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He is the critic rather than the philosopher of art. Endowed with the keenest sensibility to the influences of nature, he has observed them with the greatest accuracy, and, at the same time, with strong poetic feeling. Few men are more alive to the beauties of art, and none have studied its actual manifestations with more diligence... But he is not always equal in his style, nor always just in his opinions... He has a fondness for extravagance, as well of thought as of expression, and is perpetually misled into inconsistency. He is apt to utter decrees instead of criticism, and, uttering them often on the impulse of the moment, they are not infallible decrees. His principles of art, when they are correct, proceed more from instinct than reason; or, in other words, he has not digested them into a complete and systematic whole... They are consequently, wanting in the broadest generalization, and do not penetrate to the profoundest grounds. As an active and fearless thinker, however, as a patient scholar, as an energetic, warm-hearted liker and hater, and as an eloquent expositor of his own views, he stands unrivaled among the English critics of art. Like Carlyle (1795-1881) in literature, or like his own Turner among the landscapists, he has aroused a new spirit in the public mind, and, long after his particular or objectionable opinions shall have been forgotten, he will be gratefully recognized as a reformer and a benefactor in the walk he has chosen to pursue. (p. 500)