but the result has certainly been a most magnificent
one.

"With reference to the Exhibition now before us, I think I may
say that for many years we have not seen a finer exhibition. The
names of Grant, Watts, Millais, and others I need not
particularise. Last year we had to mourn the loss of Sir C.
Eastlake, and now we have to lament the departure from among us
of another Royal Academician, Mr. Philip, to the vivid
truthfulness of whose pictures from Spanish life I myself, from
having been in Spain, can amply testify. I beg, my lords and
gentlemen, again to thank you for the kind manner in which you
have proposed and received my health, and the still kinder
manner in which you have received the health of the Princess of
Wales."

_1870._

The Royal Academy banquet for 1870 fell on the 30th of April.

Sir Francis Grant, the President, in proposing "The Health of the
Queen," stated that Her Majesty had, in May of the previous year,
conferred on the Academy the honour of visiting the new galleries in
state, and was pleased to express her high approval. At that visit she
gave commissions for pictures to several young artists of rising fame;
and she presented to the Academy the beautiful marble bust of herself,
executed by her accomplished daughter the Princess Louise.

In next proposing "The Health of the Prince and Princess of Wales and
the rest of the Royal Family," the President said that they were all
glad to welcome the Prince, for the first time, in the new galleries.
"Last year His Royal Highness was well employed elsewhere visiting the
historic wonders of ancient Egypt, accompanied by the Princess of Wales,
whom we must all rejoice to see returned to this country in perfect
health. It must be a gratifying circumstance to all Her Majesty's loyal
subjects that the Royal Princes, her sons, are not too delicately
reared, as Princes were of old, but are all manly English gentlemen and
great travellers, who seek to elevate and enlarge their minds by
studying the customs and policy of foreign nations, and to strengthen
the cords of sympathy and loyalty which bind our colonies to the mother
country. I read with pleasure of His Royal Highness recently presiding
at a meeting of the Society of Arts, and the able sentiments he then
expressed on the subject of education. I am glad also to learn that the
Prince has succeeded the late lamented Lord Derby as President of