THE history of Painting in England embraces only a very recent period in the annals of the art. But though chronologically, as well as from the peculiar interest of the subject, it is to be treated last, this arrangement is not adopted from the same motive as actuates foreign critics, namely, the alleged inferiority of British painting. It has been shown, we trust satisfactorily, that in the real condition of taste, in the modes of practice and in the principles of theory, our school of Sculpture, though not equal in specimens yet produced, is superior to every other, not only now, but formerly, in Europe. In favor of our painters, we go further--and yet not so far. Pictures, and in more than one branch, painted in this country, and by native living artists, can be produced superior to any contemporary examples in any part of the Continent; but, in its theoretic principles, and in the practice introduced in consequence of these, the English school has sadly departed from the perfect labours and just science of the old masters. This has arisen from following a course in some respects opposite to that which has been adopted in sculpture, as shall hereafter be the endeavor to point out. Again, if we review our early history, it appears, that in the ages immediately subsequent to the revival of art, native artists in this country, in the ingenious processes then known, were not inferior to contemporary names in Italy, France, or Germany. It is sufficient here merely to refer to Walpole's interesting work; in which it is shown, that before the middle of the thirteenth century, two hundred years prior to Van Eyck, evidences are found of oil-painting in England; and that in the fourteenth, painting on glass, heraldic emblazonment, the illumination of manuscripts, with all the similar approaches to elegance then practised, were cultivated among our ancestors, and by natives whose names are preserved, with equal success as elsewhere.
Causes, therefore, originating in the moral and political condition of the people, can alone explain the striking inferiority of English art during the period of greatest splendor in its modern history. The opinions, indeed, promulgated by the French and Italian writers, not excepting Winklemann, and so complacently entertained even now on the Continent, respecting the deleterious influence of climate upon English genius, are, in their philosophy, too contemptible to merit serious investigation. Nor are similar theories of our own and other authors exempted from this censure, which ascribe excellence, as for instance in ancient Greece, to the propitious effects of the same physical cause. The mighty and the immortal energies of the human mind are independent of all other external causes; they will bear up against all other external pressure--save moral and political degradation.