The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-05-08 00:00:00

THE BANQUET AT THE ROYAL
ACADEMY.

In London, on Saturday evening, the President and
Council of the Royal Academy gave the accustomed
entertainment at Burlington House to a distinguished
company, including his Royal Highness the Prince of
Wales, his _Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge,
and other members of the Royal Family, her
Majesty's Ministers, many of the ex-Ministers.
foreign Ambassadors, members of both Houses of
Parliament, and other gentlemen of position and in-
fluence, to inaugurate the annual exhibition.
The President, Sir Frederick Leighton, had on his
right and left his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales,
his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge; his
'Royal Highness Prince Chiistian, his Excellency the
Terman Ambassador, his Excellency the Austro-
Hungarian Ambassador, his Serene Highness the
Duke of Teck, his Serene Highness Prince Edward of
Saxe-Weimar, his Serene• Highness Count Gleichen,
his Highness the Maharajah Duleep Singh, and his
Excellency the Netherlands Minister.

1 Gen

The following were amongst the speeches delivered during
the proceedings :

His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales' who was
loudly cheered, in acknowledging the toast of "The
Prince and Princess of Wales, and the rest of the
Royal Family," said,—"Mr. President, your royal
Highnesses, my Lords, and Gentlemen,—For the toast
which has been so kindly and eloquently given by the
President, and the cordial manner in which those pre-
sent have received it, I beg to return my most
sincere thanks. Year by year the members of my
family and myself receive invitations to take part
in the proceedings at this anniversary banquet.
You can therefore well understand that I find
some difficulty in replying to the toast. At the
same time I can assure the President and the mem-
bers of the Academy that, though year by year we
visit these exhibitions and take part at these ban-
quets, the interest we take in them does not in any
way diminish. (Cheers.) I may be allowed to con-
gratulate him and his colleagues on the very great suc-
cess of this Exhibition. (Cheers.) I had the oppor-
tunity
two or three days ago of going through these
rooms' and though I do not profess to be in any way
an art critic, I am quite sure they have no reason to
fear any criticism upon the works of art which adorn
these walls. (Cheers.) I have been charged by my
brothers, who generally take part in this day's
proceedings, to expresi their great regret that
they have not been able to be present. My
brother, the Duke of Edinburgh, has been for the
last five or six weeks absent on duty in Ireland—
(cheers)—where he is employed on an important and,
I trust, useful mission, not only as Admiral Superin-
tendent of the Naval Reserve, but in doing what he
can to relieve the distress which exists in Ireland.
(Cheers.) He has lately had the opportunity of taking
the supplies for distribution on the West Coast from
that gallant ship the Constellation, sent over by our
American cousins, so nobly and generously, to afford
relief to their distressed brethren in Ireland. (Loud
cheers.) In a letter I received from him two days ago
he says the distress still exists, and both food and
clotning are much wanted; in many instances the
corn is not yet sown. I will not touch more upon this
topic, and I should not have mentioned it had I not
been particularly requested to do so. (Cheers.) I
beg to thank you for the toast you have just drunk,
and for the kind way in which you have received it.
(Cheers.)
After several other toasts had been proposed and
acknowledged,

