Artists' Benevolent Fund Anniversary Festival

During the course of the evening, after the usual proceedings, one of the toasts proposed was ‘The health of the Royal Academicians’, which was acknowledged by their president, Sir Martin Archer Shee. ‘A Similar compliment to the Stewards was acknowledged by Mr. Dickens, whose presence we may add, gave no slight additional éclat to the affair, and whose name was received as a donor to the fund with such a burst of enthusiasm, again and again renewed, as we have never heard equalled in a meeting of this sort.’