VIEWED in its corporate character, the Royal Academy is as

defective in its constitution as it is unjust and mischievous in its influence. But, as we have said over and over again, the blame rests not with indivi- duals, but with the system. Had it not been for the high character of some members of the Academy, the corruption of the body would have so stunk in the nostrils of the community of artists, that it would have been long ago suppressed as an intolerable nuisance. Its anomalous character is what the artists chiefly complain of. As Mr. RENNIE says- " The Royal Academy stands in an undefined position ; it receives its apart- ments from the public, its members have the Royal patronage and diplomas, but its laws and regulations are such as ought only to belong to an entirely pri- vate institution." (Evidence, Part 11., Q. 00.) In fact, it set out as a private society of seceders' from a chartered body ; but having got the loyal sanction to bestow diplomas, it thus became invested with the attributes of a public institution. The ad- vantage that is taken of the hybrid nature of the institution is pithily stated by Mr. HeRLSTONE- When any advantages are to be obtained, the Royal Academy comesforward under the assumption that it is a public institution ; and when any inquiry is demanded, it is asserted that it is a private one." (Evidence, Part 11., Q. 779.) Mr. HOFLAND, Mr. PTE the engraver, and other witnesses, testify to the same effect.

The remedy is to constitute it a public body, since it has as- sumed to be one by its own acts, by the countenance of the public and the Government, and, let it riot be forgotten, by the support of the artists themselves. For, had the artists preferred their own in- dividual independence to a share of the power and influence of the Academy, neither Royal patronage nor Government countenance would have saved it from frilling into contempt. What is the answer of the Academy to the charges against it ?— The great names that it boasts. The private character and professional reputation of each distinguished member is made use of to bolster up the credit of the body. The most eminent men, however, we believe, do not mix them- selves up with the business of the Academy, and leave the miserable intriguers to do their dirty work by themselves : but so much the worse.

Sir MARTIN SHEF. says, " There is scarcely a single instance of any very eminent artist who was not a member of the Royal Academy, or who might not have become so if Ire had taken the proper means of obtaining that distinction." (Evidence, Part H., Q. 19S9.) A cunning qualification this. What are these " proper means ?" A candidate has to put his name down in a book ; and if he have not a popular reputation as well as extraordinary talent, he stands small chance of being admitted, unless he goes cap in band, fawning and cringing to every R.A. be meets, and gets a clique in his favour. If by these " proper means," he is elected an Associate, he has to re- main in purgatory for a certain time; and during his condition of 4' vassalage," as Mr. CLINT well calls it, he is set below the salt at the annual dinner, has his pictures hung in the inferior places, and, unless he is a public favourite, he may remain to the end of his days in the enviable predicament of not being considered worthy of becoming an Academician. The artists justly esteem it as a " state of degrada- tion : " we wonder Mr. CLINT should be the only Associate who has had the spirit to resign his diploma. But hope, we suppose, sus- tains the poor souls in this transition state; in which they are sus- pended, as it were between earth and heaven. That artists have brought themselves to submit to such a humiliating course of soliciting honours from unworthy bands, proves at least the benefits of belonging to the Academy ; though these may be less than the disadvantages of exclu- sion. What a system, to obtain in an institution for the promotion of a liberal art ! which ought to be forward to bestow honours on deserv- ing men. But we suspect it is less the honour than the profit that is sought. The painter who writes R.A. after his name has the ear of the nobility and patrons of art at the annual dinner; obtains the entree Into the highest society, gets the best places in the Exhibition-room, and the highest prices for his works. Nay more, the title of R.A. is a necessary appendage to the name of an artist—especially of a por- trait-painter; for the public entertain a notion that all clever painters are members of the Academy, and vice versa. Then an artist must make his election either to belong to the Academy from the first, or riot at all; for if he join any other society, he is, by the laws of theAcademy, inadmissible. This is the way the Academy keeps up its monopoly. Most institutions welcome the members of other bodies; and the more societies a member belongs to, the more do they feel honoured by his association. Not so the Royal Academy. As Mr. HURLSTONE Well says- " If an ; rtist with the genius of a Raphael or a Michael Angelo were to ap- pear, and in consequence of his high merit should be elected at any other insti- tution, he would be excluded from all the honours of his profession"—meaning those of the Royal Academy. (Evidence, Part IL, Q. 732.) Mr. HOFLAND, the • Secretary of the Society of British Artists, states— we could not become candidates for the honours of the Royal Academy after becoming members of the Society of British Artists; and a great evil to our Society has been, that that law has deterred many from joining our Society, because they would he prevented, after joining us, from looking forward to the honours of the Royal Academy." (Evidence, Part 11., Q. 121i0. )

