I was accused of putting the crowning absurdity on the
whole thing, of making a cheaply canonised martyr of Mr. Tate, and some
ungenerously hinted I was following up my joke of my "offer to the
nation" by another. In fact, for the first time in the history of
England, a public man was not to have a public dinner when there
happened to be a matter of public importance to celebrate and ventilate!
On the other hand, I received a letter from Mr. Tate, from Bournemouth,
the day my letter in the _Times_ appeared, in which he thanked me for my
warm hearted letter in the _Times_, but begged of me not to press my
proposal in his honour. "As you say, I am a modest man, and it would be
more than I could stand. What I _should like_ would be to see the
artists calling a public meeting and protesting against the way in which
British art has been shelved." In the same letter he assured me "that
too much could not be said in condemnation of Sir Frederick Leighton's
and the Academicians' supineness." In writing to thank me for dropping
the proposed banquet, he again referred to his great surprise and
disappointment that neither Sir Frederick Leighton nor any one of the
Academicians had given his scheme any support, and complained that the
President of the Royal Academy had been much more loyal to his friend
Lord Carlisle "than to the cause of British art."

THE OLD BAILEY.

In the winter of 1885 the following paragraph ran through the Press:--"A
statement has been circulated from a quarter that may be taken as well
informed, that the City Lands Committee of the Corporation of London
have perfected plans for the improvement of the Central Criminal Court.
It is not improbable that the process of reform has been accelerated by
a recent letter to the public Press of Mr. Harry Furniss, the well-known
comic artist, who, having been summoned as a juryman, suffered many woes
while waiting to be called into the box." As the _Saturday Review_
remarked, the bitter cry of the outcast juror which I uttered is
familiar enough to the public ear, but I had given it a more penetrating
note than usual; but it did not hesitate to say that it would not
produce any more effect upon those whom I sought to influence "than the
less articulate, or even than the absolutely inarticulate, protests of
many generations of his fellow-sufferers." And the _Saturday Review_ was
right, for fifteen winters have passed since I wrote my protest to the
_Daily News_.