The Home Secretary as an art critic) is a politician
in a new character. On Thursday week, however, Mr. Cross made a speech to the students of the Metropolitan Drawing Classes at Cannon Street Hotel, in which he pleaded strongly for truthful.. nees in art. Brick was a beautiful material, but not brick plea- tared over to look like stone. Wood-painting was useful,, but nowadays he saw painters graining deal so that it might look like oak. Iron could be made beautiful if truly worked-, but iron arches were now hidden in wood or plaster so frail, that but for the iron they would fall to the ground. He hated even in dress to see rows of buttons. where there was nothing to button, and in furniture to find oil-cloth painted to look like tiles. The taste for each falsities was a cor- rupted taste. Mr. Cross has hold of the true principle, but surely, he pushes it rather far. If buttons be so bad, llow does hejustify a tail to his coat, or paper on his walls, or gilding to anything not of gold ? Utility must be consulted as well as trutit,,asid utility sometimes justifies an imitation.
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