On national encouragement it becomes not the mediocrity of our talents and station to presume to decide; yet, possibly, it will not be judged too vauntingly confident to say that it should in all cases be spirited, generous, impartial, and should not be subjected to the caprices of power, to the varying humours of the transient depositaries of the public confidence, nor to the inconstant and ever-mutable gusts of popular phrenzy. What effect such encouragement would have on the artists themselves can, indeed, be only conjectured; for such encouragement has never yet been exhibited in the modern world: but that conjecture is neither vague nor random, as it is guided by permanent principles, and directed by the known influence of steady affections on the human heart. It may be affirmed then, with some assurance, that it would inspirit their labours, that it would multiply their pains, that it would invigorate their studies, that it would augment their industry: for such were heretofore its experienced consequences in similar cases, and therefore they are reasonably to be expected again. They would not waste their youth in the riot of lawless pleasure, and so treasure up sickness and sorrow for the days of their prime: they would not spend their hours in the ceaseless pursuit of the intoxicating amusements of some great capital: they would not lay out their whole attention on the low and subordinate, but gainful, branches of their _trade_, in contempt of the superior features of their ART, and of its possible improvement: but concentring all their powers, all their abilities, all their faculties, in the advancement of their peculiar pursuit, would rapidly raise themselves from the drudgery of mechanical workmanship to the proud elevation of professional exertion. Thus the arts, advanced by so conspicuous a change of manners in their cultivators, and by an encouragement differing so widely from the paltry private patronage pretending to that name, would attain that state of perfection to which their admirers fondly wish to see them carried; but which they must wish in vain till something like the changes here etched out shall have taken place. And that what depends on the artists has not been too sanguinely supposed, nor too strongly pictured, will surely not be asserted: for it has only been supposed that they are men of common sense and natural feelings; that they are not insensible to the allurements of each dignified distinction in life; that they have hearts that can be warmed and minds that can be roused.