Viewing page 31 of 39

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

30

done, we think is about to be shown; as much talent and enthusiasm as can be brought to the work have now been employed, in our own community, in one noble effort, for years of patient and persevering labor. That it should fail is impossible; but how much can be effected by such appliances in there degenerate days, is a question of deep interest to all among us who love the arts. We pretend not to guess how far this work is to rival those, which have been so long the standard of excellence; but of all the productions of art in the present age, we have no fear in predicting, that the greatest is behind and not far off.

The subject on which an artist most needs to be admonished, in the cultivation of the mind. Their great deficiencies is a want of vigorous and poetical conception. The mechanical process of drawing and coloring is often well done, but the mind seems not to contribute its share to the work. It is owning to this, that so many have failed to redeem the promise of their youth. For from the [[torn]] who have made good beginnings