Mr. Wyke Bayliss, the new president, strikes one as being "a strong man"—shrewd, logical, and self-restrained. The author of several books and pamphlets on the more imaginative realm of art, he is, one would say, as much permeated by religion as he is by art; to both of these qualities, curiously enough, his canvases, which usually deal with cathedral interiors of cheery hue, bear witness.
The hero of three Bond Street "one-man exhibitions," a Board-school chairman, a lecturer, champion chess-player of Surrey, a member of the Rochester Diocesan Council, a Shaksperian student, a Fellow of the Society of Cyclists, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquarians, and public orator of Noviomagus ... he is surely one of the most versatile men who ever occupied a presidential chair....
A Retrospect
TO THE EDITOR
OF THE "PALL MALL GAZETTE:"
Sir,—The Royal Society of British Artists is, perhaps, by this time again unknown to your agitated readers—but I would recall a brilliant number of the Pall Mall Gazette (July 1888), in which mischievous amusement was sought, with statistics from a newly elected President—Mr. Bayliss (Wyke).
Believing it to be, in an official and dull way, more becoming that the appointed Council of this same Society should deal with the resulting chaos, I have, until now, waited for a slight washing of hands, as who should say, on their part as representing the gentle deprecation of, I assure you, the respectable body in Suffolk Street.
Well, no!—It was doubtless adjudged wiser, or milder, to "live it down," and now it, I really believe, behoves me, in a weary way, to remind you of the document in question, and, for the sake of commonplace, uninteresting, and foolish fact, to lift up my parable and declare fallacious that which was supposed to be true, and generally to bore myself, and perhaps even you, the all-patient one, with what, I fear, we others care but little for—parish matters.
In the article, then, entitled "The Royal Society of British Artists and its Future—An Interview with the New President"—a most appalling volley of figures was fired off at brûle-pour-point distance. Under this deafening detonation I, having no habit, sat for days incapable—dreaming vaguely that when a President should see fit to wash his people's linen in the open, there must be indeed crime at least on the part of the offender at whose instigation such official sacrifice of dignity could come about. I was the offender, and for a while I sincerely believed that disaster had been brought upon this Royal Society by my own casual self. But behold, upon closer inspection, these threatening figures are meretricious and misleading, as was the building account of the early Philanthropist who, in the days of St. Paul, meant well, and was abruptly discouraged by that clear-headed apostle.
Mr. Bayliss tells us that: "The sales of the Society during the year 1881 were under," whatever that may mean, "£5000; 1882, under £6000; 1883, under £7000; 1884, under £8000; in 1885 ('the first year of Mr. Whistler's rule') they fell to under £4000; 1886, under £3000; 1887, under £2000; and the present year, under £1000."
But also Mr. Bayliss takes this rare occasion of attention, to assert his various qualifications for his post as head of painters in the street of Suffolk, and so we learn that he is:—