[ 262 ] 
FINE 
(April 1, 
A RD, 
[Zt with great satisfaction that we learn, from the recent discusswns in Parliament, that the 
Royal Academy and its exhibition are likely to be. removed from their present inconvenient 
rooms alt Somerset House; that those rooms are to be given up to the Royal Society ; and 
a proper Museum, for the accommodation of the Fine Arts, is to be erected in a central 
and eligible situation. | 
Society of British Artists. Second Exhibi- 
tion.—Berrore this article will meet the 
public eye, the above exhibition will be also 
opened to it; and, we have little doubt, 
will afford great satisfaction to those who 
have encouraged its early efforts, and great 
pleasure to the lovers of the Fine Arts in 
general. 
Previous to speaking of the pictures and 
statuary (which we were permitted to visit 
on the day appointed for private view), we 
will give a brief outline of this society, as it 
is possible that many of our readers, especi- 
ally, those at a distance from the metro- 
polis, may still be strangers to it: a duty 
which is the more imperative upon us, 
because, unlike to the general character of 
infant institutions, it appears in a very short 
time to have arisen to maturity, and to have 
combined, with the celerity of youthful 
growth, the hardihood and_ stability of 
manhood. ’ 
It had been long evident, that the Royal 
Academy was utterly unequal to the exhibi- 
tion of those numerous works of art, poured 
annually into its rooms, from which cir- 
cumstance, despite of all the pains taken in 
selecting the best, and in arranging them 
when selected, numbers of meritorious 
pictures were ill-placed, and numbers below 
mediocrity obtruded on the eye. In addi- 
tion to this evil may be added the still 
greater, that this national exhibition was 
not a place of sale, from which circum- 
stance, the most material benefit required 
by the artist was in a great measure de- 
nied, and the establishment of a public 
mart evidently a desideratum. ‘Toa very 
considerable degree this want was supplied 
by the British Institution, opened about 
fifteen years ago, for that express purpose, 
by its noble governors. But as this es- 
tablishment, of late, closed so early in the 
Spring as to shut out a considerable influx 
of wealthy visitors of the metropolis, and 
the number of artists fostered under its 
wings increased, the necessity of making 
provision for a school so extended became 
more apparent, it was evident that a third 
place of exhibition, combining the character 
of the other two, was required in the 
country. 
Under this view of the case, two or 
three spirited artists yentured to call a 
meeting of such of their brethren as were 
free to obey the call, from being uncon- 
nected with other societies, and of such 
talent, as to merit public attention to their 
works wherever they might be placed. We 
believe, the three distinguished landscape 
painters, Glover, Hofland and Linton, 
ee eed 
were among these summoners, and, indeed, 
know not whether there were any others. 
However, a certain number, amounting te 
about twenty, were found, who formed 
themselves into a body, proceeded to sub- 
scribe freely amongst themselves, to solicit 
aid from their rich and aristocratic con- 
nexions, both in the way of donation and 
loan ; and soon became enabled to lay their 
means and wishes, in so respectable a form, 
before Mr. Nash the architect, that he 
entered cordially into their views, and, with 
a liberality highly honourable to him, as 
belonging in one sense to their body. 
Under such auspices, in the course of a 
few months, six splendid rooms en suite 
arose on a ground in Suffolk-street, Pall- 
Mall East, admirably adapted for the pur- 
pose, not only from being lighted in the 
manner calculated to show the works con- 
tained in them to the best advantage, but 
giving to each department, in the art, due 
consideration. The largest room, which is 
sixty feet by forty, and also one of the 
smaller (they being thirty feet by twenty}, 
are appropriated to paintings in oil; whe- 
ther history, landscape, fancy subjects, or 
portraits. A third room is given to sculp- 
ture, which here appears to that advantage, 
which the cellar-like gloom of the Academy 
room so devoted absolutely forbids. The 
fourth room exhibits miniatures and drawings 
in water colours. The fifth room is given to 
engravings. The sixth forms at present 
the library and committee room of the 
society. 
Before these rooms could be deemed 
finished, their walls were covered, as by 
magic, with pictures, many of which (among 
the landscapes in particular) were pro- 
nounced master-pieces, by acknowledged 
judges, and the generality of which were 
highly respectable ; and arranged with so 
much good taste, and seen of course to so 
much advantage, as to form a most attrac- 
tive exhibition; which, notwithstanding the 
remarkably rainy and gloomy summer of 
1824, drew crowds of visitants. The sale 
of pictures was commensurate with the 
approbation excited, and the success proved 
equal to the expectations of the sanguine 
and the wishes of the friendly ; and, such 
-was the good sense and good temper with 
which the society had parried open resis- 
tance, or covert malignity, that both re- 
tired, from a. conviction that opposition 
was yain, and, to borrow a proverb from 
the author of ‘* ‘Sayings and Doings,” 
“ What can’t be cured must be endured.” 
Their first exhibition was preceded by a 
dinner, in which the chair was filled by the 
president : 
