The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-16 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The House of Commons a,v9e4 last
night, by a majority of two to one, to the purchase
of the site of the Exhibition Building. It had been
previously agreed that this vote should be first dis-
posed of, and that a little more time should be al-
lowed for the more controverted part of the propo-
sition. The purchase of the site, however, as Mr.
Gregory showed himself well aware, commits the
house very far. The site can only be used for the
promotion of art and science, and, unless any gen-
tleman can discover new methods for the promo-
tion of these objects, the site must either lie idle or
be used very much as Lord Palmerston and the
Chancellor of the Exchequer have proposed. They
do not propose to transfer to South Kensington
either the National Gallery or the learned bodies
now at Burlington-house. They propose to begin by
locating in the Exhibition Building the Museum of
Patents, now huddled up in one small apartment at
the South Kensington Museum, the National Por-
traits, now hat dly visible, and the Collection of Na-
tural:History, which has long been bursting its
bounds in Great Russell-street. After the evidence,
the authorities, and the examples that have been
adduced, it can no longer be doubted that these
wants must be measured by acres, and that the
acres in the heart of the metropolis are too costly to
be bestowed upon objects not absolutely requiring
that poition. With many of our readers, we should
be very glad to see all the public collections in-
stalled in magnificent and eternal edifices, as exten-
sive as the Cretan Labyrinth and as indestructible
as the Pyramids, in Trafalgar-square, or Piccadilly,
or the Strand. But everybody knows that we might
as well wish the Heavenly Jerusalem to be planted
to-morrow in Leicester-square, or the Garden of
Eden in Soho. It has been triad and tried, till no-
body will try it egain. A vote is to be asked first
for the site, then for the building ; and if the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer should ever find the house
ready to invest in land at £50,000 or perhaps
£lOO,OOO an acre, and to cover it with magnificent
edifices, the occasion will only provoke a new
war of architects, librarians, sculptors, painters,
naturalists, and other men of art and science,
proverbially the most irritable of the human
species. There is not the remotest chance of
the thing being ever done in the way that we
could wish, and in the way that a great nation
ought to do it. We must go to a suburb, and we
must house our more bulky and increasing collec-
tions where we can. If a man has only himself

to take care of, he may take a pleasant lodging in
Pall-mall or Mayfair; but if, with a limited income,
he has a large family of small children, he must be
content with a house in the suburbs. That is the
question which was settled in the House of Com-
. . .

mons last night. The figures spoke for themselves.
Two or three acres even in Bloomsbury, covered
with buildin gs in character with the British Museum,
will cost as much as 17 acres or more at Brompton.

Parliament can only be reckoned on for a certain
sum, at the outside, and, as space is indispensable
for the purpose, we must get as much as we can for
the money within a mile of Hyde-park-corner. In
anticipation, however, of the deferred debate upon
the purchase of the Exhibition Building, Mr. Gre-
gory undertook to represent a gentleman who gives
us in this way the benefit of his professional advice.
Mr. Mallet, who has formerly been employed by
Government himself, and who either expects or does
not expect to be employed again, has gone over the
building, and made himself thoroughly acquainted
with its deficiencies. His conclusion is that, except
the four walls, there is absolutely nothing there
that we should not have to replace with more sub-
stantial materials and more complete workmanship.
When this is the case, he warns us that we do, in
fact, only get the four walls for our money ; and,
as those four walls have to be stuccoed and orna-

