George Putman, in the _Art of English Poesy_, published in 1589, when English poetry was starting on a particularly glorious period, says, 'In these days all poets and poesy are despised, they are subject to scorn and derision,' and 'this proceeds through the barbarous ignorance of the time--in _other ages it was not so_.' Then Jonson, in his 'Discoveries,' lamenting the decline of literature, says, 'It is the disease of the age, and no wonder if the world, growing old, begins to be infirm.' There are hundreds of others which will immediately occur to you, from Chaucer to Tennyson, though Pope made noble protests on behalf of his contemporaries. You have only got to compare these lachrymose observations with the summary of the year's literature in any newspaper--'literary output' is the detestable expression always used--and you will find the same note of depression. 'The year has not produced a single masterpiece. Glad as we have been to welcome Mr. Blank's verse, "Larkspurs" cannot be compared with his first delicious volume, "Tealeaves," published thirty years ago.' Then turn to the review in the same paper of 'Tealeaves' thirty years ago. 'Coarse animalism draped in the most seductive hues of art and romance, we will not analyse these poems, we will not even pretend to give the reasons on which our opinion is based.' Or read the incisive 'Musings without Method,' in _Blackwood's Magazine_, on contemporary literature and contemporary things generally. Again, every painter is told that his work is not as good as last year, and that we have no one like Titian or Velasquez. The Royal Academy is always said to be worse than usual. I have known the summer exhibitions at Burlington House for twenty years. Let me assure you throughout that period they have always been quite as bad as they are now. But we do not want painters like Titian or Velasquez; we want something else. If painters were like Titian or Velasquez they would not be artists at all. When Velasquez went to Rome he was told he ought to imitate Raphael; had he done so should we regard him as the greatest painter in the world? If Rossetti had merely been another Fra Angelico or one of the early artists from whom he derived such noble inspiration, should we regard him as we do, as even the fierce young modern art student does, as one of the greatest figures in English art of the nineteenth century? In the latter part of that century I think he is the greatest force in English painting. I would reserve for him the largest print in my manual of English art. But have we declined since the death of Rossetti? On the contrary, I think we have advanced and are advancing. You must not think I am depreciating the past. The past is one of my witnesses. The past was very like our present; it nearly always depreciated itself intellectually and materially.