FINE ARTS

(_For the Mirror_.)

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"The way to be an excellent painter is to be an
excellent man--and these united, make a character
that would shine even in a better world
than this."--JONATHAN RICHARDSON.


The sister arts of _Painting and Engraving_ have been making great
progress in England for some time past, and we are disposed to think
this a subject of congratulation and importance to all classes of the
community.

The literature of the Fine Arts is likewise becoming more and more
popular every day. They form a prominent feature in every new literary
project, and not unfrequently literature, to use a hackneyed phrase,
is made their vehicle--like the namby-pamby of an English opera
for the strains of Rossini or Weber. The public are contented with
excellence in one department and mediocrity in the other; they cannot
be constantly admiring--that is out of the question--and it is
probably on this account that much of what appears _below par_ is
tolerated and even encouraged.

We will not go the length of assenting to the proposal of converting
Sir Joshua Reynolds's Lectures into Sermons, by the mere alteration of