duced, that the lessened amount of wages obtained by the children would prevent the parents from sending them to school; but, so far from this being the case, it would appear that while in 1843 only 19 children out of every 100 attended public schools, in 1860 the proportion was 70 per 100. The benefits attending the adoption of the Factories' Regulation Act have been well described by Mr. R. Baker, Inspector of Factories, who, in his Report for October, 1859, states that: "There is scarcely now to be seen in any of the manufacturing districts a crooked leg or a distorted spine, as the result of factory labour, unless, indeed, it be an old man, one of the specimens of other days. The once pale and haggard faces are now ruddy and joyous; the once angular forms are now full and rounded; there is mirth in the step and happiness in the countenance. The physical condition of the future mothers of the working-classes may be challenged to meet that of any mothers of any country." There is, indeed, a marked contrast between the children employed in the factories where the Act is enforced and those in factories where such is not the case. Even a stranger can observe the difference, although he may be ignorant of the cause. Many technical objections have been raised by those manufacturers adverse to parliamentary interference, but they are far from showing that the Factories' Regulation Act, in a modified shape, could not be rendered practicable in a large number of establishments; and the few instances in which inconvenience may ensue ought not to be allowed to weigh against any measure tending to better the condition of the child-workers. Private interests must give way to the public good. But there is no proof that any interests of consequence would be injured: the tendency of the evidence lies rather the other way, and this is admitted by many of the employers. The advantages arising from any system whereby the thousands of child-workers in this kingdom should be enabled to procure a little education would be very great; it would amount to à social revolution, of which no man could predict the ultimate consequences. Had not the Factory Regulation Act been passed in 1844, would the industrial populations of Lancashire,have borne their trials with such admirable calmness and patience? To the spread of education amongst the Lancashire artisans, is rightly attributed the rapid development of such plans of social self-help as co-operation; yet few consider how much the progress of the educational movement has been accelerated by the operation of the Factory Act, which protects the children from being deprived of their educational rights. When this is found to be the case, it would be both unjust and impolitic to refuse the same meed of legislative protection to the other childworkers of the kingdom. Indeed, the principles of political economy demand that we should protect the children from the avarice of parents and employers. The infliction of the evils arising from the improper employment of children renders their case a national question, and not one of private convenience. But there is little doubt of the public attention being directed to these things; and, when this is the case, it will not be long before the remainder of our child-toilers are rescued from their present helpless, degraded, and miserable condition.

JOHN PLUMMER.

IV. THE ROYAL ACADEMY COMMISSION.

SOME of the Academicians who appeared as witnesses before the Commission which recently sat to "Inquire into the Present State of the Royal Academy," made it a matter of complaint-speaking rather in sorrow than in anger-that the public at large know scarcely anything about the Academy, and that, consequently, it has been generally misunderstood, or regarded with indifference, and its great public services have received little recognition.

Whether this ignorance and indifference, if they exist, may not be mainly chargeable to the supineness of the Academy itself, it is now hardly worth while to inquire, since both appear in a fair way of removal. The indifference, at any rate, is likely soon to pass away, for the Commissioners have issued a Report in which the actual system of the Academy is reviewed, and an entire change recommended in its constitution and conduct; and as these recommendations will probably form the ground of Parliamentary proceedings, they can hardly fail to provoke discussion and arouse inquiry. And if in the controversy the services of the Academy fail of appreciation, it will assuredly be less from the lack of information than from the negligence or unskilfulness of those who cater for a busy and impatient public in setting it forth in a sufficiently popular or intelligible shape. For the Report is accompanied with a voluminous and almost exhaustive body of evidence, and an appendix of official papers; whilst, as though to clear the way for the anticipated inquiry and debate, there was published, towards the close of last year, a sort of semi-official' History of the Royal Academy of Arts, from its Foundation in 1768 to the Present Time, with Biographical Notices of all the Members: by William Sandby' (2 vols. 8vo, Longmans, 1862).

Blue-books are notoriously not light reading, and this on the Academy would, by most readers, not be deemed an exception. Those who take a special interest in the Academy or the condition of British Art will not be deterred by their formidable appearance from a close examination of the volumes. For those who are not so patient or so bold we propose to supply a sort of digest of the contents: to give, that is, a succinct analysis of the Report of the Commissioners, and, with the help of the evidence, to examine the value of their recommendations. But before taking in hand the Report, we feel constrained, as an act of literary justice, to make a brief Note on Mr. Sandby's History. In doing this we believe we shall be rendering some service to the public; some also, it may be, to the art critics and journalists who may hereafter feel themselves called upon to take part in the Academic fray.

