Page 36

]Iictures a
one else, with a conscience, advise him
after this to aim at anything more than
may be struck out by the cleverness of
a quarter of an hour. Cattermole, I
believe, is earthed and shackled in the
same manner. Ile began his career
with finished and studied pictures
which, I believe, never paid him; he
now prostitutes his fine talent to the
superficialities of public taste, and blots
his way to emolument and oblivion.
There is commonly, however, fault on
both sides; in the artist for exhibiting
his dexterity by mountebank tricks of
the brush, until chaste finish, requiring
ten times the knowledge and labor,
appears insipid to the diseased taste
which he has himself formed in his
patrons, as the roaring and ranting of
a common actor will oftentimes render
apparently vapid the finished touches
of perfect nature; and in the public,
for taking less real pains to become
acquainted with, and discriminate the
various powers of a great artist, than
they would to estimate the excellence
of a cook, or develop the dexterity of a
dancer."
We can hardly be sure how many of
nid Stadics.                [July,
our own men have been ruined by want
of due appreciation and reward for
their most faithful work. And though
it is possible that a man who has very
much ability will work his way through
in spite of everything, yet there is un-
doubtedly much valuable possibility
lost for want of encouragement. Two or
three of our present artists did once
show signs of health, though their
work was never the result of singleness
of pure aim; yet this was probably the
fault of outside influence, and they
would doubtless have done good work
if it had " paid." They are now prob-
ably hopeless; whether it be their own
fault or the fault of the public, we are
not entirely certain, probably both.
It indeed requires greater tenacity to
stem the current than any one can know
without experience. But the time is
doubtless near at hand when the faith-
ful workers shall be reasonably re-
warded.
PICTURES AND STUDIES.
TECHNICAL terms are always very
limited in meaning. The special vocab-
ulary of any trade or mechanical pur-
suit consists of names of things and
processes and of verbs denoting pro-
cesses, and such nouns and verbs are
necessarily exact in meaning and strict
in application. It is fortunate when
such words are coined for the purpose,
or are, at least, used for no other pur-
pose, and in no other sense. It causes
confusion and inaccuracy when words,
used by society at large in a wider, are
also used by a class of men in a nar-
rower sense. Thus he is esteemed by
fishermen a poor creature who talks of
a " net," when he means a seine or fyke,
and yet he is in the right, using a
generic term, which is properly applied
to every reticulated fabric. Thus he
seems very ridiculous in a maritime
community like ours, who uses the
word " ship " to denote any other vessel
than one having three masts and square-
rigged, the French trois niets; * and
yet he might claim that he also uses
a generic term properly applied to every
sailing vessel, and might plead the au-
thority of the authorized translation
of the Bible, and of the Greek and
Latin school lexicons, which translate
navis and lorav by '1 ship," inasmuch as
* The clipper ship Great Republic has or had
a fourth mast, and was none the less rated by
Lloyd and called by sailors a ship; an exception
to the arbitrary rule proving its arbitrariness