| 89 | https://dickenssearch.com/items/show/89 | Royal Academy Dinner | | Speech given at the Royal Academy Dinner (3 May 1862). | Dickens, Charles | 'Banquet at the Royal Academy.' <em>The Times </em>(5 May 1862): p. 5.; <em>The Times Digital Archive</em>, <a href="https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CS84056741/TTDA?u=leedsuni&sid=bookmark-TTDA&xid=bbfb6803" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://l</a><span><a href="https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CS84056741/TTDA?u=leedsuni&sid=bookmark-TTDA&xid=bbfb6803" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ink.gale.com/apps/doc/CS84056741/TTDA?u=leedsuni&sid=bookmark-TTDA&xid=bbfb6803</a>.</span> | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=40&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1862-05-03">1862-05-03</a> | | <em>The Times Digital Archive</em>, <a href="https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CS84056741/TTDA?u=leedsuni&sid=bookmark-TTDA&xid=bbfb6803" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://l</a><span><a href="https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CS84056741/TTDA?u=leedsuni&sid=bookmark-TTDA&xid=bbfb6803" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ink.gale.com/apps/doc/CS84056741/TTDA?u=leedsuni&sid=bookmark-TTDA&xid=bbfb6803</a>. Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</span> | | | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Speech">Speech</a> | 1862-05-03_Speech_Royal_Academy_Dinner | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | <span>Dickens, Charles. 'Royal Academy Dinner' (3 May 1862). <em>Dickens Search.</em> Eds. Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. </span><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/admin/speeches/1862-05-03_Speech_Royal_Academy_Dinner"><span class="citation-url">https://dickenssearch.com/admin/speeches/1862-05-03_Speech_Royal_Academy_Dinner</span></a><span>.</span> | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=97&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Royal+Academy">Royal Academy</a> | | | | <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1862-05-03_Speech_Royal_Academy_Dinner.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Royal Academy Dinner (3 May 1862).</a> | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper">Newspaper</a> | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=93&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Times">The Times</a> | | | | | It is one of the privileges of literature to speak from the walls of this room rather than from the floor, and to find expression here in the great works of painting and sculpture rather than in spoken words. From these walls, even in our own times, Shakespeare, Moliere, Le Sage, Cervantes, Goldsmith, Sterne, Fielding, Smollett, Defoe, a host of illustrious writers has been so eloquent in the masterpieces of members of this Academy that one poor writer of fiction left to his own lips may well find nothing to say in this otherwise difficult task assigned to him. However, he finds consolation in this that his own art is inseparable from the art of his entertainers, that the great magic circle of the arts is impossible to be broken, and that here at least 'his foot is on his native heath', even though his name is not by any means Macgregor. In the name of many distinguished gentlemen, present and absent, foreign and native, I have to thank you for your remembrance of the sister art, though I beg to say on behalf of those whom I represent that we cannot by any means hold that the present President of the Royal Academy is at all disinterested in this proposal to do honour to literature, seeing that he himself is so near akin to it. We scarcely ever open any book with a higher interest and pleasure than we open this great annual volume, of which the leaves are now spread before this company; and we certainly never open a book to which we find so graceful and appropriate a preface as that which is always delivered from the red chair which you, Sir Charles, occupy. If I might have changed the figure, supposing noble lords and right hon gentlemen to have remained, I might even in conclusion have gone so far as to say that I think we receive the annual budget of the President of the Royal Academy with almost as much interest as we receive the annual budget of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; having in addition the pleasant consideration that it is not attended with those terrific consequences which we cannot by any strength of imagination separate from the latter production. | 18620503 | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London">London</a> | | | | | | | https://dickenssearch.com/files/original/6/Royal_Academy_Dinner/1862-05-03_Speech_Royal_Academy_Dinner.pdf | |