The Inner Life of the Royal Academy - With an Account of Its Schools and Exhibitions, Principally in the Reign of Queen Victoria #267278

To my parentage, to my own long life, and to a variety of other fortunate circumstances, I owe the fact that I have perhaps enjoyed greater opportunities for an intimate acquaintance with the Royal Academy, its Schools, its Councils, its Assemblies, and all that may be termed its "Inner Life" than most of my colleagues, and it has been suggested to me by several of these that I should undertake some such work as the present, with a view to dispelling, in a measure, the ignorance and the misconceptions that generally prevail with regard to the work and usefulness of the Institution, and to refuting, as far as possible, the accusations, both open and covert, with which it it so frequently assailed.<br><br>Though what I have written must in no sense be considered as an authoritative work, issued with approval or sanction of the members of the Academy as a whole, I have endeavoured to make it, as far as facts are concerned, as truthful and accurate as I possibly can, aiding my memory at times by references both to the Annual Reports of the transactions of the Academy and to the books of reference in its library. As no annual reports were issued until 1873, the account I have given of the Schools and of the general management of the Institution, during the earlier half of the last century, is derived chiefly from my father's writings and from what I heard myself from his lips. In reminiscences concerning various members, I have confined myself to those with whom I was either very intimate or with whom I was associated on the Councils, and to a few others, old friends of my fathers, whom I knew when I was young.<br><br>Whilst I have been engaged in writing these lines another distinguished member has been taken from us, the extraordinarily gifted and versatile Sir Hubert von Herkomer.