What a monstrous power to be usurped by a private body and sub- mitted to by a community ! The tendency of power to make those

who have it cling to arid even support others in its exercise, though to their own disadvantage, is shown in this anecdote of shrewd old NORTIICOTE, which is related by Mr. HOFLAND- " Mr. Northcote declared to me that he had been threatened with expulsion (from the Royal Academy) by an Academician ; and, in reply to that threat, said, Sir, I yet remain it member of the Royal Academy, and I will vote fur my own expulsion if you put it to the vote.'" (Evidence, Part II., Q. 1261.) An instance of the absurd effect of this illiberal regulation occurred in the case of Mr. COCKERELL the architect, a lately elected B.A.; and is quoted by Mr. DONALDSON the architect- " Mr. Cockerell was anxious to belong to the Institute of British Architects, as an efficient member : he applied to the Council of the Royal Academy, to ascertain whether it was consistent with their regulations that he should do so; and he was told that he could not." (Evidence, Part. II., Q. 1252.) Sir MARTIN SIIEE, however, hints that the Academy would have winked at a breach of the law in this instance; indeed they have been

forced to tolerate the violation of other laws—one especially, which excludes from their Exhibition for two seasons the works of any artist who exhibited anywhere else in London. But these acts of toleration are exceptions, proving the narrow and intolerant spirit of the laws; and who can doubt but they would be enforced against an individual who should be at once no favourite and helpless ? Indulgence is the bait of the trap that tyranny sets for its victims : intolerance loves to pamper its appetite by occasional forbearance. The very selfishness and exclusiveness of the Academy enable it to earn cheaply a false character for liberality. Since public attention has been drawn to the Academy and the rivalry of other Exhibitions has been felt, it has elected more efficient

members ; but it has only been of late years. Mr. HOWARD'S list of great men goes back no further than 1810; and it is only since LESLIE'S election that the traces of private influence have begun to disappear. There are CALLCOTT, WILKIE, CHANTItEY, HILTON, and BAILY, true ; but there are also TIMED, (who is he ?) Coos:, DANIELL, REIN,. AGLE, and JONES, among the illustrious obscure The Academy has

lately found out that " it is their interest to elect the best artists," as

Mr. HOWARD says : but the public and the artists require some better security than " the interest " of the Academy in bestowing honeurs.

It is well known that " the interest" of a knot of jobbers often pre- vails in elections, to the detriment of "the interest" of the Academy. Nor is it sufficient that some of the best artists should be elected : no men of eminent talent ought to be passed over. As it is, the Academy

does but confer its diploma on men whose talent already bears the stamp of public approbation and who condescend to solicit the doubtful honour. WILKIE was forced upon them, and LAWRENCE too, among others. They are the last to recognize talent, instead of being the first : and then they do so, forsooth, because it is their "interest." But it is also their " interest " to encourage portraiture ; because, as Mr. RENNIE says truly, "there is no class of art that brings more money to the doors than the poi traits." ( Evidence, Part II., Q. 683.) Only last Exhibition, we had to complain of the portraits occupy- ing the best situations in the Great Room at Somerset House. Mr. MARTIN, observing upon the tendency of the Academy Exhibition to depress high art, and unduly exalt the importance of portraiture in the eyes of the artists and the public, says, " The young artist is led to

think in this way : Portrait painting is the grandest branch of the art; we can get wealth by that ; and, besides, we see in the Royal Academy, that portraits hold the best situations; therefore we will avoid every other branch of the art, for that which requires no patronage.'" The

necessity for artists painting portraits, no doubt, is owing to a want of public and national encouragement of the higher branches of art ; and

it is the duty of the Academy to lead and elevate the taste of the public, and give a greater prominence to high art in proportion as the public neglect it : but it is not their "interest" to do so. Who has not remarked, that when a painter gets made an B. A. he then becomes

