icrous
suggestion affixed to it.

On the other hand, the caricature of an important work is sometimes
received in the proper spirit. Here is a letter from Professor Herkomer,
with reference to my caricature of the work of our greatest art genius,
Alfred Gilbert, R.A.:

[Illustration]

Of course, the caricaturing of pictures has its seamy as well as its
smooth side. Among the annoyances to which an artist engaged on this
description of work is exposed I am inclined to give a prominent place
to the fussy and vexatious regulations imposed upon him by the
authorities at Burlington House. One would have supposed, for instance,
that anyone like myself, who is well-known as merely taking notes for
caricature, would have been allowed to consult his own convenience to
some extent in making his sketches. But not a bit of it. The penalty is
something too dreadful if you are found making the slightest note of a
picture at the Royal Academy at any other time than on the one appointed
day. The object of this regulation is, of course, to protect the
copyright of the pictures--a very proper and legitimate precaution; but
I submit that a better instance of the spirit of Red Tapeism which is so
rampant at Burlington House, and which I am always endeavouring to
expose, could not be adduced than the inability of the officials to
discriminate between the accredited representative of a paper and the
piratical sketcher who is taking notes for an illegitimate purpose. I
need hardly say that this regulation is peculiar to the Royal Academy.
At the Grosvenor Gallery, which, alas! is no more, the officials about
the place understood these matters better, and at all times were pleased
to give every facility to the representative of the Press. The polite
secretary would give up his chair to me any day I liked to look in, and
would often point out to me some comical feature in the surrounding
canvases which his sly humour had detected.

[Illustration: A PRISONER.]

Equal praise must indeed be accorded to the management of the New
Gallery and all the other Exhibitions with which I have been brought in
contact in the course of my professional duties. Personally, as I have
always made my notes at the Royal Academy on the authorised occasion, I
have had nothing to fear from those who preside there. But my friend
Linley Sambourne, who wished upon one occasion to caricature a picture
of Burne-Jones' for a political cartoon in _Punch_ (of course alte