Transcribed from “Plays and Puritans and OtherHistorical Essays”, 1890 Macmillan and Co. edition by DavidPrice,
The British Isles have been ringingfor the last few years with the word ‘Art’ in itsGerman sense; with ‘High Art,’ ‘SymbolicArt,’ ‘Ecclesiastical Art,’ ‘DramaticArt,’ ‘Tragic Art,’ and so forth; and everywell-educated person is expected, nowadays, to know somethingabout Art. Yet in spite of all translations of German‘Æsthetic’ treatises, and‘Kunstnovellen,’ the mass of the British people caresvery little about the matter, and sits contented under theimputation of ‘bad taste.’ Our stage, longsince dead, does not revive; our poetry is dying; our music, likeour architecture, only reproduces the past; our painting is onlyfirst-rate when it handles landscapes and animals, and seemslikely so to remain; but, meanwhile, nobody cares. Some ofthe deepest and most earnest minds vote the question, in general,a ‘sham and a snare,’ and whisper to each otherconfidentially, that Gothic art is beginning to be a‘bore,’ and that Sir Christopher Wren was a very goodfellow after all; while the middle classes look on the Artmovement half amused, as with a pretty toy, half sulkilysuspicious of Popery and Paganism, and think, apparently, thatArt is very well when it means nothing, and is merely used tobeautify drawing-rooms and shawl patterns; not to mention that,if there were no painters, Mr. Smith could not hand down toposterity likenesses of himself, Mrs. Smith, and family. But when ‘Art’ dares to be in earnest, and to meansomething, much more to connect itself with religion,Smith’s tone alters. He will teach ‘Art’to keep in what he considers its place, and if it refuses, takethe law of it, and put it into the Ecclesiastical Court. Sohe says, and what is more, he means what he says; and as all theworld, from Hindostan to Canada, knows by most practical proof,what he means, he sooner or later does, perhaps not always in thewisest way, but still he does it.
Thus, in fact, the temper of the British nation toward‘Art’ is simply that of the old Puritans, softened,no doubt, and widened, but only enough so as to permit Art, notto encourage it.
Some men’s thoughts on this curious fact would probablytake the form of some æsthetic à prioridisquisition, beginning with ‘the tendency of the infiniteto reveal itself in the finite,’ and ending—who cantell where? But as we cannot honestly arrogate to ourselvesany skill in the scientia scientiarum, or say, ‘TheLord possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His worksof old. When He prepared the heavens, I was there, when Heset a compass upon the face of the deep;’ we shall leaveæsthetic science to those who think that they comprehendit; we shall, as simple disciples of Bacon, deal with facts andwith history as ‘the will of God revealed infacts.’ We will leave those who choose to settle whatought to be, and ourselves look patiently at that which actuallywas once, and which may be again; that so out of the conduct ofour old Puritan forefathers (right or wrong), and their long waragainst ‘Art,’ we may learn a wholesome lesson; as wedoubtless shall, if we believe firmly that our history is neithermore nor less than what the old Hebrew prophets called‘God’s gracious dealings with his people,’ andnot say in our hearts, like some sentimental girl who singsJacobite ballads (written forty years ago by men who cared nomore for the Stuarts than for the Ptolemies, and were ready tokiss the dust off George the Fourth’s feet at his visit toEdinburgh)—‘Victrix causa Diis placuit, sed victapuellis.’
The historian of a time of change has always a difficult andinvidious task. For Revol