DOI Heft:
March 17, 1866
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16877#0115
March 17, 1866.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI
107
AMONG THE ARTISTS.
■=l other evening, my
dear Mr. Punch, I
was strolling near
St. Martin’s Church,
about eight, trying
to get up an appetite
for dinner, when I
perceived thataside-
door of the Royal
Academy was open,
and that persons
were entering.
Now, though not
a flaneur, like my
friend, Mr. Y-s
(whose capital novel
Land at Last, I
hereby desire to pu-
—I mean to recom-
mend to your atten-
tion), I am always
but too ready to
yield to the impulse
of the moment. The
impulse of that mo-
ment was to enter
in at the Academy
door, and see what
the persons were
going to do. There are many difficulties, however, in this world, and I
personally encountered one in the person of a porter, in an exceedingly
handsome red gown, who asked me for a ticket. Informed that I hadn’t
got one, he inclined, I thought from his expressions, to the opinion that
I had better go away. Affably controverting this view, which, I am
bound to say, was very civilly urged, as became a servant of the Artes
whose study emollit mores, I was suddenly taken by the arm, and a
pleasant voice said,
Do you want to come in ? Great compliment to us, I am sure.”
“ I am equally sure of it,” says I; “ and who are you F ”
“ Now, if there is one thing in the world that I dislike,” says my new
friend, “ it is an unnecessary question. Come in, can’t you P ”
“ Well, your door is wide enough for an Elephant, and an Epicurus
might, manage,” I promptly retorted. And in I went.
“ Take off your things, and leave ’em here,” said he, as we came into
a large room with a lot of tables. “ They ’ll be quite safe, I assure
you.”
I—I—beg pardon,” said I, rather frightened, and adding, in a
whisper, “ I’m not a Model.”
“ 1 should say not,” says he, bursting into a laugh which was very
rude and uncalled for. But I left my cloak, and hat, and umbrella, and
wallet, and my folio edition of Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, which
I am fond of reading in the street.
“ Now,” says my companion, “come on.” We went, past a screen,
into another large chamber.
“ This,” he said, “ is our Council Room. Have some tea ? ”
“ I will,” I replied, “if the state of the Academy funds justifies that
outlay upon an outsider. You are quite sure of that ? ”
He said he was, and that there might be a little surplus afterwards.
A domestic, in elegant attire, then brought me some tea, and I can truly
say that it did credit to the taste of the Royal Academy.
I should mention that there were many gentlemen in the handsome
room, which was decorated with pictures, and had no end of a painted
ceiling, which came from Somerset House, where, as you may not be
aware, the Exhibition used to be. I recognised most of the gentlemen,
from photographs for which I have once or twice asked you to
pay. By Jove, Sir (a harmless oath from Epicurus), there was a large
instalment of The Forty, the men whose works make the talk of a
thousand dinner-tables, and, I trust, cover their own with every luxury
in or out of season. 1 say this, partly out of benevolence, and partly
because I have received several invitations. My companion mentioned
my name, adding yours (which was quite needless, I flatter myself), and
my reception was most affable. Erankly, I think that more than one
uainter of history pieces must have been struck by the nobility of my
features, and I observed that several great portrait artists regarded me
in a peculiar manner. If I have not yet been asked to sit to any of
them, it is, I am sure, from a delicate consideration of the great value
of my time.
Hut I could not conceive what they were going to do, and I didn’t
bke to ask, There is nothing like masterly inaction, as my friend
Mr. Disraeli says. The world is to him who knows how to wait.
Suddenly the porter or beadle announced (we could hear it without
him) that St. Martin had said 8.
“ Come in,” said the gentleman who had hitherto played Virgil to
my Dante—not that the Academy is an Inferno, quite the reverse, I
am sure. “ You must have a seat.”
