His Lectures before the Royal Academy (prepared with a severity of labour which probably shortened his life), are, however, the works by which his literary fame will be handed down to posterity. Sandby tells us that Opie had, shortly before his appointment to his Professorship, delivered some lectures on Art at the Royal Institution; but though they were generally thought good, and were numerously and fashionably attended (that sour critic, Allan Cunningham, by the way, calls them 'confused, abrupt, and unmethodical'), Opie was himself much dissatisfied with them, and would not complete the intended course. He was also concerned in a scheme, in conjunction with West and Flaxman, for establishing a 'Gallery of Honour,' under the sanction of the Royal Academy, for the encouragement and reward of all those who contributed to the higher walks of art. And he is further said to have projected a colossal statue of Britannia, to be erected in some prominent position in the Isle of Wight, as an alternative mode of commemorating the naval victories of Great Britain. Northcote, again (whom, it may be observed, Wolcot, as Opie's patron, much abused), was associated with Opie in 'a project of getting paintings into St. Paul's,' which they hoped 'would tend to raise the drooping head, or rather the almost expiring art, of painting;' and to this project the Bishop of London gave his assent. Opie's 'Discourses on Painting' were delivered before the Royal Academy in 1807.[124] His scheme included six: four on the practical aspect of the subject, viz., 'Design or Drawing,' 'Colouring,' 'Chiaroscuro,' and 'Composition;' and two on the intellectual side, viz. 'Invention' and 'Expression.' The last of the series in each division, viz. those on 'Composition' and 'Expression,' he did not live to complete. I propose to give as characteristic a short specimen as I can select from each of the four which Opie delivered,[125] merely premising that they were enthusiastically received, and that their author was, for once, satisfied with his work, and so elated by his success that he could not sleep. Even Allan Cunningham admitted: 'A passage such as this would reflect credit on any professor the Academy ever possessed.' In his first lecture, on 'Design or Drawing,' after insisting on the absolute necessity for hard study of anatomy, with constant practice so as to insure accurate drawing, without which, whatever may be the other merits of the work, 'when the tide of taste rises, and the winds of criticism bluster and beat upon it, the showy but ill-founded edifice must quickly be swept away, or swallowed up and forgotten for ever,' he goes on to say: