ought to have in the thoughts, and influence on the lives of all of us;
to attach to the artist the responsibility of a preacher, and to kindle
in the general mind that regard which such an office must demand.

It must be evident that the first portion of this task, which is all
that I have yet been enabled to offer to the reader, cannot but be the
least interesting and the most laborious, especially because it is
necessary that it should be executed without reference to any principles
of beauty or influences of emotion. It is the hard, straightforward
classification of material things, not the study of thought or passion;
and therefore let me not be accused of the feelings which I choose to
repress. The consideration of the high qualities of art must not be
interrupted by the work of the hammer and the eudiometer.

Again, I would request that the frequent passages of reference to the
great masters of the Italian school may not be looked upon as mere modes
of conventional expression. I think there is enough in the following
pages to prove that I am not likely to be carried away by the celebrity
of a name; and therefore that the devoted love which I profess for the
works of the great historical and sacred painters is sincere and
well-grounded. And indeed every principle of art which I may advocate, I
shall be able to illustrate by reference to the works of men universally
allowed to be the masters of masters; and the public, so long as my
teaching leads them to higher understanding and love of the works of
Buonaroti, Leonardo, Raffaelle, Titian, and Cagliari, may surely concede
to me without fear, the right of striking such blows as I may deem
necessary to the establishment of my principles, at Gasper Poussin, or
Vandevelde.

Indeed, I believe there is nearly as much occasion, at the present day,
for advocacy of Michael Angelo against the pettiness of the moderns, as
there is for support of Turner against the conventionalities of the
ancients. For, though the names of the fathers of sacred art are on all
our lips, our faith in them is much like that of the great world in its
religion--nominal, but dead. In vain our lecturers sound the name of
Raffaelle in the ears of their pupils, while their own works are visibly
at variance with every principle deducible from his. In vain is the
young student compelled to produce a certain number of school copies of
Michael Angelo, when his bread must depend on the number of gewgaws h