[Speech delivered by Sir Robert Ball at the annual banquet of the Royal Academy, London, May 5, 1894.]
Gentlemen:—I rise to respond to the toast of "Science," with which you have been so kind as to associate my name. The particular branch with which I am concerned covers only a small part of the vast extent of Science; but I would venture to mention a circumstance which may justify me perhaps in taking a rather wider view of it. Among the guests at a house where I once was staying was a certain illustrious professor from the Continent. He did not know many of the people in the house. I had occasion to go out to a little gathering of the Royal Zoological Society. During the week I saw that he did not take in, quite, who all the people were, but just at the end of the week he said to me, "Oh, you are the astronomer. I thought you were the wild-beast man." [Laughter.]
The speakers, who have preceded me, have drawn inspiration from the pictures that they find around them on the walls of this beautiful chamber. Unfortunately, the subjects in which astronomers are concerned do not lend themselves to artistic portraiture. Distance may lend enchantment to the view, but then that distance should be of moderate dimensions—it should not exceed a few millions of miles. [Laughter.] But, if I may be permitted to say a few words for another branch of Science, with which I am not immediately connected, I would like to remark on the striking pictures of wild animals which decorate this room in—"Orpheus," and in that noble picture of the lion, "Come on if you Dare!" It appears to me that the paintings of these
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