to mystifying the committee, whose members are often sadly lacking in historical knowledge. I can only advise those gentlemen at the end of the hall to develop a keener sense of discrimination in the choice of their subjects, before they attempt to represent on wood, or copper—for there is no canvas—an historical incident, without the aid of local colour or garments. Our stage was reformed the day that Nature held up her mirror and showed man as God had made him; fiction said her last word when the high pressure of our abnormal civilisation suddenly collapsed, and allowed man and woman to look into each other’s eyes, and for the first time realise the abnormal condition of their former lives. The same evolution awaits plastic art and the painter’s avocation, for if a committee cannot tell, by looking at a picture, what the subject is, they will have to retire so as to learn how to observe and how to remember. Likewise, if an artist is unable to paint his subject without the trapping of garment, the sooner such an exponent of art takes to some other means of expressing his thoughts, the better. The aim of art, in our present civilisation, is to be useful, either in the material or the abstract world; and to be useful one must be clear and true—I hear someone saying that I am limiting art most shamefully; I think it is Mr Vane. No, I beg his pardon, truth and lucidity do not limit art. Had Mr Vane said that my new plan would limit the number of artists he would no doubt have been nearer the truth. We need only a very few artists, just as we need very few writers, and you will soon see that vanishing of clothes and upholstery will reduce their number. Now, I want to propose that a branch should be added to this committee, whose work should be to judge the past works hanging in our numerous galleries, more especially those of our English artists who have won fame. Let us take as one example out of thousands, ‘The Huguenots’ by Millais. Have a perfect copy drawn of it, without the clothes which cover the figures, and let this picture be shown to a committee of historians unacquainted with the picture, and ask them to tell you what is ailing these three souls at war with each other. I defy the committee to tell you. The incidental feud which tortures these three souls is merely anecdotal, and not an eternally human conflict. How few of our standard works would be comprehended without the external label which makes the subject intelligible. But those few, who would escape the public’s condemnation, would be sufficient to stimulate our young artists who are penetrated with a true and disinterested love of art. As to the rest who cannot learn the lesson taught them by nature, let them put their cerebral energy to other uses, either industrial or scientific. We are going fast towards the time, when, as Prudhon said, ‘The artist must at last be convinced of this, that there is no difference between an artistic creation and an industrial invention.’