The Duke of Devonshire was this year the principal speaker at the Royal Academy banquet, and as he has reputation asa somewhat ponderous. orator, it was an ble surprise to the guests to find that he can on occasion be gracefully. pay in an after-dinner speech. - He lamented the fact that painters sected to find so little scope for their art in the legislature, and that politicians received attention as a rule only from one class of artists, the caricaturists. One can sympathies with the Duke in his humourous complaint about the strangers in remote districts who welcome a statesman with the remark, Ah, I know you quite well from your pictures in the comic papers." Professor Mahaffy, too, made some very telling points in' responding for literature, reference to the hundreds of poets who think their effusions quite as good as those of the Poet Laureate raising the heartiest laughter of the evening.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.