In Wilkie’s pictures, this exhibition of mere manual skill is used very sparingly, and is almost always kept in subjection to, or brought in aid of, other infinitely more valuable ends. With the single exception of the “Cut Finger,” which is a mere gratuitous effort of this manual dexterity, all his pictures are moral tales, more or less interesting, from their perfectly true delineation of habits and manners, or impressive, from their development of character, passion, and sentiment. The “Opening of the Will” is as fine in this way, as any of Sir Walter Scott’s novels; and the “Rent Day” includes a whole series of national tales of English pastoral life in the nineteenth century. It is a great mistake to consider Wilkie as a comic painter, in which light he is generally regarded by the public on both sides of the Atlantic. When they are standing before his pictures, they seem to feel themselves bound to be moved to laughter by them, as they would by a comedy or a farce; and without this, they do not show their taste; whereas laughter seems to me to be the very last sensation these works are adapted to call forth. Speaking of the best and most characteristic of them, I would say, that scarcely any compositions of the art, in whatever class, are calculated to excite a greater variety of deep and serious feelings; feelings, it is true, so uniformly tempered and modified by a calm and delightful satisfaction, that they can scarcely be considered without calling up a _smile_ to the countenance. But the smile arising from inward delight is as different from the laughter excited by strangeness and drollery as any one thing can be from another. It is, in fact, the very essence of Wilkie’s pictures, that there is literally nothing strange, and consequently nothing droll and laughter-moving about them.