It is an indication of the sure public instinct in matters of art principles, that general opinion has always tacitly condemned paintings of stage scenes and characters. They have not infrequently been produced, and sometimes artists of high rank, as Reynolds and Lawrence, have painted portraits of actors in stage rôles, but never has one met with public appreciation as a work of art. Probably in most cases these works were executed as mementoes rather than as works of art, for it is scarcely possible to conceive a painter of the stamp of Reynolds, who was so well acquainted with first principles, putting forward even a portrait of Garrick in a stage rôle, as a serious work, notwithstanding that he might well know that it was a masterpiece in respect of execution. Humour is not a subject for the painter to deal with, for a humorous picture cannot be comprehended without the assistance of another art. Further, comedy is founded upon a sense of the ridiculous, which means distortion of form or idea. Distortion of form would tend to destroy the art if reproduced, and distortion of idea implies events in time which are beyond the scope of the painter. If any humour were exhibited in the representation of a single moment of action in a story, it would quickly disappear, for a permanent joke is beyond the range of human understanding. In poetry and fiction, humour may be appropriately introduced, because here it is of a fugitive character, and may serve as a possible relief of the mind, as a discordant note in music; but in a painting, the moment of humour is fixed, and a fixed laugh suggests mental disorder. Nor is there place in the art of the painter for works intending to convey satire or irony, for such pictures also mean distortion. Moreover they are merely substitutes for, or adjuncts to, the art of writing. The object of caricature is to present an idea in a more direct and rapid way than it can be expressed in writing, and not specially to exhibit beauty, which is the purpose of the painter. Hogarth's many caricatures are composed of superlative signs of writing, and not of any fine art. Cartoons (as the word is commonly understood) are of the nature of allegory, and may afford scope for the painter, but as they necessarily refer to more or less fleeting conditions of a political or social character, they cannot retain permanent interest.