This day week, Mr. Chamberlain made an admirable speech on
taking the chair at the annual dinner in aid of the "Artists' General Benevolent Institution." He thought Mr. Morley's recent claim for Literature, that it is the happiest of callings, could hardly be substantiated for all men alike. Thackeray, at all events, at the height of his power, used to regret that he had not succeeded as an artist rather than as a novelist or satirist; still, there was no doubt another side to the picture of an artist's life, the sad side, and it was that he had to dwell on on that occasion. Even great artists are often obscure or unappreciated in their lifetime, and achieve little but posthumous fame. David Cox, as an old man, took back 22 out of 210 which he had received for one of his pictures from a dealer, on the ground that he had charged him too much, and that, as a young man with a family, it was not fair to take too much from him. Yet the picture so depreciated by the painter himself had lately been sold for 2450. The English people had been declared "in- curably stupid on the side of Art," and Mr. Chamberlain did not know but what the accusation was true. At all events, even when British judgment arrives, "more or less incidentally," at a true conclusion on subjects of Art, that judgment is apt, like old port, to take a long time to mature. That is the truth about us. We lack quickness and sensitiveness in taking in the merits of Art, rather than judgment when it is once taken in, and so a considerable time passes before we really recognise the qualities which we are competent to admire. English artists, like Mr. Disraeli's French cooks in " Tancred," have to "educate" their public before they can delight them.
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