hat our taste is corrupted and false whenever we
feel disposed to admire him. I am prepared to support this position,
however uncharitable it may seem; a man may be tempted into a gross
sin by passion, and forgiven; and yet there are some kinds of sins
into which only men of a certain kind can be tempted, and which
cannot be forgiven. It should be added, however, that the artistical
qualities of these pictures are in every way worthy of the
conceptions they realize; I do not recollect any instances of color
or execution so coarse and feelingless.

[9] It appears not to be sufficiently understood by those artists
who complain acrimoniously of their positions on the Academy walls,
that the Academicians have in their own rooms a right to the line
and the best places near it; in their taking this position there is
no abuse nor injustice; but the Academicians should remember that
with their rights they have their duties, and their duty is to
determine among the works of artists not belonging to their body
those which are most likely to advance public knowledge and
judgment, and to give these the best places next their own; neither
would it detract from their dignity if they occasionally ceded a
square even of their own territory, as they did gracefully and
rightly, and, I am sorry to add, disinterestedly, to the picture of
Paul de la Roche in 1844. Now the Academicians know perfectly well
that the mass of portrait which encumbers their walls at half height
is worse than useless, seriously harmful to the public taste, and it
was highly criminal (I use the word advisedly) that the valuable and
interesting work of Fielding, of which I have above spoken, should
have been placed where it was, above three rows of eye-glasses and
waistcoats. A very beautiful work of Harding's was treated either in
the same or the following exhibition with still greater injustice.
Fielding's was merely put out of sight; Harding's where its faults
were conspicuous and its virtues lost. It was an Alpine scene, of
which the foreground, rocks, and torrents were painted with
unrivalled fidelity and precision; the foliage was dexterous, the
aerial gradations of the mountains tender and multitudinous, their
forms carefully studied and very grand. The blemish of the picture
was a buff-colored tower with a red roof; singula