a portrait-painter? BRIGGS, WILKIE, EASTLAKE, HOWARD, all paint portraits : HILTON and Errs( are honourable exceptions. Not that

portraiture is to be entirely eschewed by the greatest artists, but poetic painting should not be entirely neglected. The plain fact is, that Somerset House was—and unless the Academy be reformed, the Na- tional Gallery will be—the show-shop of the Academicians : they will continue to appropriate the best places in the rooms to themselves—to exercise their exclusive privilege of varnishing, that is, painting over their own pictures to kill the picture of a rival—to refuse other artists

the opportunity of so much as wiping the dust off their paintings or washing the finger-marks off the sculpture—to exclude what pictures

they please without assigning a reason—and, in short, to use the works

of other artists as a means of making the Exhibition generally attrac- tive, while their own performances figure in the principal situations on

the walls, and their names in capital letters in the catalogue. And so

far as the artists alone are concerned, they have only themselves to blame that it should be so. They might have prevented it before, by not joining the Academy ; they may now put a stop to it, by availing themselves of the altered position of the Academy, the awakened pub- lie feeling, and the Parliamentary inquiry, and taking active measures to get a reform of the system. If they will not stir in the matter, who can be expected to do it? It is not enough that the Society of British Artists, the Society of Water- Colour Painters, and other rival exhibi- tions should complain of the injury done to them by the Academy show. However, it is no longer a mere affair of " the shop " between rival exhibitionists : it has become a question of national interest. The Academy is proved to be an injury to the art in this country, lowering the public taste and paralyzing the energies of artists ; and it is in this light that its injurious tendency, the illiberal spirit pervading it, and the self-seeking, trading, and monopolizing character of its influence, arc to be regarded by the Legislature. It is not for the sake of indi- vidual artists merely, or the interest of the body of them, but for the sake of art itself that we take up the subject. And in this light the one fact stated by HAYDON, and met by Mr. HOWARD by a non mi

ricordo evasion, is :alone condemnatory of the Academy. " After the battle of Waterloo, a sum of money was devoted to a monument for

Waterloo ; a committee was formed, and they were directed by Lord CASTLEREAGH to apply to the Royal Academy as to thebest mode of dis- posing of the money for the arts ; and they returned no answer; and Lord CASTLEREAGH then said the thing had better be given up." (Evidence,

Part II., Q. 1106.) Again, when King's College applied to the Aca-

demy to name a fit person to he appointed Professor of Fine Art in institution, nstitution, they answered that they knew of no one whom they could recommend. Is any other evidence needed to show, not merely the uselessness, but the baneful effect of the Academy on the progress of the art which it was intended to promote? Here is a body formed to foster the arts, throwing its wet blanket over every spark of public feeling. It is wasting words to comment on such facts.

We have seen that, instead of protecting the interests of artists, the Academy has sacrificed them to its own ; that in place of union, it bus sown dissension, and broken up the craft into parties having separate interests ; that so far from elevating the art, it has tended to lower it ; that it has pandered to the low taste of the multitude, instead of attempting to raise it; and has negleCted the opportunities offered of national encouragement of art. But one thing remains to complete the case against the Academy; and this is to overthrow their strongest support, namely, that derived from the list of eminent names who belong to their body. That the Academicians include some of the most distinguished artists of the time, we freely admit. The question is not whether the amount of talent out of the Academy is greater than that which it includes, but whether there are any artists of equal talent with those belonging to it who are excluded from it. This may easily be de-

termined by reference to the catalogues of the Academy and other Exhibitions; but in order to put the point beyond a doubt, we propose to marshal the outs against the ins. We cannot afford space for the list this week, but it will do as well next ; and we shall then have an opportunity for suggesting a plan of reform based upon it. This list will show that the dimensions of the Academy, like its laws, are too narrow for the enlarged growth of art. As a proof of this, we need only remind the admirers of water-colour painting, that this popular and highly-cultivated branch of art is not recognized at all by the Academy; although, far from being inferior, the mechanical skill re- quired to produce such wonderful effects as are seen in the water- colour pictures of the present day, is perhaps greater than that requisite for oil-painting. Certainly as much mind may he developed in a water- colour as in an oil picture. Some of TURNER'S finest works being produced in water-colours, have never been seen in the Academy- there was no place to exhibit them. Indeed, a water-colour painter, as such only, would not be eligible to Academic honours.

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