es, have
usually been well founded. But never, perhaps, has so effective a charge
been made as that which Mr. Furniss brings in his entertaining volume;
and if it be true that ridicule will pierce there whence the shafts of
indignation will rebound, no little good may be looked for from the
publication."

[Illustration: NO WATER-COLOUR OR BLACK-AND-WHITE NEED APPLY.]

Precisely so. Others, serious and influential, had exposed the R.A.; I
tried what ridicule would do. But the public did not take me seriously,
and the Press took me too seriously; and as the public does not buy
books on art, but is content with a _rechauffe_, my object to a certain
extent was defeated.

My Lady Oil of Burlington House is a very selfish creature; she
persistently refuses to recognise her twin-sister Water Colour, giving
her but one miserable room in her mansion, and no share whatever in her
honours. My Lady Oil is selfish; My Lady Oil is unjust to favour
engravers and architects, and to ignore painters in water-colours and
artists in black-and-white. She showers honours on her adopted sisters,
Engraving and Architecture, because the former mechanically reproduces
her work, and the latter builds her pretty toy-houses for her children
to live in.

This is really altogether absurd when you reflect that it is in
water-colour that English art excels, and that the copyist, the
engraver's occupation will soon be gone, beaten away by slightly more
mechanical, but more effective, modes of reproduction.

Sooner or later John Bull will open his inartistic eyes, and see that
mediocrity in oil is not equal to excellence in water, and that those
who originate with the pencil are far before copyists with the graver
and drawers of plans.

I then advocated a National Academy, a Commonwealth of Art, presided
over by a State Minister of Fine Art, in which mediocrity will find no
space till a welcome and a place have been given to all earnest work,
regardless of its nature.

Where the number of works of any one man will be limited, and where
there will be no such mockery of good work as "rejection for want of
space."

Where all the fine arts, and especially the national fine art
(water-colour paintings), shall be recognised as arts, and the best of
the professors of them shall at least be eligible for election.

Where the committee of selection and hanging shall be--as in the
Salon--elected by the body of exhibitors.

Where reasonable time shall