distinction; and give the unknown man who has executed a first-rate work, equal place with the established favourite. Hang the works according to their merit, not according to the station and position of the artist. In short, be ever anxious to advance merit in whomsoever it may be found-be he lord or labourer.

An earnest love of Art, for Art's sake, must be spread throughout the length and breadth of the land, ere the British school can claim equal rank with the Roman, Florentine, and Spanish schools. Nor in the distribution of pictures alone can this great end be accomplished. Pictures are generally but the ornaments of a homestead, and are often unnoticed for many consecutive months. They hang against the walls, and are hung there because they take from the nakedness of the room. You hear people say "Pictures do look comfortable about one. Not because they are fine embodiments of fine ideas do these people consider pictures "such comfortable things," but because they fill up a room, and impart a sense of comfort-of luxury to it. Many people regard paintings in the light of mere furniture, and buy a Wouvermans or a Carlo Dolce as they would buy a four-post bedstead. Such people are wholly ignorant of artistic excellence; their taste is vitiated and their eye untaught; they have no standard of beauty-no colouring offends them, and bad drawing (if it be not atrociously bad) they pass unnoticed.

This acknowledged evidence of the influence of external objects upon the minds of the uneducated, leads at once to the theory upon which this proposition for the establishment of an Art-Manufacture Union is founded. We believe, with Leigh Hunt, that “it seems as if an unhandsome action before the portrait of a noble female countenance would be impossible;" and this belief (shared as it is with so illustrious a man) has firmly convinced us that a Union, such as we are about to propose, would be powerful for the enlightenment and refinement of the people of Britain. The eye is quickly educated and quickly vitiated. Ever familiar with misshapen and colourless objects, its sense of the beautiful in form and colour is soon blunted, if not wholly lost; and all who are lost to the beautiful in Art, and (as a natural consequence) to the beautiful in Nature, are deprived of one of the most refining of our intellectual enjoyments. On the other hand, the eye long used to receive the beautiful in form, and the harmonious in colouring, carries so many grand and glorious images to the mind, (which are lost, be it observed, to the uneducated pupil,) that

progressive refinement in the individual is almost an unvarying consequence. A story is told of a Catholic money-lender, who was probably accustomed to study the old masters, and who, when he was going to cheat a customer, always drew a veil over the portrait of his favourite saint. That the national taste of this country requires education, no person who has made Art a study, or who is alive to the beautiful, will deny; and the most important point to be considered in an endeavour to propagate a high standard as the appeal to which artists shall bring their labours, is the method whereby the national taste may be most effectually cultivated. Books and treatises on Art will not effect this object. Art is not fostered by a nation of critics. Critics often fetter the men whose works they criticise, by judging their works comparatively, and not positively. The English school does not need the patronage of men who can compare a picture by Turner with a Claude, or Maclise's masterpiece with the noblest production of Michael Angelo; it requires an immediate recognition of positive excellence, rather than a learned comparison with old masters. If it be the object of English Art patrons to produce a school in England based upon the old schools of Italy and Germany, then is a numerous critical tribunal useful and indispensable; but if, on the other hand, the object of Art patrons be to foster a school of progressive Art, then is a national recognition of positive merit their surest reliance. And inasmuch as it is the belief of most people that the advancement of a progressive school of Art is the aim of the more enlightened portion of the community, we put strong faith in our conviction that an Art-Manufacture Union will find favour in the minds of the artists, Art patrons, and manufacturers of this country. We want a school that will generate new thoughts and embody new ideas, not an academy bent upon reproducing old masters. Taking for granted, then, that this advancement of a progressive school is the ambition of all interested in the welfare of English artists, it requires no inordinate taxation of the reasoning faculties to comprehend at once the intimate connection of Art-Manufacture with the dissemination of pure taste, and consequently its influence upon the advancement of the Fine Arts in the country. The distribution of fine pictures alone will not purify the taste of the people. This purification-this refinement can be brought about only by a thorough revolution in the household decorations and appoint

ments of the nation; and this revolution may be gradually but surely effected by means of the proposed Union.

An Art-Manufacture Union would substitute useful household articles, designed by eminent men, for the tasteless, misshapen utensils now in general use. The proposed Union would distribute such prizes as Townshend's Beer Jug-an article in common use, and beautiful to the eye, and suggestive to the mind. The Union would, in fact, spread Art-Manufacture after the fashion designed lately under the superintendence of Felix Summerly, on an extended scale, throughout the country. To such a Union, poor people would contribute, because the certainty of receiving the value of their subscription, in the shape of some useful utensil, would enable them to afford the price of a ticket. In the establishment of this Union, let the present system of distribution be extended on the most liberal principles, and allow non-subscribers to become purchasers of any article at its market value. When the idea of this Union was first conceived, its adoption appeared to be encumbered by so many obstacles that we were about to abandon it as an impossible proposition, had not a closer consideration of the subject fixed in our mind a sense of the simplicity of the means whereby the objects of this Union might be effected.

