ARTIST S.

"GOING to make his son an artist!" said Major Pendennis. "By gad! in my time a fellow would as soon have thought of making his son a hairdresser."

Very likely, worthy Major; nay, very true. With few exceptions it has been the practice of English people to act upon the sentiments enunciated by their half-barbarous monarch, George, when he announced, for the benefit of whomsover it might concern, that he "hated boets and bainters." They had an idea that painting was an effeminate art, pursued only by effeminate persons; and that while it did well enough for Frenchmen, Italians, and the like, it was wholly unsuited to the manly English character. As a consequence they had no artists among them, save a scattered few, who lived out their lives

"Husbanding that which they possessed within,
And went to their graves unthought of."

There was no English school of art; what pretended

to be English, was but a mongrel adaptation of German or Dutch, and the few great artists who lived and were famous before the reign of George the Third, were like beacons to show how many more there might have been had attention been paid to art. Those who did appear, appeared through the efforts of natural genius, and without aid from society. Like the poet who did

"But sing because he must,

And pipe but as the linnets sing,"

these painters painted because they could not help it; because nature had kindled in them so warm a love for herself that they could not but express it, and find their pleasure and their life in portraying her beauties upon their canvas. But, as Major Pendennis observed, a man would as soon have thought of making his son a hairdresser as an artist; for English art came, as it were, from beneath; "gentlemen" would not touch it with one of their fingers. From the time of the Restoration down to the time of the great war, " gentlemen” had been, as a rule, so brutalised in England, that they may be said to have been incapable of understanding, still more of following art; and though the fashion of "the grand tour" gave occasion to some of them to open their eyes on this subject, they seem to have profited very little by their opportunities, and the practice of painting, as a profession, was left to "low fellows," as a sort of natural right. Even down to Major Pendennis's time the notion prevailed, and I

am by no means certain it is altogether extinct at the present time. Although art has become "respectable in itself, and though the rewards it brings have dissociated it from poverty and lowliness as necessary companions, there is still a lurking idea that artists themselves are not quite comme il faut persons, that they are more or less "naughty," that they are necessitous (this last has considerable foundation in fact), that they are decidedly ineligible partis. Much of this reputation has been acquired by artists in consequence of their Bohemian habits, and their frequent carelessness of appearance; but it is no more deserved by them than by law students or university undergraduates, and not so much as by medical students. The truth is, that much misapprehension still prevails in the popular mind on the subject; but the profession of an artist is no longer therefore despised; nay, it is rather affected by those whose education and associations are likely to help greatly towards taking away altogether the erroneous notion I have referred to.

As a means of merely making money, an artist's profession is about the last one to choose. Indeed, if any one should choose it on that account, he would infallibly lose by the transaction, for art, still more than literature, refuses her favours and her smiles to those who approach her in a mercenary spirit. She has rewards to give, but they must be taken by the way, not be made the motive for coming to her. The aim of any who would thrive in the fair opinion of

the artistic muse, must be to excel on canvas, rather than at the bank. Weighty balances will attend upon success, but he who would succeed must not look forward to them.

It follows from this, therefore, that unless a youth has shown some very marked inclination towards art, has, in fact, proved that he is possessed by a genius for it, he should in nowise be committed to it. Mere cleverness in copying, or mere readiness with the pencil or the graving tool, must not necessarily be taken for marks of genius. They are accompaniments of genius, but they are not genius itself, which must be manifested by creative acts, showing that the doer of them has the spirit to apprehend the meaning of what he sees in nature, as well as the power to express it with his brush. Many a lad or lass has been spoiled by want of judgment of their parents in this matter; many a parent has been disappointed after giving way to what has seemed like manifestation of artistic power in his child. There is no mistaking true genius, there is no mistaking the imitation of it, if one will only look with the intention to see the truth, rather than what one wishes to see. A little more judgment in this respect would save a whole world of mortification to students, and would save the sphere of art from invasion by a number of semi-artists, whose productions are yearly sent back by the Royal and other academies to the Aceldama of bad paintings. The tests prescribed by the Royal Academy, before they will admit a candidate