and a master in the class of architecture. The fine library of books of prints belonging to the Academy is open to the students. Directions as to the mode of obtaining admission as a student may be obtained on application to the Secretary at Burlington House. Connected with the school is a large collection of busts from the antique. The Academy also possesses some interesting pictures and many fine drawings by the old masters, among them being a cartoon of Leda, by Michelangelo; one of a Holy Family in black chalk by Leonardo da Vinci; and a copy in oil, the size of the original, of Da Vinci's Last Supper, by Leonardo's scholar, Marco d'Oggione, which is probably of greater value than the original at Milan in its present dreadfully damaged condition. This was formerly in the Certosa at Pavia. The Academy possesses a few pieces of sculpture, the most noteworthy being a bas-relief in marble of the Holy Family by Michelangelo, presented by Sir George Beaumont. The models and casts of the works of the late John Gibson, R.A., were presented to the Academy by his widow, and are arranged in a room called the Gibson Gallery. By a law passed in 1770 every member has on his election to present to the Academy a specimen of his art. It did not apply to those already' elected, and consequently it has no "diploma work" of the thirty-six original academicians, but it has a work from the pencil or chisel of every academician elected since that year; and a very interesting collection it forms. Thus there are in the class of historical and imaginative works-Jael and Sisera, by Northcote; Age and Infancy, Opie; Thor and the Serpent of Midgard, Fuseli; Charity, Stothard; Prospero and Miranda, Thomson; Venus and Adonis, Phillips; Proclaiming Joash King, Bird; Ganymede, Hilton; Queen Katherine, Leslie; Sleeping Nymphs and Satyrs, Etty; Hagar and Ishmael, Eastlake; and St. Gregory teaching his Chant, Herbert. In works of a somewhat less ambitious order - The Fortune Teller, Ozias Humphrey; A Gipsy Girl, Sir Thomas Lawrence; Horses in a Storm, Sawrey Gilpin; Boy and Kitten, Owen; Boys digging for a Rat, Wilkie; Boy and Rabbit, Raeburn; The Village Buffoon, Mulready; The Student, Newton; The Faithful Hound, Sir Edwin Landseer; Italian Mother, Uwins; The Woodranger, Maclise; Early Lesson, Webster. Among landscapes are- Dolbadern Castle, Turner; Morning, Callcott; Young Anglers, Collins; Barge passing a Lock, Constable; On the Scheldt, Stanfield, and Baalbec, Roberts. The sculpture includes-Cupid and Psyche, by Nollekens; Sickness, Bacon; A Falling Giant, Banks; Apollo and Marpessa, Flaxman; Jupiter and Ganymede, Sir R. Westmacott; Bacchanalian Group in Bronze, Theed; Bust of Benjamin West, P.R.A., Chantrey; Eve, Baily; Narcissus, Gibson; Nymph, M'Dowell; the Elder Brother in Comus, Foley. But though there are no diploma works by the foundation members, the Academy possesses some good works by them, among others seven by Reynolds, including George III. and Queen Charlotte in their coronation robes, presented by George III.; Portraits of himself as D.C.L., and of Sir William Chambers, presented by Reynolds and both very fine works. By Gainsborough, his own and another portrait and a landscape; and by West his Christ Blessing Little Children, and two or three more. These will now be swelled by other works of the British School dating from the present time. Sir Francis Chantrey by his will bequeathed the reversion of his property, after payment of other bequests, on the death of his widow, to the Royal Academy, to be invested and the interest laid out annually in the purchase of works of the highest merit that can be obtained, in painting and sculpture, "which may hereafter be executed by artists resident in Great Britain when they were completed." The legacy has fallen in, and already several excellent paintings, exhibited at the South Kensington Museum, and some good pieces of sculpture have been purchased. In 1868 the eastern wing of the National Gallery, till then occupied by the Royal Academy, being required for the National pictures, the Government granted the Academy in exchange a lease for 999 years at a nominal rent of Old Burlington House with part of the garden behind. The house was altered, a new storey added and a range of spacious galleries erected in the rear, at a cost of about £120,000. The new galleries, which, with the alterations in the house, were designed by Mr. Sidney Smirke, R.A., comprise, besides the vestibule, octagonal, central hall and gallery beyond, which form the sculpture galleries, a great room, in which the annual dinner is held, a lecture hall and nine other rooms, all of which are appropriated to the Exhibition. The three galleries in the upper storey of Burlington House contain the diploma pictures, the Gibson models, and the miscellaneous pictures and works of art belonging to the Academy. The library, offices, etc., are in the body of the building, the schools are in the basement. The Annual Exhibition of the Works of Living Artists opens to the public on the first Monday in May and closes on the first Monday in August. The annual dinner is held on the Saturday preceding the opening day. Works for exhibition are received from any artists, subject to approval or rejection by the Council. No works that have been previously exhibited, or copies of any kind are admitted. Pictures, etc., have to be sent in about five weeks before the opening of the Exhibition, but the exact days are always advertised in the newspapers and generally printed in the catalogue of the previous exhibition. On removing to Burlington House the Academy arranged for a Winter Exhibition of Works by the Old Masters and Deceased Masters of the British School, similar to those of the British Institution, which had lapsed with the close of that institution. These exhibitions are opened on the first Monday in January and close on the second Saturday in March. Royal Academy of Music. [See Academy of Music.] 