Now, it is the influence of women that makes the majority of men buy pictures. Few men buy pictures to please themselves; they buy them to please their wives. Why women are not patronised in art is for this simple reason, that women would rather patronise the work of a fool, if that fool be a man, than the work of a genius, if that genius happen to be a woman. I agree with Mrs. Jopling, that "with men success is reached with a fair wind and every favour, while with women those only succeed who have the power of weathering many storms." Quite true. Grace Darling will row out to help some feeble man struggling in the billows of incompetency, but she will sit on a rock and see a woman sink before she will stretch out a helping hand. If women fail in art, it is because women fail to help them, and I hold that but for women we might even to-day find the Royal Academy incapable of forming a quorum without calling in lady artists, as they did before. I see that the two ladies most qualified to speak about this subject disagree on the most essential point. Mrs. E.M. Ward gives it as her opinion that if women studied with the same quiet devotion as the male student they would be more successful; but Mrs. Louise Jopling asserts that young girls show quite as much disposition for art as young men do. I have no hesitation in saying that the latter opinion is the correct one. The male art student vies with the medical student in playing the fool. A friend of mine has recently been driven out of his studio, which was situated next to an art school, by the asinine behaviour of these "quiet devotional students." But in any school I have been through I have noted with astonishment the painstaking sincerity of the lady students.

All that has been written on the subject from time to time seems to me to be quite devoid of common sense. We all know what a delightful poet Mr. Sterry is, and how fondly he sings the praises of women. Probably he has been so engrossed in describing the grace of the girl that he has failed to look for the natural elegance of the boy. Possibly no artist admires the female form more than I do, but any artist will corroborate me when I say it is a matter of the greatest difficulty to find a graceful young female model, while you seldom find a youth who is really awkward. The playground of a girls' school is a conglomeration of awkward figures, awkward running, awkward gesticulating, enough to make an artist shudder, while the cricket or football ground of a college is the best study an artist can possibly have for the poetry of motion. Mr. Sterry cannot be in earnest when he says that girls think the study of anatomy tiresome, drawing from the antique a bore, painting from the nude superfluous, and studies of the old masters uninteresting. An afternoon round the art schools and art galleries will prove to him the very reverse. But then the "lazy minstrel" cannot intend his readers to take him seriously, for he says that women have greater delicacy of touch and facility of manipulation than men, and that their hands are less awkward and their fingers more lissom than those of the sterner sex. In poetry, my minstrel, yes; in reality, bosh. Where are your women conjurors? You say that their brain is not strong enough to second their manual advantage, but that they can "knock off" a pretty water-colour or oil study of flowers, or a graphic caricature! Caricature, indeed! Perhaps no one has seen more caricatures than I have, but I have never seen a caricature by a woman. If women have a failing, it is lack of humour. We poor caricaturists know that; but we also know that whereas women can compete side by side with painters on the line of the Royal Academy, we are not honoured by even a failure in caricature.

It is curious how clever lady artists become when they happen to be the wives of successful painters, but it is a significant fact that while all writers seem to agree that marriage is the cause of obliterating artistic ambition in women, it has in many cases been the birth of genius; and while domestic companionship with an artist will make a woman a painter, no caricaturist has ever succeeded in making his wife a humorist in art, and I shall ask Mr. Sterry what he means by placing "graphic caricature" on a par with "knocked-off" pretty water-colours and the weak studies of flowers by lady amateurs. Mr. Sterry is an artist himself, and this disparagement of a most difficult and most unique art fully qualifies him to be a member of the Royal Academy.



EARLY VICTORIAN ART.YOUNG LADY'S PORTRAIT OF HER BROTHER.

At the beginning of the Victorian Era art was at its lowest ebb. The young lady students of the period were copying those impossible lithographed heads which formed the stock-in-trade of the drawing-master, or those fashion-plate Venuses whose necks recalled the proportions of the giraffe, with the eyelashes of a wax doll, and fingers that tapered off like the point of a pencil. These sirens of the drawing-board were invariably smelling a rose or kissing a canary, and always had a weakness for pearls. They used to be drawn upon tinted paper, and when the faces had been duly smeared over with the stump to suggest shadow, and after the drawing-master had endowed the work with artistic merit by the application of white chalk to the high lights, the pearls, the canary's eyes, and the pathetic tear-drops upon the damsels' faces, the immortal productions were ready for framing. The giraffe or swan-necked angel was the keynote for all ideal work, and even the recognised artists of those days, with one or two brilliant exceptions, followed in her train.

Now she rushes into a large oil picture—perhaps a portrait of her brother in riding costume, et hoc genus omne. These are caricatures, but, like many of the pictures on the walls of the Royal Academy, they are unconscious ones.

As I am writing about the failure or success of women, I should like to introduce a curious request once made to me.

It is a very common thing for me to receive all sorts and conditions of curious letters from all sorts of people. The following, sent to me from the Colonies, is worth reprinting:

"Dear Sir,—I have taken the liberty to address you upon a little matter, and earnestly hope you will exert and use your influence on my behalf to the utmost of your ability. I am a young man twenty-three years of age, of good family, handsome, worth in stock and cash about £18,000. I intend coming to reside in dear Old England permanently (the land of my birth) as soon as I can dispose of my property and stock to an advantage here. I came out to Africa as a youngster, and have remained here ever since. I've not had an opportunity even of paying a visit to England. Will you be good enough to try and induce some young lady to correspond with me with a view to matrimony? I should like to get married upon my arrival, and live in joyful anticipation of meeting my love at the docks or station. I am well aware that I am transgressing the rules of good breeding and etiquette by my familiarity and audacity, but the fact is I am totally unacquainted in the city and know of no one else in whom I could put implicit faith and confidence with regard to so delicate a matter. Pardon me, therefore, dear sir, if I have been in any way intrusive or have unwillingly offended you. I have had scores of favourable opportunities to get married here, but, to tell the plain truth, I would sooner die than marry anybody not of my own nationality. She must have a lady's blood in her veins, and born and bred in the auld country, or I'll die a confirmed old bachelor. The society of these Cape girls is somewhat detestable to me, and their ways, looks, figure, dress, education, refinement, and accomplishments are not to be compared to Old England's. Hoping I've not occupied too much of your valuable time, and trusting to hear from you at your earliest convenience or opportunity, with kind regards, I beg to remain,