works of their apprentices were bought at extravagant prices, merely because the picture-dealer palmed them off upon the would-be virtuoso as the productions of foreign masters. One of the objects of this work was to show that the English School had produced men who were capable of rivalling the works of the greatest masters of the Continent, had they only received equal patronage and means of displaying their skill. On the Continent, the prejudices of the people, encouraged (instead of forbidding, as among us,) the introduction of paintings in their churches, and their princes and nobles decorated their walls with works of art, an enduring memorial of their good taste in their due appreciation. Our aristocracy, however, have neglected every opportunity of following their example; and the ablest of our artists have been allowed to pass away, without leaving that memory behind them which is generally almost the only consolation of genius. We did hope that it would have been in our power to have proved, in the course of our publication, of what the English School had been capable. We wished to give specimens of the works of each of our native masters, many of whose names are scarcely known now to the public, as well as of those who survive them, doomed probably to share the same fate. The difficulty here would have been-the proper selection; which, however, was obviated by the idea suggesting itself to the proprietor, of seeking permission from the Council of the Royal Academy, to engrave the pictures presented by each member on his election. Of these, not more than five or six had ever been engraved; and, though many of them exquisite specimens of art, were little known to the world, as they were hidden in an obscure and dark room of the Apartments of the Royal Academy, many behind curtains and plaster casts, daily covered with additional dust, and deteriorating from damp and neglect. He therefore applied to several members of the Academy, and met with a reception which enabled him to hope for the success of his project, and induced him to hold out to his readers the expectation of an important and interesting announcement. In the mean while he wrote to the President and Council, stating the nature of the publication for which they were intended, the object in view, with the further condition that the engravings should be executed in the best manner, and copies made under their own supervisal if they required it, and without being removed from their Apartments. In answer to this the following letter was received :

1;

"Royal Academy, Nov. 26, 1851. "Sir,-Your letter has been laid before the President and Council, together with the Numbers you have sent them of your valuable publication, the

'Library of the Fine Arts,' for which I am directed to return you their best thanks.

"In regard to the wish you have expressed, to be allowed to engrave the diploma pictures of the Academicians deposited in the Academy, the President and Counci! feel that such a measure would be unavoidably attended with great difficulty and inconvenience, insomuch that with every disposition to promote your work, which they consider likely to be very useful to the Arts, they regret the being unable to accede to your request.

"I am, Sir, your obedient Servant,

"H. HOWARD, R.A., Secretary."

This letter is given, and these circumstances detailed, not from any wish to impugn the decision of the Council, which was no doubt judged to be right. It was however different from what we had been led to expect from the interviews with several of the Academicians, and among them the enlightened and liberal-minded President, who had promised to urge every argument in favour of the project. That such a series of engravings would be very acceptable and exceedingly interesting can admit of no doubt; and every friend to the English School, therefore, must join with us in urging upon the Council that they will undertake the same task themselves, or they may expect some day (certainly not from us) that copies will be made and published in a manner to reflect, perhaps, not equal credit upon them. As their consent was in the first instance proposed to be necessary for the publication of each plate, it is not easy to perceive what "difficulty and inconvenience" could be expected to arise; except it were in the repugnance of particular individuals to allow their works to be so given to the world at all, or in a manner where only the interests of the Arts, and not their own, would be consulted. That such a feeling would be found to exist had never entered into our imagination; and though it has since been suggested, we only repeat it to express our disbelief in the possibility of its existence. It is sufficient for us to give this explanation of the "announcement" we made, and the proof, if additional proof were required, of our anxiety by every means to carry into effect the object we professed to have in view, of furthering the interests of Art. In this, we cannot pass over the obligation we owe to many of the editors of the public press for the assistance they have afforded us. In some of the principal periodical publications, The Morning Herald, The Literary Gazette, The Court Journal, and others, we have been repeatedly noticed with commendation: and if we have been passed over by any, we trust that the omission may only be ascribed to the circumstance of our copies not having reached them. Here, then, we close our Preface," having consoled ourselves with unburdening our disappointment to the

"gentle reader," and promising him that, if we cannot give any thing better for the time to come, we will at least endeavour not to deteriorate from that which has already received his favour.

HINTS TO AMATEUR ARTISTS.

THERE is in graphic dilettantiship, amongst other delights, that which constitutes the charm of style, arising out of certain modes of expressing with the pencil, either in one colour, or with the simple process of a warm tint and a cool tint, or with many colours, that species of execution which, according to the perception of the operator, represents the objects in the form of a picture.

A relish or feeling for this abstract quality in Art is an acquired taste, and, like many of the most exquisite pleasures derived from mental pursuits, is less an affair of reason than prejudice: hence, what is a source of indescribable gratification to the initiated, is to the unskilled in these matters as the charm of sweet sounds to the deaf, or of beautiful colours to the blind.

To paint to please the multitude,-namely, the "senseless little, and the ignorant great,"-it is incumbent on the painter to represent Nature so ably, that if the picture portray a cat, a dog will snarl at it; or if it represent a dish of fish, a cat will pounce upon it.

