tune, but it would appear to be the fact, that the artistic temperament is when most developed often most antagonistic to exact literary culture-that kind of literary culture which carries a man safely through the ordeal of an examination. Education is more generally diffused now than at any previous time, and is of a higher grade than formerly among the class from which the Schools of the Academy are commonly filled. To this natural course of things, and the influence of public opinion, may therefore be safely left the literary education of the artist. To impose a literary test at his entrance to the Schools will have the effect of dividing his attention at a time when, in order to succeed in his profession, he ought to lend the whole of his powers to the mastery of its technicalities. If it exclude any, it will be the youths of that humble class from which so many of our most distinguished artists have raised themselves by force of native genius. The absurdity of the proposition is made manifest by the next recommendation-that there shall be an honorary class of students, who, by an increased rate of payment, shall be admitted into the Schools without undergoing the preliminary examinations! So that, after all, it would be in both ways a monetary test. The youth whose parents have been able to give him a high-class literary education might enter the Academy Schools whether he had made good use of his educational opportunities or not; and even, as it would seem, though he could not draw a limb accurately; whilst the poor boy, though he drew like Raffaelle or modelled like Phidias, would be excluded, unless he could also read Eschylus correctly and was apt at fluxions.

The teaching in the Schools, as remodelled, the Commissioners recommend, "should no longer be entirely gratuitous, but, on the contrary, some moderate fee should be required." There should be scholarships; periodical examinations, and annual public exhibitions of the works of the students; travelling studentships available for a certain number of years; and, if the funds permitted, a small branch Academy at Rome. They also recommend, what is unquestionably most desirable, that "there should be a chemist and a laboratory attached to the Academy-colours and vehicles for painting being submitted to practical tests, and variously and publicly exposed to the action of the atmosphere, light, and time; and that the results should be carefully registered, made generally accessible, and published in the annual report of the proceedings of the Academy."

5. Buildings.-The Royal Academy held its first exhibition in 1769 at the Auction-rooms in Pall-Mall. In 1771 George III. assigned to the Academy a set of rooms in Old Somerset House, then a royal palace, but the exhibition continued to be held at the Auctionrooms. When, in exchange for Buckingham House, the present Somerset House was built for Government offices, on the site of the old palace, the King stipulated that rooms should be prepared in it for the use of the Academy. The Academicians took possession of their new rooms in April, 1780, and continued to occupy them till 1836, when that part of Somerset House being required by the Government, the Academicians were offered the east wing of the National Gallery, then in course of erection, to be held by them on the same conditions as the rooms in Somerset House.

The Commissioners observe that "on a careful consideration of the statements which they have heard, and the documents which have been laid before them, they have come to the clear conclusion that the Royal Academy have no legal, but that they have a moral, claim to apartments at the public expense." A conclusion which, probably, no one will be found to gainsay.

That the building in Trafalgar Square is utterly inadequate to the requirements of both the National Gallery and the Royal Academy has long been felt; and successive Governments have been anxious to effect an arrangement by which one or other might be transferred to a different locality. Before quitting office in 1859 the Government of Lord Derby had nearly completed an arrangement for the grant of part of the site of Burlington House, on which the Academicians were to erect for themselves a building, the cost being defrayed out of their reserve fund. The new administration, however, declined to confirm the arrangement, and subsequent negotiations have led to no definite result.

As a great extension of space would be absolutely necessary if the proposed scheme for remodelling the Academy were adopted, the Commissioners have given careful consideration to the question. Their conclusion is that for the purpose of the Royal Academy there is no other locality nearly so suitable as that of the present building; whilst Burlington Gardens is in most respects as well adapted, and in some better, for the site of a National Gallery. If, therefore, it should be determined to remove the National Gallery to that or some other site, they think that "in such a case the whole of the present building in Trafalgar Square should be handed over to the Royal Academy for their use, subject to such conditions and arrangements as the Government of the day might determine," one of the conditions being the erection of a new façade. The existing accommodation might be more than doubled, and the Academy “would then possess sufficient space to enable it to carry out the high objects that are set before it." Such a grant on the part of the nation, accompanied by a Royal Charter, and guarded by the conditions they have sketched out, would, the Commissioners think, be found to work beneficially for the public interest; whilst those conditions, accompanied by the boon of ample space and fixity of tenure, would, they trust, find a ready and cheerful concurrence on the part of the Academicians.