And where do you think I found myself? Why, in that big room of
all, in which, when the Exhibition is open, it is so delightful to be
caught by crinolines, and either imprisoned for ten minutes, or sent
whirling into some old dowager’s expansive and expensive arms. All
J_he pictures were gone, of course, but instead of them hung huge and
frameless copies of the Cartoons, of the Great Supper, and the Great
Descent; and the room was divided by a partition. On one side were
two long rows of pictorial Swells, with a Presidential chair in the
middle, and on the other were lots of students, merry, earnest, watchful
young fellows, mostly, who cheered royally as the notables came in. My
keen glance instantly fell upon a yet more interesting group—a knot of
bright-eyed voung ladies, students also, as I learned. I regret that the
seat allotted to me was too far from them to permit them to see
me well.
“ Now,” I said to myself, with my usual prescience, “ I shall find
out what we are going to do.”
At this moment I observed, in face of the Presidential chair, a large
and well fortified Tribune, and light broke into my soul.
“ I am blessed if I am not going to hear a lecture,” said I, discon-
tentedly. “ How can I get out ? Am 1 a person to be instructed?”
As I grumbled these words, tremendous applause burst forth, and a
gentleman ascended the rostrum. I recalled the words, for something
in that gentleman’s appearance told me that I should hear him with satis-
faction. An earnest face, a bright eye, and hair and beard silvered, I
trust not from the cause - deep affliction at the follies of others—which
has streaked my own chestnut locks with white. “ I will hear this,”
said I, as the applause broke out again, and with a calm and kindly
glance at the younger part of his audience, the lecturer began.
He spoke of Art, Sir, and upon that subject no one was so capable
as myself to judge his words. This was the last of four lectures, it
seemed. He addressed himself to the students, and in a lecture of a
scholarly and elaborated kind, he impressed truths upon them. I am
not a student; but had I been one, I should have been grateful for the
counsel so carefully weighed and so earnestly given. I shall not report
the address, though I could easily do so. But I will set down that,
amid many brilliant antitheses and many pregnant aphorisms, he said -.—
“ Do not imitate others. Imitation is a partial abandonment of
Reason.”
It occurred to me, Sir, that this would be a good motto for the next
Catalogue. I should have risen and said so, but feared that I might be
turned out.
The lecture seemed to me—yes. Sir, to me, your homme blase—too
short. I was much interested, especially by the glowiug and poetical
eulogy which he pronounced upon the very few pictures to which he
could accord the merit of real greatness. I was also interested in the
intense attention of his audience, and especially in that of the young
artists. Doubtless future Academicians—perhaps a Lady President
(and why not ?) sat there behind the men who have made their names
household words. The whole affair was fresh to me, and I said, as I
rose, that I should sketch the scene for you.
“ But who is the lecturer,” said I to my next neighbour.
“ Good Jupiter ! ” he said, “ don’t you know ? ”
“ Shouldn’t have asked if I did,” I said, haughtily.
He whispered.
“ What F ” cried I, in too great a hurry to be, I thiuk, rigidly gram-
matical. “ Him which painted Eastward Ho ! and Canute in the last
Exhibition, and-”
“ And a score of other admirable works—hold your row, can’t you?”
“ Shan’t for you,” I replied, walking off to my dinner.
Yours, artistically, Epicurus Rotdndus.
PADDING.
Paragraphs to fill up a paper during a dearth of news. We do not
want them ourselves this week, and present them with our compliments
to any newspaper, gratis :—
Young Woman found behind a Fire-place.—About one o’clock yester-
day morning, one of the Sudbury Police received intimation that there
was a scratching, behind the bricks of a fire-place, in one of the
Cottages near at hand. On going thither, and removing the plaster
and mortar, a young girl, aged seventeen, was found. She was alive
and quite well. Being asked how she got there, she was unable to give
any satisfactory reply. She stated, in answer to the Inspector, that
she had been there for eight years. This is another proof of the extra-
ordinary vitality of the young women in Sudbury.
Narrow Escape— As Mr. Sadler, a master Mason, was walking
past No. 13, Lime Tree Walk, Carlisle, a scaffolding, which had been
for some time in a very unsafe condition, suddenly fell. As this was at
the other end of the town, it luckily did not hurt Mr. Sadler, who
indeed did not hear of the accident until next day.
