and nobly endeavored to maintain and to elevate their standard, and
have not perhaps in that great task always received that assistance
which could be desired from the public taste which prevails around them.
But no one can examine even superficially the works which adorn these
walls without perceiving that British art retains all its fertility of
invention, and this year as much as in any year that I can remember,
exhibits in the department of landscape, that fundamental condition of
all excellence, intimate and profound sympathy with nature.

As regards literature one who is now beginning at any rate to descend
the hill of life naturally looks backward as well as forward, and we
must be becoming conscious that the early part of this century has
witnessed in this and other countries what will be remembered in future
times as a splendid literary age. The elder among us have lived in the
lifetime of many great men who have passed to their rest--the younger
have heard them familiarly spoken of and still have their works in their
hands as I trust they will continue to be in the hands of all
generations. I am afraid we can not hope for literature--it would be
contrary to all the experience of former times were we to hope that it
should be equally sustained at that extraordinarily high level which
belongs, speaking roughly, to the first fifty years after the peace of
1815. That was a great period--a great period in England, a great period
in Germany, a great period in France, and a great period, too, in Italy.

As I have said, I think we can hardly hope that it should continue on a
perfect level at so high an elevation. Undoubtedly the cultivation of
literature will ever be dear to the people of this country; but we must
remember what is literature and what is not. In the first place we
should be all agreed that bookmaking is not literature. The business of
bookmaking I have no doubt may thrive and will be continued upon a