the Royal Academy, at
the banquet held by that society, May 5, 1894. This speech followed
upon that of Dr. Mandell Creighton, Bishop of Peterborough, who had
proposed the "Prosperity of the Royal Academy," and the health of the
President.]

MY LORD BISHOP:--I thank you for the appreciative tone in which
you have spoken of art in general and of English art in particular. The
kind terms in which you have commended this institution and its work to
this distinguished assembly must have gratified my colleagues as much as
it has gratified me, and we thank you most warmly. I would also
gratefully acknowledge the lenient words you have addressed to the
occupant of this chair. More fortunate than last year at this season, I
have to note to-day the loss of one only among the acting members of
this body--that of a sculptor of much repute, whose first steps in art
were taken under the stimulating guidance of a powerful artist, whose
name is a just boast to the green island which gave him birth--John
Henry Foley. Less vigorous, no doubt, than his eminent master, Charles
Bell Birch, he yet imparted to his works great life and spirit, and the
charm of a facile and picturesque execution, and, even in this day of
renovation and growing strength in the practice of that stately art,
sculpture in this country will miss him in its ranks. ["Hear! Hear!"]
From amongst the honorary retired Associates of this body another
sculptor, W. F. Woodington, has been removed by death--an artist whom,
for many years, age and infirmity had withdrawn altogether from public
ken. The work of his vigorous prime may still be appreciated on the base
of the Nelson column of Trafalgar Square.

But whilst our active ranks have suffered diminution by one death only
within the year, two justly conspicuous men have fallen in the wider
field of English art, both of them men of marked and distinctive
personality--both painters, both, to me, deeply interesting. One of
them, Albert Moore, an unbending upholder of the sufficiency in art of
whatever is nobly decorative, was a devoted student of the severer
graces of Hellenic art, and married in his works spontaneous and supple
gesture with forms of chaste sobriety, clothing them in delicately
harmonious tones, of which the studied arrangement announced to the
first glance the refined idiosyncrasy of his artistic temper. ["Hear!
Hear!"]

How great a psychological contrast is offered to the placid charm of
the