A whole Village in Missouri has been blown away by the recent
tempestuous gales.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI
107
AMONG THE ARTISTS.
■=l other evening, my
dear Mr. Punch, I
was strolling near
St. Martin’s Church,
about eight, trying
to get up an appetite
for dinner, when I
perceived thataside-
door of the Royal
Academy was open,
and that persons
were entering.
Now, though not
a flaneur, like my
friend, Mr. Y-s
(whose capital novel
Land at Last, I
hereby desire to pu-
—I mean to recom-
mend to your atten-
tion), I am always
but too ready to
yield to the impulse
of the moment. The
impulse of that mo-
ment was to enter
in at the Academy
door, and see what
the persons were
going to do. There are many difficulties, however, in this world, and I
personally encountered one in the person of a porter, in an exceedingly
handsome red gown, who asked me for a ticket. Informed that I hadn’t
got one, he inclined, I thought from his expressions, to the opinion that
I had better go away. Affably controverting this view, which, I am
bound to say, was very civilly urged, as became a servant of the Artes
whose study emollit mores, I was suddenly taken by the arm, and a
pleasant voice said,
Do you want to come in ? Great compliment to us, I am sure.”
“ I am equally sure of it,” says I; “ and who are you F ”
“ Now, if there is one thing in the world that I dislike,” says my new
friend, “ it is an unnecessary question. Come in, can’t you P ”
“ Well, your door is wide enough for an Elephant, and an Epicurus
might, manage,” I promptly retorted. And in I went.
“ Take off your things, and leave ’em here,” said he, as we came into
a large room with a lot of tables. “ They ’ll be quite safe, I assure
you.”
I—I—beg pardon,” said I, rather frightened, and adding, in a
whisper, “ I’m not a Model.”
“ 1 should say not,” says he, bursting into a laugh which was very
rude and uncalled for. But I left my cloak, and hat, and umbrella, and
wallet, and my folio edition of Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, which
I am fond of reading in the street.
“ Now,” says my companion, “come on.” We went, past a screen,
into another large chamber.
“ This,” he said, “ is our Council Room. Have some tea ? ”
“ I will,” I replied, “if the state of the Academy funds justifies that
outlay upon an outsider. You are quite sure of that ? ”
He said he was, and that there might be a little surplus afterwards.
A domestic, in elegant attire, then brought me some tea, and I can truly
say that it did credit to the taste of the Royal Academy.
I should mention that there were many gentlemen in the handsome
room, which was decorated with pictures, and had no end of a painted
ceiling, which came from Somerset House, where, as you may not be
aware, the Exhibition used to be. I recognised most of the gentlemen,
from photographs for which I have once or twice asked you to
pay. By Jove, Sir (a harmless oath from Epicurus), there was a large
instalment of The Forty, the men whose works make the talk of a
thousand dinner-tables, and, I trust, cover their own with every luxury
in or out of season. 1 say this, partly out of benevolence, and partly
because I have received several invitations. My companion mentioned
my name, adding yours (which was quite needless, I flatter myself), and
my reception was most affable. Erankly, I think that more than one
uainter of history pieces must have been struck by the nobility of my
features, and I observed that several great portrait artists regarded me
in a peculiar manner. If I have not yet been asked to sit to any of
them, it is, I am sure, from a delicate consideration of the great value
of my time.
Hut I could not conceive what they were going to do, and I didn’t
bke to ask, There is nothing like masterly inaction, as my friend
Mr. Disraeli says. The world is to him who knows how to wait.
Suddenly the porter or beadle announced (we could hear it without
him) that St. Martin had said 8.
“ Come in,” said the gentleman who had hitherto played Virgil to
my Dante—not that the Academy is an Inferno, quite the reverse, I
am sure. “ You must have a seat.”