The

Whether the scheme of the Commissioners will satisfy either the public or the Academy remains to be seen. That it will be adopted in its integrity is not to be expected. The Academy will hardly like so entire a remodelling; and reform cannot be forced upon it. Commissioners admit that "it is only by the grant of apartments, whether permanent or temporary, to the Royal Academicians that the public acquire any right of control and jurisdiction in their affairs. If we suppose the Academy, under its Instrument, to provide a building of its own at its own charge, we cannot see how the public could claim any right of interfering with its proceedings any more than with those of any other private institution. It would seem, therefore, that the Academicians have the power, if they choose to exert it, to prevent any such alteration or remodelling of the Academy as the

Commissioners propose, by the mere act of giving up the apartments provided for them at the public charge. Such an extreme procedure is not to be feared; but it may be expected that they will drive a shrewd bargain over the conditions, and only in extremity part with what they consider as almost a sacred inheritance, their private rights. As their case was put before the Commission through their president, the Academicians acknowledged themselves to be the holders of what is, in a certain sense, a public trust. "The Academy is a national institution," but only "inasmuch as the objects are national. The mode in which it is supported is not national, it is in that sense private." They admit that, like every other institution of the country, they are amenable to the general" control of the Parliament; but having received their Instrument of foundation immediately from the Crown (it was not even countersigned by a minister); holding their apartments not from the nation, but from the Crown, and at the pleasure of the Crown; and by their Instrument being held responsible directly, and only, to the Sovereignthey consider that they are amenable to Parliament "only in a general way," and would object now, as they did when apartments were offered them in the National Gallery, to exchange their present for other rooms, or to accept the site of a new building, "except on the condition that they retained the management of their affairs, as heretofore, uncontrolled except by the will of the Sovereign."

Such a claim must not, however, be admitted. If the Royal Academy is to be remodelled by royal or parliamentary interference it should only be as the basis of a really national and public institution. The visitatorial power of the Crown, and Parliamentary control, should be held as primary and essential conditions of the grant of a Royal Charter and a public building. For our own part, we believe that art would be best promoted by the foundation of a national institution of art, or art-university, altogether independent of the Academy, and resting on a wider and more comprehensive basis. But for any such proposition the public is unprepared. The scheme of the Commissioners, though imperfect, is practicable; and the mere details may be modified, rejected, or suffered to drop out of sight, so that the main principle be kept, that the remodelled Royal Academy ought to be a National Institution for the Promotion of Art and the Development of Public Taste. JAMES THORNE.

V.-FIRE INSURANCE, AND ITS TAXATION. NOTHING decisive has yet been done towards the realization of the plan noticed in last year's Companion,'* for improving the fire-brigade and fire-engine system of the metropolis. It will be remembered that a Committee of the House of Commons, in 1862, recommended that the existing fire brigade-belonging to the chief Fire Insurance Companies, and managed by a Committee of their directors—should be handed over to the Government, to be managed in an improved form by a section or department of the metropolitan police. The session of 1863 has passed over without any settlement of this matter. Another subject, however, relating to Fire Insurance rather than to fire brigades, and affecting more nearly the interests of the public, has come under notice. Whether or not the fire insurance duty ought to be reduced, if not abolished altogether, is a problèm which has brought to light much curious information, concerning the stupendous value of insurable property in this country.