1 Royal Aquarium, TOTHILL STREET, WESTMINSTER, a large L building constructed from the designs of Mr. A. Bedborough in 1876 as an aquarium and winter garden, at a cost of nearly £200,000. The building, which is of red brick and Portland stone, is about 600 feet long and 160 wide. It was started as an institution for the moral elevation of the people by the contemplation of the wonders of nature. As a winter garden it failed completely, and it is now a sort of magnified "music hall," in which scantily dressed females go through "exciting" acrobatic performances, or are shot out of cannons, "genuine Zulus" dance, and female swimmers exhibit "aquatic feats" in the great tank, or fasting men are exhibited to gaping crowd. Part of the western end of the building is fitted as a theatre, at present named The Imperial. Royal Astronomical Society. [See Astronomical Society.] Royal Exchange (The), a quadrangle and colonnade (the third building of the kind on the same site), erected for the convenience of merchants and bankers, built from the designs of Mr. (afterwards Sir William) Tite. The first stone was laid by Prince Albert, January 17, 1842, and the building was opened with great pomp by Her Majesty in person on October 28, 1844. The cost of the structure, with its sculpture, was about £150,000. Of the exterior the chief feature is the noble portico at the west end, the most imposing in its proportions and dignity of effect in the metropolis. It is octostyle (having eight Corinthian columns) with intercolumns, and the pediment is filled with emblematic sculpture in high relief by Richard Westmacott, R.A. (the younger). The portico is 96 feet wide and 74 feet high to the apex of the pediment. The columns are 4 feet 2 inches in diameter and 41 high, including the base and capital. The extreme length of the building is 308 feet. The east end is 175 feet wide, or 56 feet wider than the west end, a peculiarity which certainly adds picturesqueness to its effect when looked at from the west. The eastern entrance is marked by four Corinthian columns, from which rises a clock-tower, 170 feet high, surmounted by the Gresham grasshopper. The sides have ranges of Corinthian pilasters, between which are shops, originally deeply recessed under rusticated arches; but the shop fronts have been brought forward, much to the detriment of the architectural effect. The inner quadrangle, or merchants' area, is an open area 111 feet long and 53 feet wide, surrounded by an arcade about 30 feet deep. This was formerly open to the sky, but after many years of consideration it was covered about 1880 by a glass and iron roof, from the designs of Mr. Charles Barry, architect. In the centre is a marble statue-small in size and insignificant in character-of the Queen, by Lough; statues of Sir Thomas Gresham, Sir Hugh Myddelton, Sir Richard Whittington, and Queen Elizabeth, by Messrs. Behnes, Joseph, Carew, and Watson. The western part of the building is appropriated to the Royal Exchange Assurance Company; the eastern end to Lloyds. [See Lloyds.] The two great days on 'Change are Tuesday and Friday, and the busy period from half-past three to half-past four P.M. The Rothschilds, the greatest people on 'Change, occupy a pillar on the south side of the Exchange. In the open space before the west front of the Royal Exchange is a colossal equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington by Sir Francis Chantrey. The first Royal Exchange was founded by Sir Thomas Gresham ; the first stone was laid June 7, 1566, and the building opened by Queen Elizabeth in person, January 23, 1570-1571. The Queen's Majesty, attended with her nobility, came from her house at the Strand called Somerset House, and entered the city by Temple Bar, through Fleet Street, Cheap, and so by the north side of the burse, through Threedneedle Street, to Sir Thomas Gresham's house in Bishopsgate Street, where she dined. After dinner her Majesty, returning through Cornhill, entered the burse on the south side; and after that she had viewed every part thereof above the ground, especially the pawn, which was richly furnished with all sorts of the finest wares in the city, she caused the same burse, by a herald and trumpet, to be proclaimed "The Royal Exchange," and so to be called from thenceforth, and not otherwise.