sham in it either!--no "bigod nonsense!" they are all "doing
good"--yes, they all do good to Art. Poor Art! what a sad state the
slut is in, an these gentlemen shall help her. The artist alone, by
the way, is to no purpose, and remains unconsulted; his work is
explained and rectified without him, by the one who was never in
it--but upon whom God, always good, though sometimes careless, has
thrown away the knowledge refused to the author--poor devil!

The Attorney-General said, "There are some people who would do away
with critics altogether."

I agree with him, and am of the irrationals he points at--but let
me be clearly understood--the _art_ critic alone would I extinguish.
That writers should destroy writings to the benefit of writing is
reasonable. Who but they shall insist upon beauties of literature, and
discard the demerits of their brother _litterateurs_? In their turn
they will be destroyed by other writers, and the merry game goes on
till truth prevail. Shall the painter then--I foresee the
question--decide upon painting? Shall _he_ be the critic and sole
authority? Aggressive as is this supposition, I fear that, in the
length of time, his assertion alone has established what even the
gentlemen of the quill accept as the canons of art, and recognise as
the masterpieces of work.

Let work, then, be received in silence, as it was in the days to which
the penmen still point as an era when art was at its apogee. And here
we come upon the oft-repeated apology of the critic for existing at
all, and find how complete is his stultification. He brands himself as
the necessary blister for the health of the painter, and writes that
he may do good to his art. In the same ink he bemoans the decadence
about him, and declares that the best work was done when he was not
there to help it. No! let there be no critics! they are not a
"necessary evil," but an evil quite unnecessary, though an evil
certainly.

Harm they do, and not good.

Furnished as they are with the means of furthering their foolishness,
they spread prejudice abroad; and through the papers, at their
service, thousands are warned against the work they have yet to look
upon.

And here one is tempted to go further, and show the crass idiocy and
impertinence of those whose dicta are printed as law.

How he of the _Times_[18] has found Velasquez "slovenly in execution,
poor in colour--being little but a combination of neutral greys and
ugly in its forms"-