871 the Prince spoke and at that of 1874 he
drew special attention to the picture, "Calling the Roll," which
afterwards made Miss Elizabeth Thompson so famous, and to a statue by J.
E. Boehm which was the beginning of that sculptor's rise to distinction.

The Prince of Wales was again present in May, 1875 and then, owing to
other pressing engagements, missed four years. At the annual banquet on
May 3rd, 1879, which he attended, Sir Frederick Leighton was President
of the Academy and the Prince made kindly allusion to the memory of his
late predecessor. Amongst the other speakers were Lord Beaconsfield, Mr.
W. H. Smith and Lord Chief Justice Cockburn. At the banquet in 1880, Sir
F. Leighton paid his Royal guest an unusual compliment: "Sir, of the
graces by which Your Royal Highness has won and firmly retains the
affectionate attachment of Englishmen none has operated more strongly
than the width of your sympathies; for there is no honourable sphere in
which Englishmen move, no path of life in which they tread, wherein Your
Royal Highness has not, at some time, by graceful word or deed, evinced
an enlightened interest." In 1881, the central subject of toast and
speech was Sir Frederick Roberts, who had come fresh from the fields of
Cabul and Candahar; but the Prince of Wales did not forget an illusion
to the death of "that great statesman" the Earl of Beaconsfield. In 1885
His Royal Highness was accompanied for the first time by Prince Albert
Victor and in 1888 he was able to refer to the fact of this occasion
being not only the year of his silver wedding but the year which marked
a quarter of a century since his first appearance amongst them.

The Corporation of Trinity House, which in the time of Henry VIII. had
been a guild for the encouragement of the art and science of navigation
and had latterly come into the work of building lighthouses and
protecting ships along the coasts of England, was always an object of
interest and support to the Prince of Wales. In 1865 he declined the
post of Master--which had been held by men like Lord Liverpool, the Duke
of Wellington, the Prince Consort and Lord Palmerston--in favour of his
brother the Sailor Prince. He attended the next annual banquet, however,
together with the King of the Belgians, and two years later was
installed as one of the "Younger Brethren" of Trinity House. The Duke of
Richmond and Lord Napier of Magdala were amongst the other speakers. The
banquet of July 4t