An increased facility of procuring the means of acquaintance with good works of art and literature acts both as cause and effect.

A growing and improved taste tends to stimulate the _production_ of the best works of art.

These, in return, foster and advance the power of forming a due _estimate_ of art.
In the higher department of music, for example, the cheap rate not only of _hearing_ compositions of the first class, but of _possessing_ the works of the most eminent composers, must have had influence upon thousands.

The principal oratorios of Handel may be purchased for as many shillings each as they cost pounds years ago.

Indeed, at that time the very names of those immortal works were known only to a few who were skilled to appreciate their high beauties.