62 
THE ACADEMY, THE CHIEF COMMISSIONER, &c. 
[Nature and Art, July 1, 18C5G. 
lady’s fan-bearer. In “Romeo and Juliet,” the nurse calls to 
an attendant, Peter, for her fan ; and this may be taken as 
a satirical allusion to'the frivolity of an upper class, or to 
a deep-seated “ fan-mania ” pervading all society. When 
Queen Bess died, her wardrobe was found to contain twenty- 
seven fans. One of her Majesty’s fans, we are told by Mrs. 
Stone, in her “ Chronicles of Fashion,” was valued at <£400. 
Another, given to her by Sir Francis Drake, was white and 
red, with a gold, and jewelled handle. Even the young 
gallants of the time bore fans — if we may credit Greene’s 
“ Farewell to Folly,” written in 1617. In an interesting 
work, called “ Toilette in England, by a Lady of Rank,” 
we find a representation of feather-fans of the Elizabethan 
age, bearing much resemblance to the hand fire-screens of 
our own time. In Mr. Fairholt’s “ Costume in England,” 
we find numerous varieties. Several of them — an Italian one 
especially, shaped like a key — are of very quaint forms indeed. 
In a MS., by Aubrey, “On the State of Manners in 
England ” (dated 1671), is the following curious passage, 
bringing our fanology down to the reign of James I. : — 
“ The gentlemen then had prodigious fans, with which 
their daughters oftentimes were corrected ; Sir Edward 
Coke, Lord Chief Justice, rode a circuit with such a fan. 
Sir William Dugdale told me he was an eye-witness of it.” 
No. 103 of the Spectator, signed by Addison, consists of 
a most amusing “letter to the Editor,” as we should say now- 
a-days, upon “ The exercise of the fan.” “ Women,” says 
the supposed correspondent, “ are armed with fans, as men 
with swords, and sometimes do more with them.” “ To the 
end, therefore, that ladies may be entire mistresses of the 
weapon which they bear, I have erected an academy for the 
training up of young women in the exercise of the fan, 
according to the most fashionable airs and notions that are 
now practised at Court.” Having set out a scheme of fan- 
drill and evolutions, the author dilates upon their philosophy 
and poetry, most amusingly. He attaches most importance 
to “the flutter,” which “masterpiece of the exercise may 
be learnt,” he says, “in three months and he believes 
that by attention and observation, a “ woman of tolerable 
genius, who will apply herself diligently for one half-year, 
shall be able to give her fan all the graces that can possibly 
enter into that little modish machine.” 
The fan, too, like the garter, has been the base of an 
order of chivalry. Louisa Ulrica, Queen of Sweden, in- 
stituted in 1744, the Order of the Fan for the ladies, of her 
court ; and gentlemen were afterwards allowed to join it. 
Fan-making must have been a brisk business in England 
some years earlier ; for we find that the Worshipful Com- 
pany of Fan-makers of London, the eighty-fourth in order of 
precedence of the Civic guilds, was incorporated in 1709 ; 
and was well enough reputed to attract to its fellowship 
good men and true from outside the City walls. With the 
foundation of the Fan-makers’ Company ends the archaeology 
of the English fan, which thenceforward became part and 
parcel of our everyday life. 
For just a century after Addison wrote, the fan figured 
prominently in polite society, matched, when the sword 
went out of fashion, against the snuff-box and the clouded 
cane, and often victorious. The satirists and dramatists 
were in turn bitter and pleasant in their references to it. 
Painters and their sitters paraded it ostentatiously. It is 
said to have done wonders in diplomacy, and who could 
wonder at the success of flying sap and masked battery 
against garrisons defended by an eye-glass, a pinch of snuff, 
and a malacca. The fan’s apogee was in the days of the 
minuet de la cour. But since athletic waltzes, piolkas, and 
mazurkas have elbowed out their courtly predecessors, the 
once “ modish little machine ” has retired into obscurity 
with the “wall-flowers,” or, if at all, is used by the dancers 
as inartistically as though it were the archetypal “vanne” 
or wind engine. Brighter days may, however, dawn, and 
society which, in its way back to costumes of the Watteau 
and Pastoral periods, has already reached the stage of short 
waists and long trains, may even in our time reclaim the 
little exile from its temporary partial shade. We have not 
time to trace or follow its career in other lands. Though 
many may perhaps wish we had illustrated its best-known, 
or Spanish variety, we must needs leave that field for some 
more erudite students of costume, and conclude by devoutly 
rejoicing that, in the ordinary fan of the present day Art 
has not strayed far from Nature. To Nature we owe the 
Palmyra, the Borassus, and the Talipat ; to Art, the 
beautiful productions of which our illustration depicts an 
example. 
THE ACADEMY, THE CHIEF COMMISSIONER, AND THE NATIONAL 
GALLERY. 
QINCE the accession of the new president, the Royal 
O Academy have taken a step which will be most accept- 
able to the public. They have submitted to Her Majesty’s 
Government twelve proposals for reform, several of which are 
worth quoting. They are prepared to throw open their 
doors to an indefinite number of Associates, who may vote 
at elections of Academicians, and they will repeal the 
obnoxious rule which has heretofore demanded that every 
candidate for admission into their ranks should cease to 
belong to any other artistic body. Academicians are to be 
elected for merit only, and not for length of days, from 
among the associates ; and the opening of the Schools the 
whole year round will be entertained. But it is to be re- 
gretted that the body cannot be reconciled to the idea of 
extending the number of full Academicians beyond the 
forty-two of the existing Charter. They have decided, it 
appears, that, if Governmental pressure forces them to give 
more seats to professors of sculpture and architecture than 
the six and four now allotted to those arts, it will be better 
to reduce the number of painter-Academicians than to raise 
the total number. If this view be accepted by the Crown, 
we should urge a stipulation on the part of Government — - 
while the Crown is yet in the position to make stipulations 
— that some provision should at least be made for passing 
the fathers of the Academy on to a retired list, and thus 
securing vacancies by some less sad agency than the hand 
of death. If the judge, once appointed, must be always a 
judge, it certainly does not follow that the painter will be 
always a painter. For, if so, our Associates may be always 
Associates, pining - outside the delectable gate for the places 
of men whose hand may have long since lost its cunning. 
The provision that members need not hereafter abandon 
other schools or societies is a very proper concession to a 
long-expressed public opinion. It is time that the old ex- 
clusiveness that has kept outside such men as Hurlstone 
and Pyne was abandoned, and the new President, if to him 
the move in the right direction be due, is to be congratulated 
upon it. The offer of the Academy to establish a laboratory 
for chemically testing colours and vehicles is another sign of 
enlightenment which, in view of the deplorable state of 
many of the public pictures through neglect of chemistry, 
cannot be passed without a word of encouragement. 
In the course of the debates upon supply a few weeks 
ago, Mr. Cowper announced, to the satisfaction of the 
architectural profession, that the number of architects to 
compete for the building of the new Palace of Justice had 
been enlarged from six to twelve, and that as many were to 
compete for the new National Gallery proposed to be built 
in Trafalgar Square. For this latter work, or rather for a 
portion of its site, ,£45,000 were voted, and <£20, 000 were 
taken (on account of ,£65, 000) for an Examination Hall to be 
built for the London University on a portion of Burlington 
