Page:Anecdotes of painters, engravers, sculptors and architects, and curiosities of art (IA anecdotesofpaint01spoo).pdf/28

 his ambitious hopes, consigned him to an untimely grave. Taylor, in his History of the Fine Arts in Great Britain, says, that a few years ago, one of Hogarth's pictures brought at public sale in London, more money than the artist ever received for all his paintings together. Nollekens, the sculptor, bought two landscapes of Richard Wilson, for fifteen guineas, to relieve his pressing necessities. At the sale of the effects of the former after his decease, they brought two hundred and fifty guineas each!

Shall instances like these stain the annals of American Art, or will this free people accord to its gifted sons the encouragement they so richly deserve? May the sympathies of those who can perceive in painting and sculpture, most efficient means of mental culture, refinement, and gratification, be enlisted by these sad memories, to render timely encouragement to exalted genius! It adds to national and individual profit, pride, and glory. How much does America owe Robert Fulton and Eli Whitney? Millions, untold millions!

ADVANTAGES OF THE CULTIVATION OF THE FINE ARTS TO A COUNTRY.

The advantages which a country derives from the cultivation of the fine arts, are thus admirably summed up by Sir M. A. Shee, late President of the Royal Academy, London:—

"It should be the policy of a great nation to be