has not read the _Discourses_ of
Sir Joshua Reynolds, and who has not wished, after reading them, to be
enabled to say, "anche io son pittore?" When we are told of picture
galleries with their thousand works of art, and are warmed by the
descriptions, feeble though they must be, of many of them, we seem to
be suddenly led by a lamp of more magical power than Aladdin's; for
what was his gallery of fruit-trees bearing, precious stones, to a
gallery rich in pictures, the still brighter fruits of genius,
presenting endless variety, each one almost a world in itself, and
all, enticing the imagination into regions unbounded, of charm and
loveliness, suggested, though not made visible, but to the mind's eye?
We remember in our school days giving Virgil credit for much tact in
endeavouring to make a gentleman of AEneas, and succeeding too for a
while in raising the more than equivocal character of his hero, by
placing him in the picture-gallery of the Queen of Carthage, and
giving him leisure to contemplate and to criticise, and poetically to
describe to his silent and spiritless lounger-friend many noble and
many touching works. In this passage we also obtain the great Latin
poet's opinion of the ameliorating effect of "collections." The hero
of the AEneid knew immediately he was among an amiable people. The
picture-gallery was the "nova res oblata" which "timorem leniit"--

"Hic primum AEneas sperare salutem
Ausus, et afflictis melius confidere rebus;
Namque"----

It is singular that all the courts of Europe have, for more than two
centuries, been earnestly engaged in forming public galleries, a
national benefit and honour which England had neglected with her great
wealth, and with opportunities singularly favourable, until within a
few years; and even now we are making but very slow progress, and
works of art of the olden and golden time are becoming more rare, and
immensely rising in value. Had we, as a nation, collected even fifty
years ago--speaking of the transactions as a money speculation, in
which view, according to the taste of the day, we must look at every
thing--our purchases would now have been worth treble the first cost
in money. The unhappy fate of Charles I. was most adverse to the arts
here. It not only scattered the collection made by him, but, by the
triumph of Puritanism, plunged the country first into a dislike of,
and, for long subsequent periods, into an indifference for art. We
even dou