, and
especially realizing certain motives of English scenery with perhaps as
much affection as such scenery, unless when regarded through media of
feeling derived from higher sources, is calculated to inspire.

On the works of Calcott, high as his reputation stands, I should look
with far less respect; I see not any preference or affection in the
artist; there is no tendency in him with which we can sympathize, nor
does there appear any sign of aspiration, effort, or enjoyment in any
one of his works. He appears to have completed them methodically, to
have been content with them when completed, to have thought them good,
legitimate, regular pictures; perhaps in some respects better than
nature. He painted everything tolerably, and nothing excellently; he
has given us no gift, struck for us no light, and though he has
produced one or two valuable works, of which the finest I know is the
Marine in the possession of Sir J. Swinburne, they will, I believe, in
future have no place among those considered representative of the
English school.

Sec. 19. Peculiar tendency of recent landscape.

Throughout the range of elder art it will be remembered we have found no
instance of the faithful painting of mountain scenery, except in a faded
background of Masaccio's: nothing more than rocky eminences, undulating
hills, or fantastic crags, and even these treated altogether under
typical forms. The more specific study of mountains seems to have
coincided with the most dexterous practice of water-color; but it admits
of doubt whether the choice of subject has been directed by the vehicle,
or whether, as I rather think, the tendency of national feeling has been
followed in the use of the most appropriate means. Something is to be
attributed to the increased demand for slighter works of art, and much
to the sense of the quality of objects now called picturesque, which
appears to be exclusively of modern origin. From what feeling the
character of middle-age architecture and costume arose, or with what
kind of affection their forms were regarded by the inventors, I am
utterly unable to guess; but of this I think we may be assured, that the
natural instinct and child-like wisdom of those days were altogether
different from the modern feeling, which appears to have taken its
origin in the absence of such objects, and