He spent almost infinite labour in composing his more formal lectures, and during the eight years in which he held the chair he published six volumes of them, not to mention three Italian guide-books, which came under his interpretation of his professional duties;—­“the real duty involved in my Oxford Professorship cannot be completely done by giving lectures in Oxford only, but ...  I ought also to give what guidance I may to travellers in Italy.”  Not only by lecturing and writing did he fill the chair, but he taught individuals, founded and endowed a Drawing mastership, and presented elaborately catalogued collections to illustrate his subject.  His lecture classes were always large, and his work had a marked influence in the University.

INAUGURAL

We see lately a most powerful impulse given to the production of costly works of art by the various causes which promote the sudden accumulation of wealth in the hands of private persons.  We have thus a vast and new patronage, which, in its present agency, is injurious to our schools; but which is nevertheless in a great degree earnest and conscientious, and far from being influenced chiefly by motives of ostentation.  Most of our rich men would be glad to promote the true interests of art in this country; and even those who buy for vanity, found their vanity on the possession of what they suppose to be best.

It is therefore in a great measure the fault of artists themselves if they suffer from this partly unintelligent, but thoroughly well-intended patronage.  If they seek to attract it by eccentricity, to deceive it by superficial qualities, or take advantage of it by thoughtless and facile production, they necessarily degrade themselves and it together, and have no right to complain afterwards that it will not acknowledge better-grounded claims.  But if every painter of real power would do only what he knew to be worthy of himself, and refuse to be involved in the contention for undeserved or accidental success, there is indeed, whatever may have been thought or said to the contrary, true instinct enough in the public mind to follow such firm guidance.  It is one of the facts which the experience of thirty years enables me to assert without qualification, that a really good picture is ultimately always approved and bought, unless it is wilfully rendered offensive to the public by faults which the artist has been either too proud to abandon or too weak to correct.

The development of whatever is healthful and serviceable in the two modes of impulse which we have been considering, depends however, ultimately, on the direction taken by the true interest in art which has lately been aroused by the great and active genius of many of our living, or but lately lost, painters, sculptors, and architects.  It may perhaps surprise, but I think it will please you to hear me, or (if you will forgive me, in my own Oxford, the presumption of fancying that some may recognize me by an old name) to hear