at
your hospitable board, I have always listened with the greatest
satisfaction until the present day arrived, when I am bound to say that
that satisfaction is extremely qualified by the arrangement less
felicitous, I think, than any which preceded it that refers to me the
duty of returning thanks for Literature. [Cheers and laughter.] However,
obedience is the principle upon which we must proceed, and I have at
least the qualification for discharging the duty you have been pleased
to place in my hands--that no one has a deeper or more profound sense of
the vital importance of the active and constant cultivation of letters
as an essential condition of real progress and of the happiness of
mankind [cheers], and here every one at once perceives that that
sisterhood of which the poet spoke, whom you have quoted, is a real
sisterhood, for literature and art are alike the votaries of beauty. Of
these votaries I may thankfully say that as regards art I trace around
me no signs of decay, and none in that estimation in which the Academy
is held, unless to be sure, in the circumstance of your poverty of
choice of one to reply to this toast. [Cheers.]

During the present century the artists of this country have gallantly
and nobly endeavored to maintain and to elevate their standard [cheers],
and have not perhaps in that great task always received that assistance
which could be desired from the public taste which prevails around them.
But no one can examine even superficially the works which adorn these
walls without perceiving that British art retains all its fertility of
invention [cheers], and this year as much as in any year that I can
remember, exhibits in the department of landscape, that fundamental
condition of all excellence, intimate and profound sympathy with nature.
[Cheers.]

As regards literature one who is now beginning at any rate to descend
the hill of life naturally looks backwards as well as forwards, and we
must be becoming conscious that the early part of this century has
witnessed in this and other countries what will be remembered in future
times as a splendid literary age. [Cheers.] The elder among us have
lived in the lifetime of many great men who have passed to their
rest--the younger have heard them familiarly spoken of and still have
their works in their hands as I trust they will continue to be in the
hands of all generations. [Cheers.] I am afraid we cannot hope for
literature--it would be contrar