in Rome, in 1850, the whole of Camuccini's
famous collection. It contained seventy-four pictures, and many of
them of great value. Among them was a small, but precious picture
by Giotto,--a beautiful little Raphael,--three undoubted works of
Titian,--and, most precious of all, a picture, formerly in the Ludovisi
collection, painted jointly by Giovanni Bellini and Titian. It is the
Descent of the Gods to taste the Fruits of the Earth, half-comic in
conception, but remarkable for the grace of some of its figures; the
landscape is by Titian, and Dr. Waagen says, justly, that "it is,
without comparison, the finest that up to that period had ever been
painted,"--and we would add, few finer have been painted since.

Meanwhile Sir Charles Eastlake has obtained a picture by Mantegna, and
another by Bellini, both of which rank very high among the works of
these masters, and both in excellent condition. And Mr. Alexander
Barker, whose collection is becoming one of the best selected and most
interesting in England, has purchased several pictures of great value,
especially one by Verocchio, the master of Leonardo da Vinci, which Dr.
Waagen speaks of as "the most important picture I know by this rare
master." Mr. Barker has also made an addition to his collection so
recent as not to be described even in this last volume of the "Art
Treasures," but which is of unsurpassed interest. He has purchased from
the Manfrini Gallery at Venice, a gallery which has long been famous as
containing some of the best works of the Venetian school, eighteen of
its best pictures, and was lately in treaty for a still larger number.
He has already secured Titian's portrait of Ariosto, Giorgione's
portrait of a woman with a guitar, and other works by these masters, by
Palma Vecchio, Giovanni Bellini, and other chief Venetian painters. We
trust that he may bring to England (if it must leave Venice) Bellini's
St. Jerome, a picture of the most precious character.

This catalogue, long as it already is, by no means completes the list of
the last three years' gains of pictures for England. Such a record shows
how compact with treasures the little island is becoming. And meanwhile,
what is America doing in this way? The overestimate of the importance
and value of Mr. Belmont's collection in New York shows how far the
American public yet is from knowing its own ignorance and poverty in
respect to Art.

No praise can be given to the execution of Dr. Waagen's b