Royal Academy, Burlington House.—The Academy was established in 1768, for the encouragement of the fine arts. Until the finishing of Mr. Wilkin’s building, the Academy held its meetings and exhibitions in a small number of rooms at Somerset House. Students are admitted on evidence of sufficient preliminary training, and taught gratuitously; but so far as the public is concerned, the Royal Academy is chiefly known by its famous Annual Exhibition of modern English pictures and sculptures, from May to July. This Exhibition is a very profitable affair to the Academy. Royal commissions and parliamentary committees find a difficulty in investigating the revenues, privileges, and claims of the Academy; it is known, however, that the schools are maintained out of the profits. Concerning the building in Trafalgar Square, most persons agree that the main front is too much cut up in petty detail, and that one of the finest sites in Europe has thus been comparatively neglected. Some have humorously nicknamed it “The National Cruet Stand.” National Portrait Gallery.—This infant gallery, established by the nation in 1857, is now at Exhibition Road, South Kensington. The object is to be strictly confined to the collecting of a series of national portraits of persons of any note, whether of early or of late days. A sum of £2000 a-year is voted for this purpose. The collection is yet only small, but very interesting, and is yearly increasing. Open free on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Soane Museum.—This closely-packed collection, presented to the nation by the late Sir John Soane, the architect, occupies the house which he used to inhabit, at No. 13, on the north side of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Every nook and corner of about 24 rooms is crowded with works of art—sarcophagi, ancient gems and intaglios, medals and coins, sculptures, sketches and models of sculptures, books of prints, portfolios of drawings, Hogarth’s famous series of pictures of the ‘Rake’s Progress,’ and numerous other examples of _vertu_, some of which cost large sums of money. The place is open every Wednesday from February to August inclusive, and every Thursday and Friday in April, May, and June, from 10 till 4. Still, these are very insufficient facilities (only 56 days out of the 365 in the year) for seeing a fine collection of treasures. Orders for admission are sent, on application, by post.