him to command. In this respect, indeed, he only errs (if error there be,) along with almost all the great artists, his contemporaries—nay, it is perhaps but too true, that he and they have alike been compelled to err by the frivolous spirit of the age in which they have been born. I fear, I greatly fear, that, in spite of all the genius which we see every day breaking out in different departments of this delightful art, the day of its loftiest and most lasting triumphs has gone by. However, to despair of the human mind in any one of its branches of exertion, is a thing very repugnant to my usual feelings.

P. M.

P. S. Before quitting Mr Allan's attelier, 1 must tell you, that I have seen an exquisite sketch of the Murder of Archbishop Sharpe, which he has just executed. The picture will, I doubt not, be his domestic masterpiece. The idea of painting a picture on this subject may probably have been suggested to him by a piece of business in which he is just about to engage, viz. making designs for the illustration of Waverley, and the other novels of the same author. What a field is here! I have seen none of his designs; but he will doubtless make them in a

manner worthy of himself; and if he does so, his name will descend for ever in glorious companionship with that of the most original author of our days, and the most powerful author that Scotland ever has produced. Q. F. F. Q. S., quoth

P. M.

260

LETTER XLIX.

TO THE SAME.

I KNOW of no painter, who shows more just reflection and good judgment in his way of conceiving a subject, and arranging the parts of it, than Allan. His circumstances are always most happily chosen, and the characters introduced are so skilfully delineated, as to prove that the painter has been an excellent observer of life. His pictures are full of thought, and show a most active and intelligent mind. They display most graphically the fruits of observation; and the whole of the world which they represent, is suffused over with a very rare and precious breathing of tenderness and delicacy of feeling. In short, were his subjects taken from the highest field of his art, and had they any fundamental ideas of permanent and lofty interest at the bot

tom of them, I do not see why Mr Allan should not be truly a Great Painter. But his genius has as yet been cramped and confined by a rather over-stretched compliance with the taste of the times.

The highest purpose to which painting has ever been applied, is that of expressing ideas connected with Religion; and the decay of the interest attached by mankind to ideas of that class, is evinced by nothing in a more striking manner, than by the nature of the subjects now (in preference to them) commonly chosen for painting, and most relished by the existing generation. It would seem, indeed, as if the decay of interest in great things and great ideas had not shown itself in regard to religion alone. Even subjects taken from national history seem to be scarcely so familiar to the imaginations and associations of ordinary spectators, as to be much relished or deeply felt in any modern exhibition room. It is probable, that subjects like those chosen by Wilkie (and of late by Allan also,) come most home now-a-days to the feelings of the multitude. They pre-suppose no knowledge of the past—no cherished ideas habitually dwelt on by the imagination-no deep feeling of religion-no deep feeling of patriotism-but merely

a capacity for the most common sympathies and sensibilities of human nature. The picture makes no demand on the previous habits or ideas of the spectator-it tells its own story, and it tells it entirely-but exactly in proportion as it wants retrospective interest, I am inclined to think it wants endurance of interest. I think Wilkie's species of painting may be said to bear the same relation to the highest species, which sentimental comedies and farces bear to regular tragedies. But in all this, as I have already hinted, it is probable the public is most to blame-not the painter. Indeed, the very greatest artists, were they to go on making creations either in painting, poetry, or any other art, without being guided by the responses of public enthusiasm, would run a sad risk of losing their way. The genius of a gifted individual,—his power of inventing and conceiving,-is an instrument which he himself may not always have the judgment to employ to the best advantage, and which is more safely directed to its mark by the aggregated feelings, I will not say, of the multitude, but at least of numbers. Even the scattered suffrages of amateurs, who, by artificial culture, have acquired habits of feeling different from those of the people about them, must always be