his _role_; but he utterly
failed to see below the surface of the apparent affectation of the
artists, and all he had to say of Sir John Millais' "Vale of Rest," in
the lines descriptive of the year 1859, was

"Year Mr. Millais came out with those terrible nuns in the
graveyard."

In the following year, however, Mr. Eastlake, afterwards of the National
Gallery, made his mark in the paper as "Jack Easel," and a more
intelligent view of art prevailed.

But neither has Art, as personified by the Royal Academy, recognised
_Punch_, save by a couple of seats at the annual banquet. It is true
that several of its members have drawn for it--Sir Frederic Leighton,
Sir John Millais, Sir John Gilbert, Mr. Briton Riviere, Mr. Stacey
Marks, Mr. G. A. Storey, and Fred Walker. But _Punch's_ art has gone
unnoticed, otherwise than by a square yard or two of wall space in the
Black-and-White room at the annual exhibition. While the Academy has
canonised many members whose names half a century later are forgotten,
or are remembered only to be called up with a smile or a shrug, it has
persistently ignored those who have employed the pencil instead of the
brush, or have used ink instead of misusing paint. But it is unnecessary
to pursue the subject farther; that the names of Keene, Leech, and
Tenniel are not on the roll of the Academy is surely far more to the
discredit of the institution than of the artists themselves, who
presumably, from the Academic point of view, are "no artists." As Mr. du
Maurier has pointed out, _Punch's_ artists will have their revenge: "If
the illustrator confine himself to his own particular branch, he must
not hope for any very high place in the hierarchy of art. The great
prizes are not for him! No doubt it will be all the same a hundred years
hence--but for this: if he has done his work well, he has faithfully
represented the life of his time, he has perpetuated what he has seen
with his own bodily eyes; and for that reason alone his unpretending
little sketches may, perhaps, have more interest for those who come
across them in another hundred years than many an ambitious historical
or classical canvas that has cost its painter infinite labour,
imagination, and research, and won for him in his own time the highest
rewards in money, fame, and Academical distinction. For genius alone can
keep such fancy-work as this alive, and the so-called genius of to-day
may be the scapegoat of to-morrow."

[Ill