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26 The Reviewer asks, " Why is there not in all Europe, may, why has there not been for more than an hundred years past a single one whom we can place on a level with the old masters?" It would have been well to have determined the fact before asking the question. Hogarth invented and carried to perfection a new department of art, unknown to the old masters. Wilkie and Turner of the present English school, unrivalled in their respective departments by any ancient master. Sir Joshua Reynolds of the former, and Sir Thomas Lawrence of the present English school, and Stuart of our own, have never had their superiors in portrait, Vandyke alone possibly excepted ; and startling as it may seem to the Reviewer, I challenge him to point to any old master who possessed more originality and sublimity of conception, more exquisite feeling for color, and greater versatility of talent combined in one individual, than is possessed by Allston. With regard to what the Reviewer alleges, that artists throughout the country have no cause of complaint of want encouragement, I must think he has again drawn general conclusions from a particular case. He has supposed that the liberality which is so conspicuous in the region about him, in generally appreciating and rewarding merit in the arts, is more widely extended than facts will warrant. In this part of the country, with the exception of a few individuals whose names could be told in a very few minutes, there are none that buy pictures. Of these few I know of no one who has a modern picture, (portraits excepted) which cost more than five or six hundred dollars; while in Boston it is well known that thousands, in many instances, and in two cases even 10,000 dollars each, have been given for single examples of modern art. The Reviewer, therefore, if he takes his own city as a standard of encouragement for the rest of the country, will be apt to draw a very unjust conclusion in favor of the public taste. On the other hand I am also aware that too unfavorable an opinion of the general state of the Arts might be inferred, if this city were taken as the standard. the truth must be told, While Boston and Balti-