-Stow. After the Royal Exchange, which is now [1631] called the Eye of London, had been builded two or three years, it stood in a manner empty; and a little before her Majesty was to come thither to view the beauty thereof, and to give it a name, Sir Thomas Gresham, in his own person, went, twice in one day, round about the upper pawn, and besought those few shopkeepers then present that they would furnish and adorn with wares and wax-lights as many shops as they either could or would, and they should have all those shops so furnished rent free that year, which otherwise at that time was 40s. a shop by the year; and within two years after he raised that rent unto four marks a year; and within a while after that he raised his rent of every shop unto £4:10s. a year, and then all shops were well furnished according to that time; for then the milliners or haberdashers in that place sold mouse-traps, bird-cages, shoeing-horns, lanthorns, and Jews' trumps, etc. There were also at that time that kept shops in the upper pawn of the Royal Exchange, armourers that sold both old and new armour, apothecaries, booksellers, goldsmiths, and glass-sellers, although now [1631] it is as plenteously stored with all kinds of rich wares and fine commodities as any particular place in Europe, into which place many foreign princes daily send to be best served of the best sort.-Howes, ed. 1631, p. 869. The materials for the construction of the Exchange were brought from Flanders, or, as Holinshed has it, Gresham "bargained for the whole mould and substance of his workmanship in Flanders," and a Flemish builder of the name of Henryke was employed.1 October 26, 1570.-Sir Thomas Gresham to Cecil. Requests a special license for a ship to go to Flanders with alabaster, as he had a special license for transportation of his stores from Antwerp to his Burse.-Cal. Eliz., p. 394. In general design the Exchange was not unlike the Burse at Antwerp -a quadrangle, with a cloister running round the interior of the building, a corridor or "pawn pawn "2 above, and attics or bedrooms at the top. Just. Phew! excuses! You must to the Pawn to buy lawn; to St. Martin's for lace, etc.-Westward Ho! (1607), vol. ii. p. 1. On the south or Cornhill front was a bell-tower, and on the north 1 Burgon's Life of Gresham, vol. ii. p. 115. 2 Bahn (German), Baan (Dutch), a path or walk. These were divided into stalls, and formed a kind of bazaar. In 1712 there were 160 stalls let at a yearly rent of £20 and £30 each (Burgon, vol. ii. p. 513). These were all vacant in 1739, when Maitland published his History of London (Maitland, p. 467). a lofty Corinthian column, each surmounted by a grasshopper-the crest of the Greshams. The bell, in Gresham's time, was rung at twelve at noon and at six in the evening.1 In niches within the quadrangle, and immediately above the cloister or covered walk, stood the statues of our kings and queens, from Edward the Confessor to Queen Elizabeth. James I., Charles I., and Charles II. were afterwards added. Charles I.'s statue was thrown down immediately after his execution, and on the pedestal these words were inscribed in gilt. letters, Exit tyrannus Regum ultimus-"The tyrant is gone, the last of the Kings." Hume concludes his History of Charles I. with this little anecdote of City disaffection, which no doubt was in Addison's mind when he made his Tory fox-hunter satisfied that the London merchants had not turned republicans "when he spied the statue of King Charles II. standing up in the middle of the crowd, and most of the Kings in Baker's Chronicle ranged in order over their heads." 2 According to the valuation made at Gresham's death The Royal Exchange with all Howses, Buildings, Pawnes, Vawtes, and Proffittes thereof, amounte to the clere yearely vallew of £751:5s. per ann. over all chardges and reprises.3 Of this, the first or Gresham's Exchange, there are two curious contemporary views in the library of the Society of Antiquaries at Burlington House. A still more interesting view, representing a full Exchange-High 'Change, as Addison calls it was made in 1644 by Wenceslaus Hollar. It is true to Dekker's description of the Exchange in 1607. "At every turn," says Dekker, "a man is put in mind of Babel, there is such a confusion of languages." Hollar has given the picturesque dresses of the foreign merchants. There was then no necessity for printed boards to point out the particular localities set apart for different countries. The merchants of Amsterdam and Antwerp, of Hamburgh, Paris, Venice, and Vienna, were unmistakably distinguished by the dresses of their respective nations. The places of business were at this time distinguished by signs. On January 11, 1635, Cromwell addressed a letter ("Oliver's first extant letter," as Carlyle notes) "To my very loving friend Mr. Storie, at the Sign of the Dog in the Royal Exchange, London." Gresham's Exchange was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. Pepys describes its appearance as "a sad sight, nothing standing there of all the statues or pillars, but Sir Thomas Gresham in the corner." When the Royal Exchange was destroyed a second time by fire (January 10, 1838), the statue of Sir Thomas Gresham escaped again uninjured. The second Exchange was designed by Edward Jarman or Jerman, the City surveyor. This also, like the Exchange of Gresham, was a quadrangular building, with a clock-tower of timber on the south or Cornhill front; its inner cloister, or walk; its pawn above, for the sale 1 Burgon, vol. ii. p. 345. 3 Strype, Second App., p. 6. 2 Freeholder, June 1, 1716. |
