The Sun.
London, England, 1852-10-25 00:00:00

(gvinnillA 2'llA

LONDON, BIONDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1852.

Nearly 300,000/, after the payment of all th,,
expenses connected with the Great Industrial Exhibi-
tion, remained as the surplus in the lianas of the
Itlyal Commissioners. Nearly 300,000/. ster-
ling l And already it would seem almost every six-
pence of that magnificent sum has been expended.

liovv this has been accomplished, the nation w

doubtless wonder ; but it will wonder still more when

it learns that it has been effected simply by the device
of purchasing a cluster of market gardens es the site
of a new National Gallery—this rather expensive site
being situated between Brompton and Kensington.
After this, JOHN But.r. may well paraphrase what
has already been so delightfully paraphrased by DICK
SWIVELLEZ. He may reasonably lament that he
never has a comfadtble little surplus in his pocket
but it is sure to be expended in the purchase of market
gardens! Here area hree plums rolled away quietly
for the acquisition of a plot of cabbages and a cluster
of gooseberry bushes. Not a hodful of bricks, or
a trowelful of mortar has, up to this moment, been
secured for the construction of the projected galleries.
But then the site has been obtained. Yes ! and in
obtaining the site, the nation has had the in-
expressible honour of sharing from 200,000/.
to 300,000/. comfortably and cosily between the
hitherto lords paramount of the land and seig-
neurs of the soil, between Monsieur le Baron de
VILLARS, and my lord the Earl of HAUUINGTON.
It is really to.be regretted, that the entire transaction
has been closed so precipitately. For the use to which
the surplus was put,
the Royal Commissioners must
have known
that, directly or indirectly, they were
responsible to the nation at large—responsible so far
that they were assuredly to be looked to in the mat-
ter, for something like a rational appropriation of an
amount so enormous. Yet acting, of course, solely
upon their own judgment, it would now appear that
the whole sum has been squandered upon the one
object of securing ground for a building to be devoted
not merely to the preservation of the pictorial trea-
sures of the nation, but also to the promotion generally
of arts, commerce, and manufactures. The object
of this enterprize, is, of course, we admit, at once,
noble enough in itself, and one which we should re-
joice to see kept in view more sedulously than it
has been hitherto by the Members of the Impe-
rial Government. We boar in recollection with
unalloyed pleasure, the half promise that a
structure of this kind should be raised in the
immediate vicinity of the Metropolis at the earliest
i
possible opportunity—anntimation given in the
course of his speech at the last dinner of the Royal
Academy by the Right Hon. Gentleman the CHAN-
CELLOR of the Excuvaturia. It is high time indeed
that England should have some edifice of the cha-
"oiler here implied, more suitable to the glory of the
United Kingdom than the wretched monstrosity of a
building in Trafalgar• square—the structure doing
duty as a
cetet-stand in presence of two dumb-
waiters by wsy of fountains. Anything, we 011
know, would be preferable to the continuance of the
disgrace long felt-
in this direction—the disgrace of
beholding merely a port
ion of the national pictures
decorating the walls of that odious architectural abo-
mination. Anything would be welcome in fact that
appeared to be calculated to bring about the desired
change anything hut the wholesale disposal of the
300,0 get surplus of the Exhibition for as group. of
market gardens, agreeable by way of site, cording
to the opinion, or perhaps, we should say, according
to the crotchet, of the Royal Commissioners.
MosEs, in the " Vicar of Wakefield," selling his
other's colt for a gross of spectacles in abagreen cases