A Document
Atlas—I have come upon the posthumous paper of 'Arry—his certificate of character, and printed pretension to the Professorship of Slade—and O! the shame of it—and the indiscretion of it!
Read, Atlas, and seek in your past for a parallel:
The World, March 24, 1886.
"To the Electors of the Slade Professor of Fine Art for the University of Cambridge.—My Lord and Gentlemen,—I beg to submit my name as a candidate for the Slade Professorship, and enclose herewith a few testimonials ... I have also received favourable letters from the following gentlemen ... Alma-Tadema, R.A., Marcus Stone, R.A., Briton Rivière, R.A., John Brett, A.R.A., ... and others."
What! is the Immaculate impure?—and shall the Academy have coquetted with the unclean?
Had Alma the classic aught in common with this 'Arry of commerce?
Believe him not, Atlas!
O Alma! O Ichabod! forgive us the thought of it!
Surely also the pots of "the Forty" do boil before the Lord, and the flames of the chosen were unfanned by the feather of 'Arry's goose-quill.