MISS HARRIET.
LETTER: From S. Gandish, Esq., to the "Newcome Independent."
THE ROYAL ACADEMY.
It appears that Mr. Gandish, at a great age--though he was not
older than several industrious Academicans--withdrew from the
active exercise of his art and employed his learning and experience
as Art Critic of the "Newcome Independent." The following critique
appears to show traces of declining mental vigour in the veteran
Gandish.
Our great gallery has once more opened her doors, if not to the
public, nor even to the fashionable elite, at least to the critics.
They are a motley throng who lounge on Press Days in the sumptuous
halls; ladies, small boys, clergymen are there, and among them but
few, perhaps, who have received the training in High Art of your
correspondent, and have had their eye, through a lifetime more than
commonly prolonged, on the glorious Antique. And what shall we say
of the present Academy? In some ways, things have improved a
little since my "Boadishia" came back on my hands (1839) at a time
when High Art and the Antique would not do in this country: they
would not do. As far as the new exhibition shows, they do better
now than when the century was younger and "Portrait of the Artist,
by S. Gandish"--at thirty-three years of age--was offered in vain
to the jealously Papist clique who then controlled the Uffizi.
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