gether, and have no right to complain afterwards that it will
not acknowledge better-grounded claims. But if every painter of real
power would do only what he knew to be worthy of himself, and refuse
to be involved in the contention for undeserved or accidental success,
there is indeed, whatever may have been thought or said to the
contrary, true instinct enough in the public mind to follow such firm
guidance. It is one of the facts which the experience of thirty years
enables me to assert without qualification, that a really good picture
is ultimately always approved and bought, unless it is wilfully
rendered offensive to the public by faults which the artist has been
either too proud to abandon or too weak to correct.

The development of whatever is healthful and serviceable in the two
modes of impulse which we have been considering, depends however,
ultimately, on the direction taken by the true interest in art which
has lately been aroused by the great and active genius of many of our
living, or but lately lost, painters, sculptors, and architects. It
may perhaps surprise, but I think it will please you to hear me, or
(if you will forgive me, in my own Oxford, the presumption of fancying
that some may recognize me by an old name) to hear the author of
_Modern Painters_ say, that his chief error in earlier days was not in
over-estimating, but in too slightly acknowledging the merit of living
men. The great painter whose power, while he was yet among us, I was
able to perceive,[172] was the first to reprove me for my disregard of
the skill of his fellow-artists; and, with this inauguration of the
study of the art of all time,--a study which can only by true modesty
end in wise admiration,--it is surely well that I connect the record
of these words of his, spoken then too truly to myself, and true
always more or less for all who are untrained in that toil,--"You
don't know how difficult it is."

You will not expect me, within the compass of this lecture, to give
you any analysis of the many kinds of excellent art (in all the three
great divisions) which the complex demands of modern life, and yet
more varied instincts of modern genius, have developed for pleasure or
service. It must be my endeavour, in conjunction with my colleagues in
other Universities, hereafter to enable you to appreciate these
worthily; in the hope that also the members of the Royal Academy, and
those of the Institute of British Architects, may b