164 PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 



the influence of the sun and moon, the tides on the east and west 

 coast of the Atlantic, and much other useful matter. 



In conclusion, Mr. Harris took into elaborate consideration the 

 effect upon science of the patronage of government or opulent indi- 

 viduals, and stated his conviction that direct patronage was not likely 

 to affect any desideratum, whilst that which was indirect might be 

 employed advantageously. He combatted with much skill some 

 opinions which have lately been promulgated to the effect that sci- 

 ence in England has been degenerating, and is so at present : he 

 considered that science is cultivated more for its own sake in Eng- 

 land than in any other country, that it is not in a state of retrograda- 

 tion, and that it may be expected to make great advances. 



MR. ball's report ON THE PROGRESS OF THE FINE ARTS. 



A considerable portion of Mr. Ball's report was devoted to a 

 historical sketch of art in England, from the time of Edward III. 

 down to the present period ; he confined himself more particularly 

 to the 16th and 17th centuries which might be termed the golden 

 age of art in Italy, Venice and the Netherlands, whilst it remained 

 in a deplorably low state in Britain, which the lecturer attributed to 

 want of judicious patronage, and a lack of refined taste or liberal 

 feeling on the part of those at the head of government, together with 

 the ferment in which people's minds were kept by absorbing politi- 

 cal affairs. He also considered that the progress of art received a 

 vital wound from the ignorant zeal with which places of worship 

 had been despoiled of their pictorial and sculptured decorations 

 immediately subsequent to the reformation, which was brought 

 about by Henry VIII. 



So low indeed was art at one part of the period alluded to, that 

 Sir James Thornhill and Mr. Moser could scarcely find six artists 

 to join them in the school of design, and when Sir J. Reynolds pre- 

 sided over the academy it was with difficulty that forty artists could 

 be found to constitute that body ; so rapidly however has art pro- 

 gressed that, in half a century subsequent, viz. in the present time, 

 the exhibition at Somerset House contains 1,100 pictures, whilst as 

 many more are, from necessity rejected. Besides Somerset House, 

 there are now, the British Institution, and the Suffolk Street Galle- 

 ry, together with the exhibitions for water coloured drawings ; Mr. 

 Ball was happy to say that, as a contributor to the latter, our towns- 

 man, Mr. Prout, was amongst the most talented. 



In the Royal Academy Mr. Eastlake has obtained great encomi- 

 ums for his picture of the " Greek Fugitives," in which the charac- 

 ters are varied, the colours vivid, and the group so composed as to 



