[317]. This, this is the unkindest blow [most unkindest cut] of all. Julius Caesar, Act III. Sc. 2.
Own gained knowledge. Othello, Act I. Sc. 3.
Turner. Joseph Mallard William Turner (1775–1851).
That’s a feeling disputation. 1 King Henry IV., Act III. Sc. 1.
[318]. To some men their graces serve them but as enemies. As You Like It, Act. II. Sc. 3.
The Second of the Catalogue Raisonné papers was published in The Examiner, November 10, 1816, and proceeds as in The Round Table to ‘the marring of Art is the making of the Academy’ (vol. I. p. 142); then add: ‘He would have the Directors keep the old Masters under, by playing off upon them the same tricks of background, situation, &c. which they play off upon one another’s pictures so successfully at the Academy Great Room. [Note.] The Academicians having out-done nature at home, wait till their pictures are hung up at the Academy to outdo one another. When they know their exact situation in the Great Room, they set to work with double diligence to paint up to their next neighbours, or to keep them under. Sometimes they leave nearly the whole unfinished, that they may have a more ad libitum opportunity of annoying their friends, and of shining at their expense.—had placed a landscape, consisting of one enormous sheet of white lead, like the clean white napkin depending from the chin to the knees of the Saturday night’s customers in a barber’s shop, under a whole length of a lady by ——, in a white chalk dress, which made his Cleopatra look like a dowdy. Our little lively knight of the brush goes me round the room, crying out, “Who has any vermilion, who has any Indian yellow?” and presently returns, and by making his whole length one red and yellow daub, like the drop-curtain at Covent-Garden, makes the poor Academician’s landscape look “pale as his shirt.”[[62]] Such is the history of modern Art. It is no wonder that “these fellows, who thus o’er-do Termagant,”[[63]] should look with horror at the sobriety of ancient Art. It is no wonder that they carry their contempt, hatred, and jealousy of one another, into the Art itself.’
After the end of the first Round Table paper (‘British Growth and Manufacture’) add: ‘To what absurdities may we be reduced by the malice of folly! The light of Art, like that of nature, shines on all alike; and its benefit, like that of the sun, is in being seen and felt. Our Catalogue-makers, like the puffers to the Gas-light Company, consider it only as a matter of trade, or what they can get by the sale and monopoly of it; they would extinguish all of it that does not come through the miserable chinks and crannies of their patriotic sympathy, or would confine it in the hard unfeeling sides of some body corporate, as Ariel was shut up in a cloven pine by the foul witch Sycorax. The cabal of Art in this country would keep it on the other side of the Channel. They would keep up a perpetual quarantine against it as infectious. They would subject it to new custom-house duties. They would create a right of search after all works of genuine Art as contraband. They would establish an alien-office[[64]] under the Royal Academy, to send all the finest pictures out of the country, to prevent unfair and invidious competition. The genius of modern Art does not bathe in the dews of Castalie, but rises like the dirty goddess of Gay’s Trivia out of the Thames, just opposite Somerset-House, and armed with a Grub-street pen in one hand, and a sign-post brush in the other, frightens the Arts from advancing any farther. They would thus effectually suppress the works of ancient genius and the progress of modern taste at one and the same time; and if they did not sell their pictures, would find ease to their tortured minds by not seeing others admired.’
The Second of the Examiner articles includes the first paragraph of the second of the Round Table articles and ends with ‘encouragement of the Fine Arts?’ (vol. I. p. 147). A letter follows, signed H. R., protesting against being pointed out as the author of the Catalogue Raisonné, to which the following paragraph is added in square brackets:—
‘We insert the above letter as in duty bound; for it is a sad thing to labour under the imputation of being the author of the Catalogue—“that deed without a name.”[[65]] But we hardly know how to reply to our Correspondent, unless by repeating what Mr. Brumell said of the Regent—“Who is our fat friend?” We do not know his person or address, or by what marks he identifies himself with our description of him—Whether he answers to his name as a cheese-curd, or a piece of whitleather, or as a Shrewsbury Cake; or as a stocking, or a joint-stool; or as a little round man, or as a fair squab man? If he claims any or all of these marks as his property, he is welcome to them. We shall believe him. We shall also believe him, when he says he is not the anonymous author of the Catalogue Raisonné; and in that case, we can have no farther fault to find with him, even though he were the beautiful Albiness.’
The Third of the Catalogue Raisonné articles was published in The Examiner, Nov. 17, 1816, and proceeds as in The Round Table with the following additions.