There are those, however, whose intellect touching the art soar to a region somewhat higher: to these, high-finishing supplies the want of , actual deception; and they can estimate what would neither excite the anger of honest Pincher, nor the longings of Puss. Denner delights, because every pore of the skin of his portraits will bear microscopic criticism, and the pupil of each eye reflects a window, "natural as life." The silks and satins of Chevalier Vander-Werf, to this class of sapienti, will fetch, by measurement, several thousand pounds per yard.

Yes! there is a charm delectable in style. What a vast and pleasant field for connoisseurship to revel in! The style collective, and the style individual. There are,-the style severe, the style heroic; the Roman and the Italian style; the Venetian, the Flemish and the Dutch style; the French style, and the English style,-of which, touching all its characteristic darings, dashings, excentricities, anomalies, excellencies and conceits, inclusive of all its "divers diversities," if there be not enough to suit all tastes, then are our "wise saws" as so much blank paper, and VOL. III.-No. 12.

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philosophy itself only as a rushlight before a chaotic Rembrandt, sufficing scarcely to render its "darkness visible!"

Payne's style, to use old country gossips' phrase, "some forty years agone was all the rage: of the merits of which we have said enough. Cozens's style, though never so popular as Payne's, was then growing out of date. This ingenious artist was a favourite master with the English, for his drawings were replete with the principal attributes sought by English amateurs,-breadth and aërial perspective, with a spacious residue for the imagination to speculate upon. The admirers of Art in England,-as an intelligent foreigner about this period observed, —are entirely antipodeal in their tastes. One class contends for elaborate finishing, whilst the other can endure no finishing at all. It has long since, however, ceased so to be;-finishing is the last thing now sought for in a picture.

Gainsborough and Wilson, with all their originality and genius, were mannerists, often incoherent, and sometimes almost inexplicable: but then, only think upon their redeeming attribute-style!

The able Du Bos, and the other critic-philosopher Winkelman, had the presumption to talk and write about, aye! and print their idle reveries on our uninspiring atmosphere, and consequent graphic dulness; whilst, had they known aught of Englishmen, they must have admitted, nolens volens, that we are in the poetry of painting, professors and amateurs as well, the most highly gifted of any people that Apollo ever looked down upon with wonderment and an approving smile.

Dulness indeed! On the contrary, we are, as painters, and amateurs too, the most imaginative of all the mortal race, that ever "slept to wake, and sleep again." And then, to smother their mistake in England's atmosphere! Why, Gentlemen, surely ye were dreaming, or we dream; our sea-begotten isle was made expressly, no doubt, to nullify the gratuitous-foolish fallacies of the speculative philosophy of the last age: England is the hot-bed of ideality, the food on which graphic genius feeds, the nourishment that supplies the very stamina of the beau-ideal of Art.

Look at the works of Wilson! He, like Shakspeare, “leaves the tale untold." Every touch of his pencil, like this touch of our poet's pen,is it not a touch of the sublime? He creates, and leaves the imagination of another to finish his design. This, if we, after our eighty years experience, cannot unequivocally assert to be the highest point of the philosophy of Art, would justify our laying down the pen, and leaving the world as intellectually dark upon the subject as we found it before we went to school. No! never were painters and connoisseurs so fitly

made for each other, as in this "chosen land." Where Wilson or his contemporary Gainsborough dashed out a mere hint, whether a distant barque, a stranded leviathan, or the emerging surface of a huge stone; or whether meaning naught, as sometimes was truly meant, -the enthusiast amateur supplied a meaning, which did as well, producing a veritable charm to his enchanted eye. Happy painter! thrice happy connoisseur!

John Cozens was one of the first of those fortunate geniuses, if not the very first, who, in water-colours, ventured into the regions of the beau-ideal of landscape: his explorations were successful; he had his numerous admirers and imitators, and acquired a name. How many could we chronicle, who gave their six hours daily to the delectable daubery of mountains, mists and lakes, seated around tables spread with crockery brim full of sea-tint, sky-tint, rock-tint, middle-ground and fore-ground tint, compounded by recipe, covering reams of best-wove, four times as big as fools-cap, à la Cozens, with that exemplary diligence which would have astounded sleek working-bees, and an intelligence that would have made a spinning spider suspend his mathematical operations, and shake his inflated sides with laughter.

Cozens could not help this folly: he was an ingenious wight, had invented a style, which, being effective with little labour, was the great desideratum sought amongst the idlers of fortune; and by teaching them how to blot, had the felicity to exchange his liquid pigments, for that aurum potabile, without which Genius is left shirtless, and Fame becomes an empty sound.

We speak of Cozens, thus, as a teacher of what perhaps was not teachable; but, to render what is due to his memory as an artist, he is entitled to a respectful record in our annals, as his drawings, though deficient in power, and those superior painter-like qualities which characterize the works of the present day, possessed considerable merit, and contributed, by their atmospheric effect, to show that water-colour art was eminently calculated for the delineation of expansive scenery, in which aërial perspective constitutes a principal charm.

Mr. Cozens was the first British artist who successfully wrought in water-colours in the romantic regions of Italy. Certain amongst his landscape compositions and views were admired for their classic amenities; they were eminently chaste, in tone and effect, and mainly contributed to do away that unmeaning and erroneous mode of colouring and hard style of execution which characterized every preceding attempt by the other professors of water-colour art, which pretended to represent the epic style of landscape.