Note 17 — Chapter II

The Reformed religion is, in almost all its branches, rather a drawback than an assistance to art. Thus are its effects described by Mr. Barry: "Where religion is affirmative and extended, it gives a loose and enthusiasm to the fancy, which throws a spirit into the air and manners, and stamps a diversity, life, quickness, sensibility, and expressive significance over everything they do. In another place it is more negative and contracted: being formed in direct opposition to the first, its measures were regulated accordingly; much pains were taken to root out and to remove everything that might give wing to imagination, and so to regulate the outward man by a torpid inanimate composure, gravity, and indifference, that it may attend to nothing but mere acts of necessity, everything else being reputed idle and vain. They have had as few words as buttons, the tongue spoke almost without moving the lips, and the circumstances of a murder were related with as little emotion as an ordinary mercantile transaction."—Barry on the Arts, p. 214.