The Sun.
London, England, 1858-07-15 00:00:00

THE NATIONAL GALLERY.

If we fail in some great undertakings we succeed
in others, and it is our pleasing duty to-day to con-
. gratulate the country on a triumph which some
will think quite sufficient consolation for the loss
of the Atlantic cable. No one, indeed, in whose
breast one patriotic spark remains will fail to re-
joice and be proud at the great achievement of
Tuesday night in the House of Commons. Eng-
land has asserted her indomitable independence
and nationality. Terror will, be depicted on the
countenance of every German despot and pedant,
fit Lsrd Elcho has won the day. • Mr. Coningham
is avenged of his enemy. The hostile critics of
Paul Veronese are confirmed in their judgment by
the British House of Commons. The salary of Mr.
Otto Mundler is disallowed. The sum of 3001. a-
' year is saved to the nation of which we form part,
and a blow struck which will resound in every
auction-mart of Europe. Some of our readers
may know nothing of Mr.. Otto Mundler, and
not so much as they ought about Lord Elcho
and the genius of Paul Veronese. Many
of them are, perhaps, not possessed of high
art instincts, and only go to the National Gallery
with country cousins, or to the British Museum
with little boys home for the holidays, who want
to see the mummies and the stuffed ourang-outangs.
To these we shall, unhappily, not succeedin making
known the momentous character of last night's
vote. They are in a state of lamentable but, per-
haps, not unblissful ignorance. Art-progress has
left them far behind, and art-criticism has not re-
vealed to them its oracular utterances. They are
•• content with their own portraits, which simper on
them from above their dining-tables, and they look
' with tendernes4 on the. full-length of Charley,
with a coral and red shoes, taken at the age of one
year. If these works of art be degraded, bestial,
full of the mad licentiousness of a faithless age,
or if they_ be wanting in tone, poor in treatment,
wooden, stony, woolly, or anything else, it is lost
- on the possessors and their friends, who ine they
ate very like what the subjects were in the days
when high-collared coats were worn, and ladies
drove tortoise-shell combs into the backs of their
heads. Many there are still, we fear, who are not
duly entranced at the sight of a red Agamemnon
offering a black daughter on an Etruscan vase, and
who can see without cupidity a real majolica plate
with its muscular divinities. Contorted saints of
the early Germau school are still 'gazed at with
wonder by some, And to Renaissance taste in furni-
ture they have no :wish to give another birth. To
this large, though we should hope decreasing class,
we can only present the subject in its pecuniary
Point of view. But even here, there is matter for
no small congratulation. Three hundred a-year
has bean saved. The salary of a clerk in the
Custom-house, the income of a young medical
practitioner in a country town, the cost of
printing a return of the number of pee sons who
have ridden outside omnibuses from .1850 to
1837 inclusive, has been saved to this wise, pru-
dent, thrifty country. What a number of things
we shall be-able to 'do with this 3001. I A little
child with its first sixpence tells you of the wonders
it intends to buy, and so we may joyfully reflect
on what we shall be able to accomplish with the
salary of Mr. Otto Mundler. We have rescued
from the clutch of this invading German enough
to supply the Growler or Snapper with coals from
Malta to Gibraltar and back ; enough to pay a
mouth's travelling expenses of a not overworked
Queen's messenger; enough to supply a year's
stationary to a third rate legation ; enough to re-
place a button of one pattern by the button of
another on the coats of a few regiments -in the
army. Therefore, to all of our readers who pride
themselves on their reepec; for the good old-
fashioned proverb about taking caw of the pence,
and who knoW nothing and care nothing about art,
we offer' our congratulations on this reduction of
I the national expenditure.
But to the artistic world the matter is of far
greater interest. To them we will say nothing of
the 3001. ; money is too sordid an object, and
finance is too dreary a study, to excite them. Nor
' will we urge that, 60.r.1e.1ii. g is honestly due to a
gentleman who has been engaged for the public
service by the proper authorities at a certain salary,
and who may consider it an injustice to be turned
off at a moment's notice. Mr. Mendler, if he
were fit for his work, ought to have known that
the ages of faith are past. What, indeed, can be
expected of a country which buys a "Paul
Veronese ?'' So we may put the individual travel-
line agent out of the'question, as having deserved
his fate ; and only. look at the great victory in
which he has been stricken down. It ie, indeed,
pretty clear that -Unfortunate Mr. Mundler has
been taken as the representative of the constituted
authorities on this occasion, as the incarnation
:of the National Gallery management, acid the
blows of his assailants were in reality aimed at
greater persons behind him. Happy -are all of us
whose destinies do not depend on contests of taste,
'where -every man plumes himself on the originality
of his opinions; and any one who pretends to de-
tide between opponents is immediately attacked
and trampled upon by both. If it is not allowed
to poets to be mediocre, it ie not allowed to con-
noisseurs to beimpartial. They must be exclusive
or die. Theological hatred is softening down, but-
the virus is passing into another section of the com-
munity. Art critics are now possessed with the
spirit of Gardiner and Laud,- and apparently would
"scrape" a rival with the utmost pleasure. In
other departments of mental exertion, people can
appreciate geniuses of various kinds. We can
honour Shalispeare without thinking Sophocles an
impostor, and a reSpect for Newton does not neces-
sitate 'a contempt for Guvier. But the artistic
world is split up into sects, each with its divinity,
and looks upon anything like breadth of taste as
latitudinarian and lukewarm. Full sure- we are
that if the victorious party of Tuesday night had
had the management of affairs they would have
been exposed to as many attacks as those whom
they have now censured. They would have pur-
chased something* on which Mr. Otto Al undler's
friends would hay e exhausted the usual art epithets
of "atrocious," "abominable," "a spirit less daub,"
"a Wardour-street imposture," and so on. Let us
of . the public, however„ who have no power or
authority in the world of art, and who only judge
of a picture by the pleasure it
gives us, acquiesce
in the decieion of the House of Commons. Lord
Elcho and his 128 friends have stopped the
travels of the agent ; his modest salary will no
longer be forthcoming ; his movements will no
longer throw poverty-stricken Italian nobles and
.shat pine, dealers into excitement ; he will no longer
raise the price of daubs by a look, or depress the
selling rate of a "school" by a depreciatory word.
.All that England buys will now be by her own
unaided judgment ; Germen pedantry and Italian
knavishinese will not combine to fill the rooms in'
Trafalgar-squire with works which Lord Elcho
and-Mr. Coningham are bound to denounce. * The
travelling agent is, in short, a beine Of the past.
'We trust, therefore, that the feuds of the two
parties will now cease. Lord Elcho has been vic-
torious both in the matter of the site for the new
Gallery and in the discussion as to the bench s of.
Mr. Muudler'e services. But the other party are
in possession, and without their help nothing can
be done to improve
.the collection, and make it
worthy of the name of "national." It is really
high time that the four or five close and crowded
rooms which contain the country's pictures should
be expanded 'into a full-sized edifice, where the
visitor shall net be incommoded by the crush,
stifled by the pent-up breath of the multitude, and
grieved by the sight of noble works suffering from
the deleterious influences to which they are exposed.
We have little doubt of the power of the Govern-
ment to obtain really estimable works of art for
the national collection, and we are sure of the
williirgne.aof the people to pay for such workF,
and to provide a fitting receptacle for them. So
we hope that Lord. -Dello and his friends will now
leave their antagonistic position, and, do their best
to assist the, administration of the Gallery, into
which they have introduced so importan% an
... .
econowy. —Times,

Three Chinese coexerued iu ow wan d,r of Capt.
More and the officers of the brig Gallant Lad been
executed on the rantde ground by the native at.
thorities.