Page:The Obligations of the Universities Towards Art.djvu/14

 last year her further collection of pictures was bequeathed to the Taylor Buildings.

That Professor Romanes shared with others in the University this steadily growing interest in Art, to those who knew him needs little proof; but I call to mind an occasion, when in a London drawing-room, he introduced me with much enthusiasm to the name of an artist I had not before heard of, and in confirmation of his well-placed admiration, he took pains to procure many of Mrs. Trequair's imaginative and highly poetic illuminations for me to see, convincing me at the same time of his serious estimate of Art, and of how he regarded its healthy cultivation as important for a people's life.

These memories, when it became my duty to consider the responsibility of the trust with which I was honoured as Romanes lecturer on Art, could not but demand the gravest attention: and they encouraged me to appear not as a passing entertainer, but as a faithful witness on the question which is now admittedly one of the most sacred importance.

Many of my compeers in the profession have lately spoken to me with the greatest anxiety of the influences in operation, of a kind injurious to wholesome taste, and to the future of English Art, and they have deplored the increasing assumption on the part of perfectly untrained and self-elected guides who trifle with the honest