ould
be open to the Council to appoint an agent, as was suggested just now,
of going to Scotland, and going about the country making suggestions as
to pictures which in his opinion might be bought?--The question has
never arisen.

422. But that could be done, could it not?--I suppose that could be done
under the terms of the will, but I do not suppose that the Academy would
ever do it.

As a comment on this let us turn to the "Autobiography of W. P. Frith R.
A." (Chapter xl.):--"A portion of the year ... was spent in the service
of the winter Exhibition of Old Masters. My duties took me into strange
places.... One of my first visits was paid to a huge mansion in the
North.... I visited thirty-eight different collections of old masters
and named for selection over three hundred pictures.... The pictures of
Reynolds are so much desired for the winter Exhibition that neither
trouble nor expense are spared in searching for them; so hearing of one
described to me as of unusual splendour, I made a journey into Wales
with the solitary Reynolds for its object."

Here, where it is not a question of a Trust for the benefit of the
public and for the encouragement of artists, there appears to have been
no trouble or expense spared. But the real reason for the Academic
selection leapt naively from the mouth of the President a little later,
in reply to question 545.--"The best artists come into the Academy
ultimately. I do not say that there have been no exceptions, but as a
general rule all the best artists ultimately become Academicians. It is
natural, if we want the best pictures that we should go to the best
artists."

On this point the answer to a question put by Lord Lytton to one of the
forty, Sir William Richmond, K.C.B., is of value, as showing that the
grievances of "the outsiders" were not imaginary:--

767. I just want to ask you one more question. When you said that in
your opinion the walls of the Academy have had priority of claim in the
past, have you any particular reason for that statement?--Yes. I may
mention this to show that I am consistent. Before I was an Associate of
the Royal Academy, I fought hard for what are called, in rather
undignified language, the outsiders, and I was anxious that men should
be elected Associates of the Royal Academy not necessarily because they
exhibit on the Royal Academy walls, but because they are competent
painters. That was my fight upon which I stood; and I refused to send