Mr. Gladstone, who was received with enthusiasm, re-
sponded to the toast, "The Health of her Majesty's
Ministers." The right hon. gentleman said,—Mr.
President, your Royal Highnesses, my Lords, and
Gentlemen,—I rise, Sir, to obey your commands with
a lively sense of t gratitude for the honour which you
have been pleased to pay to my colleagues and myself,
and I perfectly understand the character in which it
is that we thus earn your notice. And yet, Sir, I am
so old-fashioned (a laugh), and my recollections extend
to so remote a period, that it is with a good deal of
diffidence, and not without a silent protest, that I take
upon me to acknowledge this toast. You have said,
and with perfect truth, that politics, in the sense
of party politics, do not intrude themselves within
these halls; but I am happy, or unhappyy enough
to recollect the time when neither politics nor party
politics obtruded themselves within these halls—
when the toast of "Her Majesty's Ministers" was not
drunk by the Royal Academy, and Art did not con-
descend to stoop from her lofty pedestal to mix herself
so far with the troubled and embroiled affairs of
this world (cheers and a laugh) ; and, after the full
and loyal performance of duty to our Sovereign and
the Royal Family, the practice was, unless my
memory greatly deceives me, to pass to toasts con-
nected with the institution itself or with the objects
of sister institutions and sister professions. Forgive me
if least a longing, lingering look at that happy period
(cheers and a laugh), forgive me if my memory keeps
slipping back on those golden days (cheers and a laugh) ;
for I cannot help thinking that the arts of which you are
the distinguished professors are as well entitled to claim
for themselves to be the subjects of the thought con-
nected with this evening's entertainment as any other
purpose whatever that can form the special object of
a social gathering of Englishmen. (Cheers.) Forgive
me, therefore, Sir, if I speak, not only with that diffi-
dence which belongs to my profession (a laugh), but
likewise with the special sense that we are here as
interlopers, requiring an apology (a laugh), and I trust
that at some future day—happy shall I be if that day
arrives before the short period that remains of my
political career is closed—you may fall back on the
virtuous practice of your predecessors and resolutely
claim for art the exclusive enjoyment of the entire
evening, qualified only by the delightful duties of
loyalty. (Cheers.) Sir, at the same time I conform
to the existing custom (cheers); and, as I presume that
the toast you have given implies an interest in
the present or possible condition of Her Majesty's
Ministers, I will say one word, and I hope
an inoffensive one. Her Majesty's Ministers
at this moment can claim little at the hands of
their friends, and they fear little at the hands of their
opponents. The register of their deeds is as yet a
blank page. They are still in infancy. (A laugh.) I
am sanguine enough to believe that that is a healthy
infancy (a laugh) ; at any rate, having been installed
in a kind of temporary guardianship during the last
week, I have not observed any symptom whatever of
those diseases which are apt to mar the innocence and
beauty of childhood. (A laugh.) But I may say that,
claiming to have been the nurse of that infancy in a
certain sense, I know very well,l am justly open to the
personal remark that, if my experience has been long,
yet a question may be raised as to the sufficiency of
my praise; and I wish to take this, the first oppor-
tunity on which my mouth has been opened before any
assembly of my countrymen since I was intrusted with
Her Majesty's gracious commission, to say that
if I have any hope of bringing to the discharge of
the arduous duties that have fallen to me even a small
stock of physical and mental strength, that small
stock of physical and mental strength I could not have
enjoyed but for the five years of comparative repose
which I have been enabled to pass through hi con-
sequence of the devotion of the two distinguished
friends who Sit on my right hand and on my left
(pointing to Earl Granville and Lord Hartington)
(loud cheers), and who, having "borne the burden and
the heat" of the last Parliament, have at its close
ceded to me the honours they might well and justly
have claimed for themselves. (Loud cheers.) I am
sure you will not think that in rendering this brief
tribute—the only words with a shade of politics that
will enter into my remarks—l have transgressed the
limits you have so judiciously laid down. (Cheers.)
Now, Sir, as you have kindly expressed an interest
in Her Majesty's Ministers, allow me to assure
you that we take a reciprocal interest in your
operations. (Cheers.) I have not had the same
9pportunit7 as formerly of studying the works of art
in this exhibition. At the close of amost interesting,
but, 'perhaps I may say, exhausting veek, I have
had but a few moments,though under the most skilful
guidance of an eminent Academician, for appreciating
in the slightest degree this great annual harvest of
British art. I am thus, perhaps, saved from the
