the most part those by masters of established renown, which are highly
or neatly finished, and of a size small enough to admit of their being
placed in galleries or saloons, so as to be made subjects of
ostentation, and to be easily seen by a crowd. For the support of the
fame and value of such pictures, little more is necessary than that they
should be kept bright, partly by cleaning, which is incipient
destruction, and partly by what is called "restoring," that is, painting
over, which is of course total destruction. Nearly all the gallery
pictures in modern Europe have been more or less destroyed by one or
other of these operations, generally exactly in proportion to the
estimation in which they are held; and as, originally, the smaller and
more highly finished works of any great master are usually his worst,
the contents of many of our most celebrated galleries are by this time,
in reality, of very small value indeed.