Page:Life of William Blake 2, Gilchrist.djvu/233

Rh consideration of my plan as a great public means of advancing fine art in Protestant communities. Monuments to the dead painters by historical and poetical artists, like Barry and Mortimer (I forbear to name living artists, though equally worthy)—I say, monuments to painters—must make England what Italy is, an envied storehouse of intellectual riches.

It has been said of late years, the English public have no taste for painting. This is a falsehood. The English are as good judges of painting as of poetry, and they prove it in their contempt for great collections of all the rubbish of the Continent, brought here by ignorant picture-dealers. An Englishman may well say 'I am no judge of painting,' when he is shown these smears and daubs, at an immense price, and told that such is the art of painting. I say the English public are true encouragers of real art, while they discourage and look with contempt on false art.

Resentment for personal injuries has had some share in this public address, but love for my art, and zeal for my country, a much greater.

I do not know whether Homer is a liar and that there is no such thing as generous contention. I know that all those with whom I have contended in art have striven, not to excel, but to starve me out by calumny and the arts of trading competition. The manner in which my character has been blasted these thirty years both as an artist and a man may be seen particularly in a Sunday paper called The Examiner, published in Beaufort's Buildings (we all know that editors of newspapers trouble their heads very little about art and science, and that they are always paid for what they put in upon these ungracious subjects): and the manner in which I have rooted out the nest of villains will be seen in a poem concerning my three years' herculean labours at Felpham which I shall soon publish. Secret calumny and open professions of friendship are common enough all the world over, but have never been so good an occasion of poetic imagery. When a base man means to be your enemy, he always begins