danger into which I might have fallen of attempting
to institute any comparison between this and other
annual exhibitions. I will only say that in the very
limited moments at my command I have drunk
within these walls a long, deep, and pure draught of
pleasure and satisfaction. (Cheers.) But though I
do not touch ontthe performances of the year, I am
tempted to say one word—it shall hardly go beyond
that—in the expression of reflections I think we
may entertain on a question of greater interest even
than the exhibition of the year, which must neces-
sarily be subject to a certain amount of fluctuation—
the question, what is the position British art has
earned in the general art of the world? And although
I believe we are apt to err sometimes on the side of
self-laudation and perhaps yet more even on
the side of undue self-depreciation, yet I do not think
there is anything immodest in asserting that now for a
long time, for several generations of men, this island
has been enabled to claim for itself a distinct and
separate place as a member of the great sisterhood
which has contributed to make the history of Art,
illustrious and give it its distinguished place in the
history of mankind. (Cheers.) If, going to an early
period in the existence of this institution, I confine
myself to thenames of those who belonged to the last
century, it surely cannot be doubted that there are a
certain number, and not a very small number, of
English artists belonging to the 18th century entitled
to a place in the general history of human and of
Christian art. (Cheers.) I suppose nobody would
deny that place to the names of Reynolds And Gains-
borough. (Cheers.) No one would deny that place to
such men as Wilson and Hogarth. (Cheers.) I would
even venture to go somewhat further, and would even
plead for a similar place in behalf of such men as
Slorland and Old Crowe. (Cheers.) And in the present
century—l will not,speak of the dead, but coming even
to the time of the living—' dare even presume to anti-
cipate that those who come afterus will bestow on many
who now hear me the very same commendation, but with
greater authority. (Cheers.) And there is one point more
I would Venture to notice—not so much in the way of
assertion as of suggestion to the reflections of other
better qualified to form a judgment. It may be that
this country will never rival,--that no country will
ever rival—the marvellous fertility of Italy in the
wealth and variety of the treasures she has contributed
since the revival of art to the art of the world;, but
s
there is one thing ,T `nptice that British ,art Vainsis
character
just, i t ha
rarmoremii
Cohipicuotis and diitinguishea ; and, if the obseivittilm
i
tzreosnygiityh the
pointedly developed.national character for in
the art of no counti y 11 .TO, see iiadividuality_of
(Oh'eers.) On no single occo,sion Vvhen " the walls' of
_thisistjutiart covered witlt Alts Avorkii.oif the
single year—on no single occasion, I thinktican we
fail to perceive what a, 11.1rg5... amount of originality and
independence our'. distinginsted` M-tists carry into the
performance of theiriwoi (theers),-therieby reminding
us that British
art is in close affinity with ,the national
character—founding itself on the peculiarity of the
individual man, an seeldn' g in his strength the Surest
foundation of namobal greatness. (Loud and continued
cheers.)
11Ix. Bret Hax-t,"in rePlying to a twit. on behalf of
" Literature,' .said Presume.. I -AM selected to
answer to this.toast:> as av native of. a...country which
reads more English books and pays less for them than
any other nation. (A laugh.) -Certainly, representing
as I do a free people—who of their own accbrd read

four volumes of Tennyson to one of Longfellow—(a
laugb)—l might claim a hearing here. (A laugh.)
But I recognise in your kindly greeting the same
welcome extended to Hosea Biglow, Hans Breitmann,
Artemus Ward, and Mark Twain. (Cheers.) I recognise
your appreciation of what is said to be distinctive
American literature—a literature which laughs with
the American skies, and is by turns as surprising and
as extravagant as the American weather. (A laugh.)
Indeed, I am not certain that these cyclones of Ame-
rican humour that cross the Atlantic are not as pro-
videntia as the American storms that mitigate the
austere monotony of the English climate. (A
laugh.) For it has been settled by your reviewers
that American literature is American humour, and
that this American humour is a kind of laughable
impropriety, more or less scantily clothed in words.
It has been settled that you are a sober people,
and that nobody in America takes life seriously—not
even a highwayman—and that our literature is a
-reflex of our life. But I think that a majority of this
Academy are kind enough to recognize some principles
of art underlying this characteristic. And I consider
that no higher compliment has been paid American
humour than that the type of American drawn by your
greatest English humorist has been supplanted by
types drawn by Lowell, Artemfs Ward, and Mark
Twain. After some further remarks, he concluded by
thanking the President for the toast.