in a reply equally long-winded, maintained that Sir Thomas had no right to enter the rooms before the exhibition was opened. Sir Thomas, his grammar failing him in his wrath, retorted that he must most certainly visit the rooms since the Board of Trustees could not surrender the charge of the building to a 'series of individuals changed every year, and of whose habits and even names they are ignorant.' Besides the Royal Society and Society of Antiquaries never disputed his right of entrance, though they, far from being a 'series of individuals,' consisted of 'persons of the highest consideration.' And so on. It was a quarrel between two families trying to live in one house. The old-fashioned country gentlemen and judges, who composed the Board of Manufactures and Royal Institution, with their minds firmly fixed on the benefits they had bestowed on the artists, could see them now in no light except that of ungrateful rebels. The artists, on the other hand, dimly groping for freedom, kept their minds as firmly fixed on the income derived by the Royal Institution from the exhibition of their works, and regarded their eminent patrons as Israel regarded Pharaoh. But the Board had the whip hand and devised a plan for the punishment of its rebellious tenants. The rooms were offered to the Town Council for the Torrie Collection. The exhibition was to be permanent, which meant that the Academy must go.

It is a singular fact, characteristic perhaps of Scotland, that the Academy, at critical moments in its history, has always had to depend more on its financial and legal rights than on public interest or sympathy. The Academy had no weapon which could reach the Board of Trustees, but it could and did attack the same men under another name in the Royal Institution. The duel thus became triangular. The Institution was threatened with an action for having purchased pictures and books with money derived from the Academy exhibitions,-money which ought, under the agreement, to have been devoted to the benefit of artists and their families. At this juncture Lord Cockburn, who was the one man of his day to grasp the true mission and possibilities of the Academy, once more came to the rescue. Government enquiry was ordered to be made into the affairs of the Royal Society, Academy, and Board of Trustees. The enquiry was conducted by Mr. John Shaw Lefevre, who made his report to the Treasury in 1847.

A

The arrangements he proposed were wise and generous, and marked by a commonsense which, up to now, no one except

Lord Cockburn and Mr. Hope had imported into this business. His suggestions were carried out after a few years' delay. A new building was constructed on the Mound behind that already in existence, and from the designs of the same architect. The Town Council gave the site for £1000 (its value being estimated at £30,000 or more) on the understanding that the Academy should have proper quarters in the new building. Parliament voted £30,000, and the Board of Trustees contributed £23,000 to the cost of its construction. This building, one of the most perfect of its kind in Europe,1 contained two parallel sets of rooms, five in each set. The western rooms were devoted to a permanent exhibition designed to form a National Gallery, consisting of (1) the Collection belonging to the Academy, including the large canvases by Etty and other purchases and bequests, (2) the disputed pictures belonging to the Royal Institution, and (3) the Torrie Collection. All these, with many additions, are now included in the national collection. The five eastern rooms, together with the Council room and the Library at the end of the building, were appropriated for the exclusive use of the Academy, and a small room over the portico was later assigned to it as a Life School. Most of these arrangements were embodied in the Act of Parliament in 1850. The status of the Academy was unfortunately not defined in that Act, but it was clearly laid down in the Treasury Minutes under which the various parts of the building were allocated. The foundation stone was laid by the Prince Consort in 1850, and the building completed five years later. Sir William Allan had died in 1850, and Sir John Watson Gordon had succeeded him as President.

At last the Academy was firmly planted on its own legs. Petty and needless as its early difficulties now appear, they were probably inseparable from a new movement of this kind in the Scotland of that day. The chief interest for the reader now lies in the fact that the most formidable obstacles the Academy had to overcome were nearly all placed in its way by its best friends. It would be scarcely fair to describe it as a struggle of the poor artist to emancipate himself from the rich patron, but such in a sense it was. No one concerned seems at the time to have guessed, with the single exception of Lord Cockburn, how completely the vigour and success of the Academy were bound to depend on its freedom.

Now follow forty years little marked by change. The visible 1 See Report of Museum Commission in Europe. Boston, U.S.A. 1905.

success of an Academy depends upon genius, and the visits of genius are fitful. No Academy can hope for an even fame. But these forty years were years of steady growth, hard work and considerable achievement. The chair of President was occupied in turn by Sir George Harvey, 1864-76; Sir Daniel Macnee, 1876-82; Sir William Fettes Douglas, 1882-91; and Sir George Reid, 1891-1902. Among the other distinguished painters on the roll are Thomson of Duddingston, Thomas Duncan, Horatio M'Culloch, R. Scott Lauder, David Scott, William Dyce, Sam Bough, Alexander Fraser, J. C. Wintour, Sir J. Noel Paton, Erskine Nicol, G. P. Chalmers, Robert Herdman, W. M'Taggart: among sculptors, Patric Park, Sir John Steell, W. Brodie: among architects, Thomas Hamilton, William Playfair, and David Bryce.

By the close of the nineteenth century the provision made in 1850 had already become too small. The various Institutions overhauled at that time were still linked together under the Board of Trustees, which was landlord to all of them if nothing else. The Royal Institution was dead. No one knows when or how it died, but it was no longer alive. Thanks to the quiet and timely generosity of the late John Findlay, Scotland now had a National Portrait Gallery. The Museum of Antiquities, now transferred to the Nation, was housed in the same new building. The Treasury and the Board of Trustees had taken a modest part in helping to secure the site and provide the endowment. To some extent the pressure on the Mound buildings was thus relieved, but they were still quite inadequate for the purposes they had to serve. At this time the southern building still contained the National Gallery and the Academy, both pressed for space. The older or northern building, which still bore the name of the defunct Royal Institution, contained the Royal Society, the School of Art, and the Applied Art School, besides a musty Gallery of plaster casts, and the Office of the Board of Manufactures.

This Board has a good deal to answer for. The blame falls not on its members, but on its constitution. It is a striking proof that just as the best of constitutions will fail without good men, so the best of men cannot make up for a really rotten constitution. The Board had at this time twenty-four members, all distinguished and able men, of whom it may safely be said that any three of them, or any one for that matter, would have admirably transacted its business. It had also an attentive and conscientious Secretary, with two clerks to assist him. It was, in