of damages one farthing, which meant to say that they thought equally little of Whistler’s picture and of Ruskin’s criticism. Next we come to “Cockney impudence” and “coxcomb.” Surely these terms must be grossly inappropriate p. 24to the subject in hand, which is Whistler’s painting, and not his personal qualities. Next, it seems that Mr. Ruskin thinks it is an offence to ask 200 guineas for a picture, but where the offence lies we are not told. It might be folly to give 200 guineas for one of Whistler’s pictures, but why should he be abused for asking it? The insinuation is that it is a false pretence, and such an insinuation is not bonâ fide. Lastly, we are told that Mr. Whistler has been flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face. In the first place, this is vulgar. In the next place, it is absurd. When Sydney Smith said that someone’s writing was like a spider having escaped from the inkstand and wandered over the paper, it was an exaggerated criticism, but it was appropriate. But if Mr. Whistler flung a pot of paint anywhere, it was upon his own canvas, and not into the face of the public. Now, let anybody think what is the effect of such criticism. Is one enabled by the light of it to see the merits or faults of Whistler’s painting? And yet this was written by the greatest art critic in this country, by the man who has done more to reveal the secrets of Nature and of Art to us all than any man living, and, I had almost said, than any living or dead. But passion and arrogance are not criticism; and, in the sense in which I have used the term, such criticism is not bonâ fide. Well may Mr. Matthew Arnold say, speaking of Mr. Ruskin’s criticism upon another subject, that he forgets all moderation and proportion, and loses the balance of his mind. This, he says, “is to show in one’s criticism to the highest excess the note of provinciality.” p. 24 There was, once upon a time, a very strong Court of p. 25Appeal. It was universally acknowledged to be so, and the memory of it still remains, and very old lawyers still love to recall its glories. It was composed of Lord Chancellor Campbell and the Lords Justices Knight-Bruce and Turner. Bethell (afterwards Lord Westbury) was an ambitious and aspiring man, and was always most caustic in his criticisms. He had been arguing before the above Court one day, and upon his turning round after finishing his argument, some counsel in the row behind him asked, “Well, Bethell, how will their judgment go?” Bethell replied, in his softest but most cutting tones, “I do not know. Knight-Bruce is a jack-pudding. Turner is an old woman. And no human being can by any possibility predict what will fall from the lips of that
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