But I remark once more, that the fine arts may be made to pander directly to vice. From the middle rank which the pleasures derived from them hold, they readily associate, as has been said, both with the higher and the lower. Thus, music may quicken the devotions of a seraph, and lend its strains to cheer the carousals of the bacchanal; and poetry, painting and sculpture, while they have power to elevate, and charm, and purify the mind, may be made direct stimulants to the vilest and lowest passions. It is indeed from this quarter that we are to look for danger from the prevalence of these arts. It was thus that they corrupted the ancient cities; and those who have seen the abominable statuary dug from the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii, do not wonder that they were buried under a sea of fire. The same process of corruption through these arts has gone to a fearful extent on the eastern continent, and has commenced in this country. Clothed in this garment of light, vice finds access where it otherwise could not. Under the pretence of promoting the fine arts, modesty is cast aside, and indecent pictures are exhibited, and respectable people go to see them. If I might utter a word of warning to the young, it would be to beware of vice dressed in the garments of taste. The beauties of nature are capable of no such perversion. All the associations connected with them tend to elevate and to purify the mind. No case can be adduced in which a taste for gardening or for natural objects has corrupted a people. While, therefore, I believe that the cultivation of the arts, in their genuine spirit of beauty and of purity, has a tendency to improve the character, it would appear that they are greatly liable to abuse, and that they have been extensively abused.