Thus it is that we have gradually fallen under the discreditable influence of men who were evidently not competent for any but subordinate positions, and whose preponderance has proved as injurious to Art as it has been to Philosophy and Morality. A fatal facility of giving expression to what is neither believed nor felt, gives temporary reputation to men who are as incapable of originality in Art as they are of grasping any new principle in science. It is the most remarkable of all the political anomalies caused by our revolutionary position; and the moral results are most deplorable, unless when, as rarely happens, the possessor of these undeserved honours has a nature too noble to be injured by them. Poets are more exposed to these dangers than other artists, because their sphere is more general and gives wider scope for ambition. But in the special arts we find the same evil in a still more degrading form; that of avarice, a vice by which so much of our highest talent is now tainted. Another signal proof of the childish vanity and uncontrolled ambition of the class is, that those who are merely interpreters of other men’s productions claim the same title as those who have produced original works. Such are the results of the extravagant pretensions which artists and literary men have gradually developed during the last five centuries. I have dwelt upon them because they constitute at present serious impediments to all sound views of the nature and purposes of Art. My strictures will not be thought too severe by really esthetic natures, who know from personal experience how fatal the present system is to all talent of a high order. Whatever the outcry of those personally interested, it is certain that in the true interest of Art the suppression of mediocrity is at least as important as the encouragement of talent. True taste always implies distaste. The very fact that the object is to foster in us the sense of perfection, implies that all true connoisseurs will feel a thorough dislike for feeble work. Happily there is this privilege in all masterpieces, that the admiration aroused by them endures in its full strength for all time; so that the plea which is often put forward of keeping up the public taste by novelties which in reality injure it, falls to the ground. To mention my own experience, I may say that for thirteen years I have been induced alike from principle and from inclination, to restrict my reading almost entirely to the great Occidental poets, without feeling the smallest curiosity for the works of the day which are brought out in such mischievous abundance. [Theory of Art]