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No one who has experienced the satisfaction of knowing the leading Universities of this country during the last half of the century, can have failed to remark the increasing interest in Art on the part of their members. I have followed this advancing recognition of the Art I pursue, since first as a visitor to Oxford, in the year 1850, I made the acquaintance of many of its Fellows, and leaders of the time.
William Sewell, the founder of Radley, on one occasion, lecturing on a general subject—when I attended with Mr. and Mrs. Combe—took occasion to refer, in terms of dignified laudation, to the active and courageous taste which they had shown, in bringing to the city, at their own initiative, works of art of a disputed but obviously conscientious character. In doing so, he expressed the conviction that Art is a necessary attainment for a refined Nation.
At the same period lectures were delivered by Dr. Wellesley on the Raphael drawings in the Taylor Buildings.