The first stumbling-block we set aside was the difficulty that would attend the manufacture of artists' designs by the Union. It at first appeared to us, that either the committee must cause a large stock of designs to be executed, or themselves select the prizes; and it is obvious that these alternatives are very great objections to the plan, inasmuch as the former proceeding would leave a large stock of goods on the Society's hands, while the latter would partially frustrate the immediate object of the Society's foundation, because it would compel the subscribers to abide by the taste of the committee. It afterwards occurred to us, that these difficulties might be surmounted by the exhibition of designs which should be executed in any material that would bring them within the amount of the prizes, when the said design had been selected by the prize-holders. This method would effectually do away with the above objections, and at once simplify the principle of an Art-Manufacture Union. The subjects of the designs should include all household furniture, both the useful and the ornamental. The sale of the copyright of these designs would be a

source of considerable income to the Society. The manufacturers would be glad to become purchasers of the productions of our most eminent men; and so our patterns might be equal to our fabrics. This Union must be a national institution, not a private speculation. Its sole object must be the advancement of Art, and not the pecuniary gain of some few speculative individuals.

The more we consider the component parts of the whole, the more are we convinced that the institution we propose is soundly based and potent for good to Art. It is true that it will take years to spread the principles of this plan throughout the country; but it is also true, that when the machinery which we suggest shall be in full operation, the taste of the people will become more healthy, the Arts of this country will be encouraged to activity, and the British school will stand alone in its originality; in positive excellence claiming to be ranked with the grand old schools of the continent.

We have alluded to the sale of the copyrights of the Art-Manufacture Union designs, and observed that such sale would yield a considerable income to the institution. We do not mean to infer hereby, that the artist's conception shall be undervalued; we propose that the value of his design shall be half the value of the prize-holder's ticket and half the valuation put upon his work by the manufacturer. For instance, if the 2001. prize selected by the holder be a tea-service, the artist will receive 1007. for his design; and if a manufacturer, for the copyright of this same design, give 300l., the artist shall receive one-half of this sum, so that altogether he will have received 2501. for his design-The prize-holder will have a tea-service, the material of which will cost 100%., and the institution will clear the sum of 150l. by the transaction. With the proceeds from the copyrights we propose that the institution shall lay the foundation of a National Gallery of the Works of British Artists, which shall include the best specimens of our greatest painters, dead or living, that can be obtained.

As regards the specimen of Art-Manufacture to be presented to each subscriber, we should propose that certain articles, such as small tankards, ink-stands, salt-spoons, &c., be kept ready made, so as to allow the single ticket holders a choice, while the holders of a dozen tickets should be allowed to choose to the value of their subscription from the manufactures kept on hand by the Society. Furthermore, the rules of the Society should compel them to dispose of all objects that might remain after the subscribers for the

current year had made their selection; so that each succeeding year might bring forth new beauties from the imagination of native genius.

The formation of an Art-Manufacture Union would give to Schools of Design the impetus which they lack at present. And it has occurred to the writer of this paper, that a close connection might be cultivated between the Schools of Design and the Union, so that the one might contribute to the advancement of the other; while the co-operation of both would tend to hasten the consummation which it is the professed intention of both to promote.

It should, moreover, be in the power of the Schools of Design directors to decide upon the merits of their pupils' works, and to offer to the committee of the Art-Manufacture Union such designs as they might judge to be worthy of public exhibition. The copyrights of all designs drawn by the pupils of a School of Design, and exhibited at the request of a School of Design director, should be the property of the school to which the artist belongs-a regulation that would yield an income proportionate to the excellence of the schools, and tend to make them self-supporting. In return for this sacrifice of their designs on the part of pupils, each student whose design had been selected by a prize-holder, and the copyright of which had been purchased, should be entitled to exhibit in future on his own account, paying during his stay with his school a certain per centage of the remuneration he might receive for his works.

The co-operation of our manufacturers may, we think, be reasonably relied upon. It is to their interest that their goods should equal in every particular (in design as well as in fabric) the manufactures of foreigners; and we are certain, not only that the manufacturers of this country would promise their support to an institution such as we have proposed, but that they would hail its foundation and success with sincere pleasure, and give to native talent the patronage which the ill-education of their countrymen now compels them to confer upon strangers. That the manufac

turers of this country have not come forward to uphold the Schools of Design now in operation, is not owing to their aversion to the principle of such Schools, but to their sense of their present impotency. We contend that our Art-Manufacture Union will in a measure remove the objections at present entertained with regard to Schools of Design, by giving to these schools an immediate and a defined object. The talents of the pupils will find instantaneous recognition, and they will work with their reward in sight.