Mr. Sandby's 'History of the Royal Academy of Arts' is a handsome book in two goodly octavo volumes; is dedicated by permission to the Queen, as 66 Patron of the Royal Academy;" and appears with the implied sanction of the President and Council of the Royal Academy, who gave the author permission to consult their records "without any reservation," and supplied him with various important documents, which he has printed as appendices. It is therefore a work of

considerable pretension, and it has been treated by the press with corresponding respect. The journals have, with unwonted unanimity, pronounced it a work of ability and research; and the seal of critical approval might be supposed to be set upon it by the verdict of the only Review devoted to the Fine Arts in England. Mr. S. Redgrave, in an article on The Early History of the Royal Academy,' based on Mr. Sandby's book, says, "His work is honestly and, within the bounds he has imposed on himself, well done; and is a useful contribution to the neglected literature of English art." (Fine Arts Quarterly Review, May, 1863, p. 43.)

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Honestly and well done,' a useful contribution to the neglected literature of English art," are emphatic words, but they are, alas! in this instance, most unhappily chosen. Knowing the book-and perhaps few besides the author know it so well-we say at once and distinctly that the reviewer has made a grave mistake: that, as far as Mr. Sandby is concerned, his work is not "honestly and well done," and that it is almost useless as a contribution to the neglected literature of English art—a work, in short, of no weight or authority.

A dry statement of some circumstances connected with one large section of the book will sufficiently establish this. The History consists of narrative and biography. The narrative occupies 332 pages, the biography 461. From the space they fill, and from the prominence given to them in the preface, it would seem that the biographies were intended to form the principal and most attractive feature of the work, and it would therefore be considered that the author had exercised a reasonable amount of diligence and investigation in their compilation. Estimated by the lowest standard, it is expected that a historian shall be a man of independent inquiry and research; that he will carefully weigh his authorities; and that the opinions he expresses shall be his own, or, where not his own, that he will make explicit reference to the authorities from whom he derives them. Mr. Sandby, however, ignores all such obligations. The chief of his "biographical notices have been taken bodily from previous writers, without a word of explanation or acknowledgment. Slight colourable alterations, omissions, and transpositions are made, sufficient in some instances to impart to them a specious difference of appearance; but at the same time these alterations, being apparently made with a view to conceal the method of procedure, render it difficult to attribute what has been done to literary inexperience, awkwardness, or inadvertence, as from the very extent of the transcription might otherwise be the case.

The work most largely pillaged by Mr. Sandby is the Biographical Division of the 'English Cyclopædia,' from which has been "conveyed," for the most part verbally, page after page, and life after life-form, facts, quotations, comments, criticisms, reflections - and all without the Cyclopædia being so much as named once in the whole book, or any reference made to it; and, in fact, without there being a word said to indicate that the passages so taken are not Mr. Sandby's own composition.

The 'English Cyclopædia' only gives memoirs of distinguished men. Mr. Sandby could not, therefore, find the biographical notices of all

his Academicians there: but, including those which he copied entirely; those from which he copied largely, but to which he has added something from other sources; and those in which he has copied opinions, it has been found, on a not very close search, that he has thus used nearly a hundred of the memoirs of the English Cyclopædia.' * It was hardly possible that this wholesale abstraction should pass undiscovered by the owners of the property, though it escaped the notice of our literary police the critics. Of course the proprietors of the 'English Cyclopædia' were not content to acquiesce quietly in so free and easy an appropriation of their copyright. Accordingly, as soon as the appropriation was brought under their notice, they took steps to enforce their legal rights. The matter was not carried into the Law Courts, but-we are authorized in making this statement-it was not from any doubt as to the result. A case was drawn up, setting out at length the passages pirated side by side with the originals, and submitted to eminent counsel, whose opinion was so unequivocal that measures were taken preliminary to an application for an injunction in equity; but Messrs. Longmans, the publishers of Mr. Sandby's History, seeing the hopelessness of resistance, at once withdrew the book from circulation, and undertook to destroy all the unsold copies. An injunction, therefore, became unnecessary, and so the matter was allowed to rest.

