841 
It was in these conversations that the plan of 
the Royal Academy was digested; but it is 
necessary to state more particularly the different 
circumstances which co-operated at this period 
to the formation of that valuable institution. 
At the annual exhibitions of the paintings 
-and drawings, which obtained the premiums 
of the Society for the Encouragement of 
Arts, Agriculture, and Commerce,  was then 
customary with artists to send occasionally their 
works to be exhibited with those of the com- 
petitors, as a convenient method of making 
themselves known to the public. But the 
visitors hearing from the newspapers only of 
the pictures which had gained the prizes, con- 
cluded that they were the best in the exhi- 
bition; and the Works of the matured artists 
were overlooked in the attention paid to the 
efforts of juvenile emulation. This neglect 
mortified the artists, and induced them to form 
themselves into an association for the exhibition 
of their own productions. The novelty of this 
plan attracted much attention, and answered 
the expectations of those with whom it origin-