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The artist sees, not only the works of man, but the works of God, with increased delight. As his mind dwells upon the manifestations of Omnipotence upon the one hand, and of man's feeble powers, struggling upwards in the creation of works of beauty, on the other, the man who has been properly educated in Art learns to sympathise with every stage of the artist's effort, and even in the imperfections of his work to be scarcely offended, recollecting the imperfect constitution of its designer. As the artist more justly apprehends the difficulties of his own task, he becomes juster and yet more indulgent to the works of others. He learns to admire perfection, or such a measure of it as man may attain to, more; and to appreciate a struggle even while pitying an obvious defeat.

Before proceeding to the last branch of this discourse, I may be permitted to urge yet one other reason why Art should be studied.

It is from the fact of its universal and perennial interest. Art is a goddess who smiles upon all, though mostly on her votaries, and whose charms are ever young.

Men may perish, thrones may fall, and customs change, but as long as men remain men, the principles of eternal beauty woo the imagination, and repay the student, crowning him, as years roll on, with ever new delights.

The great artists of every age are the true mute, though not inglorious laureates of each age. Crowned themselves with unfading laurels, it is theirs to twine the bays around the poet's brow, to deck the conqueror with all the flushing attributes of victory, to fix the memories of the statesman's triumphs in "perennial brass," or marble scarcely less perennial, to embalm for posterity's admiration noble deeds, noble forms, noble things, doomed but for their intervention