The Lord Chaucellor did us the honour to devote a
large part of his speech to replying, on behalf of the Academy, to the criticisms of our Art critic. "If we were to form our opinion from the views expressed in passages we may read frequently in the Press over certain well-known letters of the alphabet, I think we should conclude there were three marks of a real artist in the present day. The first is that his pictures should never appear on the walls of the Academy ; the second is that there should be very few people capable of appreciating them or understanding them; and the third is that those who produce works of art should receive very small remuneration for doing so." Well, surely Lord Herschell, as Mr. Gladstone's Lord Chancellor, will admit that there is a very considerable number of important subjects on which "the classes" at least are not to be trusted. And. as "the masses" have not as yet even so much as claimed to be good judges of Art, we suppose the only alternative is to trust to well-disciplined individual insight, whether "D. S. M's" or a,nother's. Lord Herschell himself claimed to speak as an Impressionist for the nonce.
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