English were nearly as dead to art as we are now. A few amateurs
alone cultivated it, but there was no general sympathy with nor
knowledge of it. Yet by 1837, in donations alone, the gallery had
received one hundred and thirty-seven pictures. Since that period
gifts have increased tenfold in value and numbers. Connected with it,
and a part of that noble, comprehensive, and munificent system of
art-education which the British government has inculcated, are the
British and Kensington Museums. Schools of design, with every
appliance for the growth of art, have rapidly sprung into existence.
Private enterprise and research have correspondingly increased.
British agents, with unstinted means, are everywhere ransacking the
earth in quest of everything that can add to the value and utility of
their national and private collections. A keen regard for all that
concerns art, a desire for its national development, an enlightened
standard of criticism, and with it the most eloquent art-literature
of any tongue, have all recently sprung into existence in our
motherland. All honor to those generous spirits that have produced
this,--and honor to the nation that so wisely expends its wealth! A
noble example for America! England also throws open to the
competition of the world plans for her public buildings and
monuments. Mistakes and defects there have been, but an honest desire
for amendment and to promote the intellectual growth of the nation
now characterizes her pioneers in this cause. And what progress!
Between 1823 and 1850, in the Museum alone, there have been expended
$10,000,000. Within twelve years, $450,000 have been expended on the
National Gallery for pictures, and yet its largest accession of
treasures is by gifts and bequests. Lately, beside the Pisani
Veronese bought for $70,000, eight other paintings have been
purchased at a cost of $50,000. In 1858, $36,000 were given for the
choice of twenty, of the early Italian schools, from the Lombardi
Gallery at Florence,--not masterpieces, but simply characteristic
specimens, more or less restored. The average cost of late
acquisitions has been about $6,000 each. In 1858, there were 823,000
visitors to both branches of the National Gallery. Who can estimate
not alone the pleasure and instruction afforded by such an
institution to its million of annual visitors, but the ideas and
inspiration thence born, destined to grow and fructify to the glory
and good of the nation? At pre