Our times are peculiarly unfavourable when compared with those when Madonnas were painted in the seclusion of convents; for we have now, on the one hand, the eager competition of a vast array of artists of every degree of talent and skill, and on the other, as judge, a great public, for the greater part wholly uneducated in art, and thus led by professional writers, who often strive to impress the public with a great idea of their own artistic knowledge by the merciless manner in which they treat works which cost those who produced them the highest efforts of mind or feeling.

The works of art, by being publicly exhibited and offered for sale, are becoming articles of trade, following as such the unreasoning laws of markets and fashion; and public and even private patronage is swayed by their tyrannical influence.

It is, then, to an institution like this, gentlemen, that we must look for a counterpoise to these evils.