19 SEPTEMBER 1863, Page 2

- Lord Stanley's address to the Preston School of Art

has been published this week. His doctrine is that true art can never be the "offspring of luxury and the plaything of wealth," since it is by its nature universal, and adapted to gratify the educated sense of all men. This doctrine is indis- putable; but Lord Stanley touched it only on its popular side. That an aristocracy, with its refined leisure and hereditary tastes, supplies a nation in large measure with its artistic sense, though not with its artistic genius, is a point we have endeavoured to argue at length in another column. The aristocracy must forfeit something of human breadth to gain in sensuous refinement. And habitual refinement of- per- ception creates the demand for the elegances and ornament of life.