As between the proprietors of the English Cyclopædia' and the publishers of Mr. Sandby's book, therefore, it may be presumed that atonement has been made. Perhaps it may be thought that a sufficient-it has certainly been a heavy-retribution has fallen upon the author. But the proprietors of the English Cyclopædia,' the publishers of Mr. Sandby's History, and even Mr. Sandby himself, are not the only persons interested. There are the writers of the articles whose labours have been appropriated; the public which has been misled-and to them it is at least due that publicity should be given to the facts here stated. It is due also to the interests of literature, and the credit of literary men, to put upon record the fact of so flagrant an act of plagiarism having been committed-and detected. That the publicity has been delayed already too long is shown by the appearance of such an article as Mr. Redgrave's in the 'Fine Arts Quarterly Review' six months after the suppression of the History.

The plagiarisms from the English Cyclopædia' have been particularly referred to, owing to the circumstances narrated; but, as will be supposed, where the Cyclopædia did not furnish what he required, the historian laid other books under contribution in like freebooter fashion, though the spoils might be of inferior worth. The History

It is clearly impossible here to set forth the lives, and passages from lives, copied by Mr. Sandby, side by side with the originals from which they were taken, But by way of crucial instances, as Bacon would call them, we give references to a dozen of the examples of literal, or nearly literal, copying of opinions. Compare those in the notices of Reynolds, Sandby, vol. i., p. 67, with English Cyclopædia (Biog. Division), vol. v., col. 68; Gainsborough, Sandby, i., 110-11, Eng. Cyc., iii, 5; Barry, Sandby, i., 184-5, Eng. Cyc., i., 553; Raeburn, Sandby, i., 351-2, Eng. Cyc., v., 7; Landseer, Sandby, ii., 143-5, Eng. Cyc., iii., 790-92; Turner, Sandby, i., 319-20, Eng. Cyc., vi., 204; Stanfield, Sandby, ii., 149-51, Eng. Cyc., v., 662-3; Danby, Sandby, ii. 701, Eng. Cyc., ii., 492; Soane, Sandby, i., 389, Eng. Cyc., v., 570-1; Gordon, Sandby, ii., 288, Eng. Cyc., iii., 146-7; Maclise, Sandby, ii., 162-3, Eng. Cyc., iv., 30-1; Mulready, Sandby, i., 357, Eng. Cyc., iv., 383-4. Many more might be given.

is, in fact, throughout a repository of borrowed wealth. It is time that its true character should be stamped upon it. The book has found its way into the libraries, and will range among works of reference it will hardly in future be cited as an authority. Lest it should, however, let us add-for the benefit of the inexperienced and the unwary, who may suppose that what is taken from trustworthy authors does not lose its value by transcription-that, whether from haste or carelessness, or in order to conceal his obligations, Mr. Sandby has in copying commonly made some little alteration, and in so doing has almost invariably introduced an error.

The Royal Academy has been in existence nearly a century. It had its origin in strife: its opponents averred that it was the fruit of an intrigue. We have little concern with old scandals, and whatever may have been its source its career has been steady and honourable. Even its bitterest foes have not ventured to charge against it more than a few peccadilloes. It will be enough to give a rapid resumé of the circumstances of its early course.

The parent of the Academy was a Society of Artists, established in 1761 for the purpose of holding an annual exhibition, and assisting distressed members. Its terms of fellowship were eminently liberal. Every exhibitor might become a member, and no works offered for exhibition were to be rejected except "such as are offensive to modesty, or judged unworthy of exhibition." Its success was

deemed sufficient to justify the application for a charter of incorporation. This charter, which was dated January 26, 1765, placed no limit on the number of members, or fellows as they were styled, and gave the management of the society to a president and board of twenty-four directors, who were to be "either painters, sculptors, architects, or engravers by profession." The objects of the society were left undefined by the charter, and this circumstance, and the tooeasy terms of admission, soon led to differences. The fellows at length proposed a change in the directorate, and, when the directors somewhat scornfully rejected the proposition, elected (October, 1768) sixteen new directors in the place of as many of the old body. The ejected directors thereupon withdrew from the society, and were followed (November 10, 1768) by their eight colleagues.

It was a victory for the fellows, but the death-blow to the society. The directors included several of the leading artists of the day, and among them, as it happened, were some who had access to the King. West was a personal favourite and protégé of George III.; Chambers was the royal architect; Moser was a German whom royalty admired and patronised. These three, with Matthew Cotes, constituted themselves a committee, and, West having first sounded his Majesty, drew up a scheme for a Royal Academy, the members of which should be limited in number and form an exclusive and privileged order. The King entered heartily into the project, and expressed his desire to become the patron and protector of the infant Academy. Reynolds, who at first held himself aloof, consented, at the request of the King, to become its president, and was knighted in order to give additional dignity to the institution over which he was to preside. The