Our first great gift is in the
portraiture of living people--a power already so accomplished in both
Reynolds and Gainsborough, that nothing is left for future masters but
to add the calm of perfect workmanship to their vigour and felicity of
perception. And of what value a true school of portraiture may become
in the future, when worthy men will desire only to be known, and
others will not fear to know them, for what they truly were, we cannot
from any past records of art influence yet conceive. But in my next
address it will be partly my endeavour to show you how much more
useful, because more humble, the labour of great masters might have
been, had they been content to bear record of the souls that were
dwelling with them on earth, instead of striving to give a deceptive
glory to those they dreamed of in heaven.
Secondly, we have an intense power of invention and expression in
domestic drama; (King Lear and Hamlet being essentially domestic in
their strongest motives of interest). There is a tendency at this
moment towards a noble development of our art in this direction,
checked by many adverse conditions, which may be summed in one,--the
insufficiency of generous civic or patriotic passion in the heart of
the English people; a fault which makes its domestic affections
selfish, contracted, and, therefore, frivolous.
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