mented, and even then will be open to criticism, the
value received for our money sinks very low indeed
in Mr. Mallet's estimation. The argument is that
which has been stated elsewhere with an eloquence
and wit unfortunately much easier on the negative
side of all questions than on the affirmative. It is
so much easier to prove a holse uninhabitable than
habitable, and to prove every human being a fool
than the contrary, that we wholly despair of success
in this arena. Mr. Mallet, even when chaperoned
by Mr. Gregory, reads very flat after the brilliant
effusions we have perused elsewhere. While the
satirist makes his utter nonsense and absurdity at
least amusing, the architect is only savage, abusive,
solemn, and stupid. Even were we to grant every
word that he says—and we do not grant it—
that would still leave wholly untouched the most
important reasons for purchasing the building
as it stands, and making the best of it. In the
first place, besides the four walls, which are ad-
mitted to be something for the money, there is
the general plan, to which scarcely an exception has
been taken. As a mode of utilising a block of 17
acres, it is about as good a plan as could be sug-
gested. Government proposes to work upon that
plan. It does not propose at once to raise the whole
structure to that scale of solidity by which Mr. Mal-
let measures it and finds it wanting, but to proceed
bit by bit, as space is wanted. It is not necessary
to floor the whole building at once, or to warm the
whole building at once, or to give the whole half-
mile of Picture Galleries a fireproof floor at once, or
to substitute brick piers for the iron braces on which
the " stand-up" now depends all over the building
at once, or to complete the fittings all at once, or to
substitute planed surfaces for rough all at once. If
we begin with half the south Picture Gallery, and
three acres for the Patents, and five for Mr. Owen's
collection, we shall do enough for the present. The
rest of the building may remain in its present state,
which, after some very heavy storms of rain last
week, is, we may say, perfectly weather-tight. The
proposed destination need not touch the nave, which
will thus remain available for temporary exhibi-
tions, for flower shows, for promenade concerts, for
Volunteer reviews, for ceremonials, and for many
other purposes, which it will be very easy to sneer
at, but not so easy to prevent being both popular
and useful. The nave may always be kept open,
and retained in its present state, bearing the same
relation to the adjacent courts and galleries as West-
minster Hall bears to the Houses of Parliament and
the Courts of Law. For this use it will not require
any change or much repair for many years. Of
course we could wish the situation higher, and the
floor more raised above the natural surface, but
the situation is, at least, many feet higher than that
of the Houses of Parliament or Westminster Abbey.
POST.—The political isolation of Russia is becom-
ing daily more decided. The policy of the Cabinet
of Berlin having completely alienated the people of
Prussia from the Government of the country, her
only ally is a fast breaking reed surely destined to
fail beneath the hand that leans upon it. A few
more ill-judged acts of friendship on the part of
Prussia will place not merely that Power but Rus-
sia herself in direct antagonism with the rest ot Eu-
rope. She has therefore nothing to trust to but the
diplomacy of her statesmen, and it is not likely that
they will neglect the opportunity furnished by the
notes about to be addressed to St. Petersburg by the
Western Powers and Austria, to prolong the situa-
tion over as great an interval as possible. The sen-
sible diminution of the ancient prestige of the em•
pire, the disorganisation of the army, the wretched
condition of the fleet, the exhausted state of the
finances, the still incomplete social reorganisation of
the country, the precarious position of the nobility,
the difficulty of exciting the fanaticism of the pea-
sants, the absence of any European ally, and, above
all, the feeble and undecided character of the Em-
peror himself, are so many reasons why those who
control the destinies of the empire wish for time,
and why to gain it they will appear in the first in-
stance disposed to grant concessions which may
delude Europe, and for a moment suspend any
manifestations of discontent which may be about to
break out in fresh provinces. That they will em-
ploy this period in an honest endeavour to reconcile
what is possible to Russia with what is satisfactory
to Poland, is more than we can hope; but that,
while professing to be actuated by liberal and
humane sentiments, the Government at St. Peters-
burg may in reality profit by the occasion to employ
measures of even greater severity than they have
hitherto done is extremely probable. Our last
accounts from St. Petersburg indicate already a ten-
dency in this direction. We learn upon undoubted
authority that, for the third time during the last
three months, a discussion has taken place in the
Cabinet as to whether it will be wise to leave the
Grand Duke Constantine still at Warsaw, or
whether it would not be better to recall him imme-
diately, and at the same time enforce more rigorous
measures against the insurrection. While on the
one hand it is desirable that no new incentive should
be given to foreign sympathy with the Poles, the
suppression of the insurrection at all costs is a point
of the first importance. It would seem that this
question has been discussed with much warmth,
and that opinions were all the more divided on ac-
count of the animosity and personal jealousy which
exists against the Grand Duke in certain quarters,
and which would seek to keep him as
Th long as pos • e
result of
sible removed from St. Petersburg.
these discussions is reported to have been that,
unless some unforeseen eventuality should arise,
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numerous bands of insurgents to leave the forests
and seek a shelter more appropriate to the winter
season. When that time comes, if the comparatively
mild measures employed now have failed to suppress
the insurrection, the Imperial Government will
take advantage of the six winter months to re-
establish its authority at all hazards and at any
cost ; and as the measures which will then be em.