Before speaking of the property liable to be burned, we may ask— How many conflagrations are there to burn it? As a means of giving an answer, or at least a partial answer, to this question, Mr. Samuel Brown, actuary of the 'Mutual' Assurance Society, communicated to the 'Assurance Magazine,' in 1851, a curious tabulation of the fires which had occurred in London for 17 years, from 1833 to 1849 inclusive; based chiefly on the late Mr. Braidwood's Reports, and on Mr. Baddeley's annual résumé in the 'Mechanics' Magazine.' In those 17 years, besides "false alarms," there were 11,305 fires in London; and of the houses affected by the fires, 451 were totally destroyed, 3,335 considerably damaged, and 7,519 slightly damaged. It is singular to observe that, year after year, the ratio of false alarms to real fires remains nearly constant; and so do the ratios between the three degrees of injury wreaked upon the houses. For instance; the brigademen expect 1 false alarm to every 9 real fires, and about 4 houses to be "totally destroyed" out of every 100 that catch fire. There is a similar approach to uniformity in the months when the fires occur. We should naturally expect that December and January, with their long hours of firelight and their frequent fireside merrymakings, would be months of greater disaster by fire than any other; and so they are, but the preponderance is very small indeed. In the average of the whole 17 years above-named, no month differed very far from its proper proportion, which would be about 8 per cent. of the fires for the year. Still more closely do all the seven days of the week bear equal shares of this calamity: each day has very nearly indeed one-seventh of the whole. Fires are almost as numerous on Sundays as on other days, contrary to what might be expected; but it is explained thus, that "in many small private houses, and in manufactories where it is necessary to keep up fires till work is resumed, the attendance is more negligent; and a fire having smouldered without observation through the whole of the sabbath, bursts forth before attention has been brought to it." As concerns hours, instead of

* Fires and Fire Brigades, at Home and Abroad,' Companion to the Almanac, 1863.

days, it appears, as might reasonably be expected, that the night hours are more dangerous than the day; but, in accordance with the singular law of uniformity, these relative degrees of danger remain as nearly constant as the other ratios above noticed. Year after year, for instance, it is found that, out of 100 fires, just about 70 break out between 5 in the afternoon and 5 in the morning, and 30 between 5 in the morning and 5 in the afternoon: the deviations from this ratio are very small indeed. From 7 to 9 in the morning are the least calamitous hours; from 9 to 11 in the evening the most. Even among various trades and occupations, the uniformity of the proportions is worthy of note. Thus, inferring from the average results of 17 years, we may expect with something like confidence that, out of every 100 houses that catch fire in London next year, there will be about 32 private houses, 10 lodging-houses, 5 licensed victuallers', 4 carpenters', 3 drapers', &c. 'The causes of fire, too, though not always susceptible of clear description, or even of being determined at all, are marked by something like uniformity. Ignited bed and window curtains are responsible for 15 out of every 100 of our conflagrations in London, never far above or below that ratio; linen while airing, 5; overheated stoves, furnaces, ovens, and flues, 19; loose shavings, 3; while lightning causes just about one fire in a thousand. And if we investigate the numbers for the 14 years subsequent to the period embraced by Mr. Brown's tabulation, we shall find that most of the above ratios are pretty well maintained year after year; although of course the total number of fires, owing to the constant addition to the number of houses, is every year increasing in the metropolis.

This may be simply a curious matter to the reader; but it is allimportant to any plan for insuring property from fire. We do not know whose house will be burned down, or injured by fire, tomorrow, next week, next month; we do not even know that any house will be burned; but it is found, nevertheless, that there is a sort of law of uniformity in human carelessness as in more important matters; this carelessness produces just about the same ratio of mischief, on an average of years, in any one community; and this ratio enables companies to grant insurances upon property, which would be quite impracticable if they could not make even a conjecture as to the probable amount of destruction by future fires. So reliable are such tabulations as these (for approximate estimates), that the statistical authorities above named could make a tolerably good guess at the number of ladies who will set fire to bed-curtains next year by reading novels in bed when they ought to be asleep; and to the number of conflagrations attributed to "the cat "-the scapegoat for so many household peccadilloes. If it be found, that out of (say) four hundred thousand houses (the number now in the metropolis), a tolerably uniform number are burned or injured by fire every year; and if the value of the destroyed property also keeps pretty close to a mean average-then we have the means of judging how much money would suffice to pay the losses, and how much a householder might fairly be charged for a contract to liberate him for his losses in case his property is burned. It is in this way that the curious uniformities