And this was already matter of history at the time that the Grosvenor Gallery was founded. But the same spirit that had dwarfed their conception of the duties of a national institution on the administrative side, had also coloured the ungenerous attitude that they had at first betrayed towards that great movement in modern painting which was heralded by the pre-Raphaelite brethren. In the teeth of a keen opposition that was at first displayed towards his work, Millais had fought his way into the august ranks of the academic body; but with that exception nearly all the great leaders of the new movement still stood without its walls. Holman Hunt, Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Ford Madox Brown, and the great sculptor Alfred Stevens knew nothing at that time of academic honour, and their work, if it was submitted for official judgment, was either coldly received or was treated in a spirit of active hostility. It was that which gave to the movement which resulted in the establishment of the Grosvenor its importance and significance. The battle has long ended now, and the fact that these men did, or did not, receive academic recognition counts for nothing in respect of the place they hold in modern English painting. Such rebel forces as have since come into existence have not been of a kind to win a like distinction, and public interest in art has become so languid in its exercise that if such a body of men were now to arise it may be questioned whether their work would stir the feeble pulses of the time. But at the period of which I am speaking their gradual advancement was watched and welcomed by enthusiastic admirers, and it was that which made it possible for institutions like the Grosvenor and the New Gallery to challenge the sleepy self-complacency of the dwellers in Burlington House. And it will now scarcely be denied that each of these two institutions in its turn has served a useful purpose. In a sense, indeed, they have been almost too successful, for a distinguished success achieved in one or the other has again and again proved the means of obtaining for the artist tardy recognition from the authorities of Burlington House. But the forces ranged on the side of orthodoxy are in this country always formidable, and it may be questioned now whether enough vitality survives in English art to justify the continued existence of independent institutions such as those I have named.