he asked was that when they thus disagreed they should all equally fix on well-known names, even though they were different ones. Names such as REYNOLDS, GAINSBOROUGH, LEADER and GOETZE were well known and inspired confidence. Strange names merely irritated. In visiting the Royal Academy, for example, he personally always bought a catalogue and confined his attention to the pictures of the more famous artists. In this way he ensured a pleasant afternoon. If there was still any doubt as to the merit of a picture, he inquired the price and was guided by the size of that.

Sir FREDERICK WEDMORE said that to decry the value of Art criticism was absurd. It was only through the efforts of their literary henchmen that some painters could be known at all. The better the picture the more words ought to be written about it, at so much a word. It was impossible to over-estimate the importance of fitting every brush-mark with the adequate epithet. He himself had devoted a long life to this task and he intended to continue doing so. (Loud cheers.)

The Editors of the Sketch and Tatler, speaking in unison, said that not only was there too much talk about pictures, but there were far too many pictures. Artists ought not to be encouraged in the way they are. The world was never so happy as in the interval between the loss of the "Monna Lisa" and its recovery. We should apply our enthusiasm to the stage—to actors and, above all, to actresses.

The Editors of The Daily Mirror and The Daily Sketch, also speaking in unison, said they agreed to a large extent with the last speakers. It would not really matter if every painting disappeared, so long as the camera remained. One living photographer was better than a thousand dead Masters.

Sir CLAUDE PHILLIPS asked how the Masters would ever have been called Masters had it not been for the critics. Painters merely painted and left it there; it was the critics who decided whether or not they should be immortal, and whether their pictures should be worth tens or thousands.

Mr. MARION SPIELMANN said that no one would deny that the contemplation of pictures, even those of Saints or Holy Families, had given enormous pleasure. But why? Not because the crowds that flocked to the galleries really cared for them, but because gifted writers had for centuries been setting up hypnotic suggestions that in this way was pleasure to be obtained. He had often seen men and women standing before a canvas of REMBRANDT, hating the grubby muddle of it in their hearts, but adoring it in their heads—all because some well-known critic had told them to. Their pleasure, however, was real, and therefore it should, in a world of sadness, be encouraged, and consequently Art critics should be encouraged.

Mr. ROGER FRY here rose to point out that the test of a picture is not the pleasure which it imparts, as the last speaker seemed to think, but the pain. The sooner the public got that fact into its thick head the better would it be for those artists who were not so clay-souled as to allow stuffy conventions to interfere with the development of their personality.

Mr. D.W. GRIFFITH said that he had never heard so much talk about pictures, with so little reference to himself. It was he who invented "The Birth of a Nation" and "Intolerance," and he was the Picture King, and as such he wished to tell them that the best Art critic in the world couldn't hold a candle to a very ordinary Press agent. (Uproar, during which the meeting broke up.)