The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-02 00:00:00

as yet has defied all its 'skill and good intentions,
and provide fitting repositories for the treasures of
art belonging to the nation, and likew ,e for the
rich treasures which its artists annually produce.
(Cheers.) I think I msy fairly say, not only for
the highly informed company I have now the
honour to address, bat for the thousands and tens
of thousands who will for months be enjoying the
spectacle offered by the walls of this Academy, that
nothing could replace to us the loss of this exhibi-
tion. (Cheers.) And, Sir C. Eastlake, permit me
so far to discharge a debt as it can be discharged by
acknowledgment. Speaking from my own expe-
rience, I have never had the fortune to encounter
one of the members of your distinguished body
within these walls who was not ready, and even
desirous, to become a voluntary and gratuitous
teacher wherever he could find a willing pupil. This
day brings with it numberless associations of int&
rest,many pleasant recollections of former years,
nia ny
ardent and fond hopes of the great works we
trusted to see in years to come ; but it brings with
it also acme melancholy and touching reflections.
You have yourself, Sir Charles, alluded to names,
one of which, at least, strikes a chord in my own
breast. You have referred to three names, each an
honour to his profession, Mr. Mulready, Mr.
Cockerell, and Mr. Dyce. I do not venture to
draw any distinction between these eminent men,
1 but one of them, Mr. Dyce, was my friend, and I
am glad to pay him within these walls, where his
works so often excited admiration, tho tribute of
sincere and sorrowing friendship. (Cheers.) If I
may presume to pass judgment, not on the qualifi-
cations of an artist, but on the general outline of
character which befits those that devote themselves
to this lofty profession, I believe the very ideal of
that profession has rarely been more honourably
exhibited than in the character of Mr. Dyes.
(Cheers.) Mr. Dyce wes one of those who, having
great aims, rise entirely above any sordid and mer-
cenary motives. There was no element, no incident
connected with his works that I believe rested on
his mind so little as their price. He perceived the
true idea of beauty, and sought to clothe it in visible
form, and founded the whole practice of his pro-
fession on those true principles which have in all
time led the highest excellence. (Cheers.) Sin-
cerely, you knowwell that Mr llycc, though a great
painter, was not a painter alone. He was as deeply
versed in the science and practice of music, and in
the science and history of architecture, as in that
particular branch of art in which his hand was a
master. Mr. Dyce was a philosopher. Mr. Dyce
was a theologian of deep attainments. Mr. Dyce
was a man to whom art and knowledge were as
one great spreading tree with many branches, and
the particular pursuit to which he first betook him-
self for a livelihood, and in which he attained such
distinction, was but one branch of that tree. It
was this unity of knowledge which prevailed in
his mind which is, I believe, the great preservative
of every particular branch of knowledge, the best
preservative azainst every tendency to degenerate,
and also the best incentive to pure, great, and
noble deeds. (Cheers.) lam quite sure, however
long and however worthy may be the roll of the
distinguished men who had adorned the academy,
seldom has there been one more conspicuous for his
excellence than that remarkable man to whose name
I have thus ventured to pay a feeble tribute of ad-
miration. (Cheers,) Associated as lam by official
duty and by long experience with the material pur-
suits of my countrymen—bound as I am by every
tie of honour as well as of office to do what in me
lies, end making it the chief object of my life to do
what in me lies to develop the material happiness
and prosperity of England, I do not less warmly,
but more strongly and fixedly, feel how necessary
it is that the wealth which is in such rapid acct.'.
mulation should be accompanied by the correctives
which, from other sources, are necessary to be sup-
plied—that it should be sanctified by the hallowing
influence of religion—that it should likewise be
followed by all those results that flow from an
onward civilisation. (Cheers.) And, among those
results, I need not say there are none more radically
associated with the tree development of human ex-
cellence than the successful prosecution of those
fine arts to which the Royal Academy is devoted.
(Loud cheers.)
The PRESIDENT said—Seven days since the Shatz-
spere celebration was worthily inaugurated at
Stratford-on-Avon, and it would ill become the
professors and friends of art to overlook the present
opportunity of doing homage to our great poet's
memory. Painters especially owe to Shakspere a
large portion of their inspiration, and will continue
to do so as long as poetry and art exist. In Shale-
spere artists may find not only inexhaustible sub-
jects but sound principles. It is he who tells them
that