And where do you think I found myself? Why, in that big room of
all, in which, when the Exhibition is open, it is so delightful to be
caught by crinolines, and either imprisoned for ten minutes, or sent
whirling into some old dowager’s expansive and expensive arms. All
J_he pictures were gone, of course, but instead of them hung huge and
frameless copies of the Cartoons, of the Great Supper, and the Great
Descent; and the room was divided by a partition. On one side were
two long rows of pictorial Swells, with a Presidential chair in the
middle, and on the other were lots of students, merry, earnest, watchful
young fellows, mostly, who cheered royally as the notables came in. My
keen glance instantly fell upon a yet more interesting group—a knot of
bright-eyed voung ladies, students also, as I learned. I regret that the
seat allotted to me was too far from them to permit them to see
me well.
“ Now,” I said to myself, with my usual prescience, “ I shall find
out what we are going to do.”
At this moment I observed, in face of the Presidential chair, a large
and well fortified Tribune, and light broke into my soul.
“ I am blessed if I am not going to hear a lecture,” said I, discon-
tentedly. “ How can I get out ? Am 1 a person to be instructed?”
As I grumbled these words, tremendous applause burst forth, and a
gentleman ascended the rostrum. I recalled the words, for something
in that gentleman’s appearance told me that I should hear him with satis-
faction. An earnest face, a bright eye, and hair and beard silvered, I
trust not from the cause - deep affliction at the follies of others—which
has streaked my own chestnut locks with white. “ I will hear this,”
said I, as the applause broke out again, and with a calm and kindly
glance at the younger part of his audience, the lecturer began.
He spoke of Art, Sir, and upon that subject no one was so capable
as myself to judge his words. This was the last of four lectures, it
seemed. He addressed himself to the students, and in a lecture of a
scholarly and elaborated kind, he impressed truths upon them. I am
not a student; but had I been one, I should have been grateful for the
counsel so carefully weighed and so earnestly given. I shall not report
the address, though I could easily do so. But I will set down that,
amid many brilliant antitheses and many pregnant aphorisms, he said -.—
“ Do not imitate others. Imitation is a partial abandonment of
Reason.”
It occurred to me, Sir, that this would be a good motto for the next
Catalogue. I should have risen and said so, but feared that I might be
turned out.
The lecture seemed to me—yes. Sir, to me, your homme blase—too
short. I was much interested, especially by the glowiug and poetical
eulogy which he pronounced upon the very few pictures to which he
could accord the merit of real greatness. I was also interested in the
intense attention of his audience, and especially in that of the young
artists. Doubtless future Academicians—perhaps a Lady President
(and why not ?) sat there behind the men who have made their names
household words. The whole affair was fresh to me, and I said, as I
rose, that I should sketch the scene for you.
“ But who is the lecturer,” said I to my next neighbour.
“ Good Jupiter ! ” he said, “ don’t you know ? ”
“ Shouldn’t have asked if I did,” I said, haughtily.
He whispered.
“ What F ” cried I, in too great a hurry to be, I thiuk, rigidly gram-
matical. “ Him which painted Eastward Ho ! and Canute in the last
Exhibition, and-”
“ And a score of other admirable works—hold your row, can’t you?”
“ Shan’t for you,” I replied, walking off to my dinner.
Yours, artistically, Epicurus Rotdndus.
PADDING.
Paragraphs to fill up a paper during a dearth of news. We do not
want them ourselves this week, and present them with our compliments
to any newspaper, gratis :—
Young Woman found behind a Fire-place.—About one o’clock yester-
day morning, one of the Sudbury Police received intimation that there
was a scratching, behind the bricks of a fire-place, in one of the
Cottages near at hand. On going thither, and removing the plaster
and mortar, a young girl, aged seventeen, was found. She was alive
and quite well. Being asked how she got there, she was unable to give
any satisfactory reply. She stated, in answer to the Inspector, that
she had been there for eight years. This is another proof of the extra-
ordinary vitality of the young women in Sudbury.
Narrow Escape— As Mr. Sadler, a master Mason, was walking
past No. 13, Lime Tree Walk, Carlisle, a scaffolding, which had been
for some time in a very unsafe condition, suddenly fell. As this was at
the other end of the town, it luckily did not hurt Mr. Sadler, who
indeed did not hear of the accident until next day.
A whole Village in Missouri has been blown away by the recent
tempestuous gales.