painting were
placed in the same gallery, the same light would be useful for both of
them?--I understood your question only to refer to their collection
under the same roof. I should be sorry to see them in the same room.

You would not mix them up in the way in which they are mixed up in the
Florentine Gallery, for instance?--Not at all. I think, on the contrary,
that the one diverts the mind from the other, and that, although the one
is an admirable discipline, you should take some time for the
examination of sculpture, and pass afterwards into the painting room,
and so on. You should not be disturbed while looking at paintings by the
whiteness of the sculpture.

You do not then approve, for example, of the way in which the famous
room, the Tribune, at Florence, is arranged?--No; I think it is merely
arranged for show--for showing how many rich things can be got together.

115. _Mr. Cockerell._ Then you do not regard sculpture as a proper
decorative portion of the National Gallery of Pictures--you do not admit
the term decoration?--No; I should not use that term of the sculpture
which it was the object of the gallery to exhibit. It might be added, of
course, supposing it became a part of the architecture, but not as
independent--not as a thing to be contemplated separately in the room,
and not as a part of the room. As a part of the room, of course, modern
sculpture might be added; but I have never thought that it would be
necessary.

You do not consider that sculpture would be a repose after contemplating
painting for some time?--I should not feel it so myself.

116. _Dean of St. Paul's._ When you speak of removing the sculpture of
the British Museum, and of uniting it with the pictures of the National
Gallery, do you comprehend the whole range of the sculpture in the
British Museum, commencing with the Egyptian, and going down through its
regular series of gradation to the decline of the art?--Yes, because my
great hope respecting the National Gallery is, that it may become a
perfectly consecutive chronological arrangement, and it seems to me that
it is one of the chief characteristics of a National Gallery that it
should be so.

Then you consider that one great excellence of the collection at the
British Museum is, that it does present that sort of history of the art
of sculpture?--I consider it rather its weakness that it does not.

Then you would go down further?--I would.

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