" Nature is made better by no mean,

But nature makes that mean ;"
and who, in the instructions to the players, records
his caution against exaggeration and mannerism.
With all his boundless fancy, he instinctively recog-
nizes the limits between description and repreF,en-
tation. In him, as in Homer, the highest ',ilea of
beauty is conveyed without enlarging
;n definite
w-t h
visible qualities, and consequently i out invading
the province of the formative art
Mi-
randa is " created of every cr ea
'4. Although
ture's best," the ar-
tist is left free—perhaps hopelessly free—to realise
her image. None ca.-, have greater reason than the
students of natur
and the disciples of art to vene-
rate the name of Shakepere, and I will only add, in
his own wedds_

" If he had been forgotten,
It had been as a gap in cur great feast,
And all things unbecoming,"
',Cheers.) The toast is " The Immortal Memory of
Shakspere." (Hear, hear.)
The CHAIRMAN next gave " Prosperity to the City of
London and the health of the Rigl,t Hon. the Lord Mayor."
(Cheers.)
The LORD MAYOR returned thanks, and in reference to a
remark of the last speaker on what might be done in the
shape of improvements in the u'ity of London, said—lt
appears to me that the City is very much in the position of
the Israelites in Egypt, who were required to make bricks
without straw. (A laugh.) Wa are deprived in a great
measure of the power of making improvements by the cur-
tailment of our resources. (Hear.) And our power is in-
terfered with in other respects. (Hoar, and a laugh,) You
have pointed to France and the magnificent improvements
which h4ve been effected in Paris, but it should be known
that there they have something like £2,000,000 sterling per
annum to carry out these improvements. Tho City of Lon-
don, on the other hand, is not permitted to hold the means
she has to use them for the improvement of the great metro_
polis.

The PRESIDENT next gave " The Interests of Literature."
Mr. FORSTER, who on rising was received with loud
cheers, returned thanks. After alluding to the disadvan•
tags he felt in interposing before men with higher claims
than himself to represent literature, and better qualified to
speak for it, he continued—l see in this room the ackaow-
!edged representatives of some of its highest departments.
I see history appropriated by the Academy herself, who, in
Lord Stanhope, Dean Millman, and Mr. Grote, possesses
the lay element so dear to Lord Elcho—(cheers)—in a
form in which I do not grudge it to her, but to which for
my part I should be well content to find that she continued
to restrict herself. I see poetry in some pleasant forms
known to you all, and especially in that of Mr. Browning,
one of the most original thinkers as well as one of the
first poets of his time. (Cheers.) In fiction, I see not only
the groat master of character and humour (Mr. Dickens)
who has held sway ove: both for now more than a
quarter of a century. and this very day starts after
new laurels with as much vigour and freshness as when
he first began the race (cheers), but also others whose
laurels are of later growth, such as he who built for us
" Barclaester Towers" and the" Small House at Allington ;"
and that son of a former member of this Academy, who,
claiming to be remembered for "No Name," has here a
special title to remembrance in right of two of the greatest
names familiar to these walls (cheers) ; names dear and
honoured wherever English art is known, and which may
borrow from the art of Mr. Wilkie Collins (cheers) new
claims to the admiration of their countrymen. For all
these, and many others, I am to thank you, and nowhere
will you find the sense of obligation to your delightful art
so constantly and so deeply felt as by followers of literature
—the younger of the sisters, I suppose, we must call her,
for letters came last into the world; but they have been
helping each ocher ever since, sympathizing with e:tch
other, cultivating anti interpretiog each other; and I
imagine that each would be eager to say th•tt her debt to the
other was the largest :

" Strong in the love of sister arts they came
"And met congenial, mingling ft ,me with flame;
"Like friendly colours found them both unite,
" And each from each contract new strength and light,"
(Cheers.) But a greater writer than Pope has expressed this
intimate alliance, for he who knew everything, and to whom
you (Sir Charles Eastlake) have to-day made such noble
and becoming allusion, uses language to describe what the