On the other hand, the caricature of an important work is sometimes received in the proper spirit. Here is a letter from Professor Herkomer, with reference to my caricature of the work of our greatest art genius, Alfred Gilbert, R.A.: [Illustration] Of course, the caricaturing of pictures has its seamy as well as its smooth side. Among the annoyances to which an artist engaged on this description of work is exposed I am inclined to give a prominent place to the fussy and vexatious regulations imposed upon him by the authorities at Burlington House. One would have supposed, for instance, that anyone like myself, who is well-known as merely taking notes for caricature, would have been allowed to consult his own convenience to some extent in making his sketches. But not a bit of it. The penalty is something too dreadful if you are found making the slightest note of a picture at the Royal Academy at any other time than on the one appointed day. The object of this regulation is, of course, to protect the copyright of the pictures--a very proper and legitimate precaution; but I submit that a better instance of the spirit of Red Tapeism which is so rampant at Burlington House, and which I am always endeavouring to expose, could not be adduced than the inability of the officials to discriminate between the accredited representative of a paper and the piratical sketcher who is taking notes for an illegitimate purpose. I need hardly say that this regulation is peculiar to the Royal Academy. At the Grosvenor Gallery, which, alas! is no more, the officials about the place understood these matters better, and at all times were pleased to give every facility to the representative of the Press. The polite secretary would give up his chair to me any day I liked to look in, and would often point out to me some comical feature in the surrounding canvases which his sly humour had detected. [Illustration: A PRISONER.]