Note 21 — Chapter XXIV

"Reflect on this, ye directors of public taste and opinion, opera goers, déjeuné doers, and ostentatious patrons of virtu. The exhibition of a single little mediocre picture, with a big name, 'The Chapeau de Paille,'[21] cleared, by your indiscriminate, gregarious appreciation, about twelve hundred guineas! The Tam O'Shanter Stone Works, between three and four thousand! While eighty groups of the most unique and exquisite gems of art in Europe, the achievements of English artists, and wholly devoted to British charity, realizes, by three months exhibition, a loss of £30 5s. 11d.! to say nothing of considerable personal expenses, and the sacrifice of immense mental and physical exertion. If this be not disgusting, if it be not an eternal disgrace, if it fail to rouse deep indignation, and to justify the bitterest contempt, then what can, or ought? Would anomalies so odious have happened in Dublin or Edinburgh? In Paris, Brussels, or Amsterdam? In Berlin, Vienna, Moscow, or St. Petersburgh? In Rome, Naples, Madrid, or even Lisbon? Would such barbarous and heartless apathy to genius and humanity be evinced in Algiers, America, Hayti, or, in short, by any people on earth, but the 'most thinking,' absurd seeking, flea-hunting dilettanti of the British Metropolis? So much for Royal and aristocratic patronage; so much for the schoolmaster at home; his boasted 'march of intellect,' 'penny' intelligence, discernment, patriotism, and benevolence, forsooth!"