The Academy dinner this day week was eaten without either
Sir Francis Grant or Lord Beaconsfield, who were both ill. But Sir Gilbert Scott discharged very well the official functions of Sir Francis, and Sir Stafford Northcote the complimentary part grandly played by the Prime Minister. Sir Stafford N orthco te indeed succeeded in giving that slight flavour of metaphysical criticism to his speech which Lord Beaconsfield generally reserves for the Royal Academy, laying it down that good sense is the ultimate basis of good taste, good taste being the highest development of good sense, with a " touch of genius " added. Good sense teaches you just now, said Sir Stafford Northcote, not to believe any rumour that you hear on a Saturday,—especially if it be a rumour that two of the Cabinet have resigned,—for unless there be a Royal Academy dinner, the idle rumour of a Saturday cannot be contradicted till Monday. The Chancellor of the Ex- chequer, however, did not hint with what "touch of genius" to transfigure this lesson of good sense into an achievement of "good ,taste." Did he mean that it would be good taste always to conceive of a Cabinet as brethren who dwell in unity ? That would certainly take a touch of imagination, and by no means one of the pre-Raffaelite kind. Good sense, we fear, taken alone only teaches that they are brethren who dwell together in ambiguity, the ministerial equivalent for " unity."
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