The Sun.
London, England, 1857-07-03 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY, JULY 3, 1857.

Yesterday, in the House of Commons, the
National Gallery Question was duly ventilated !
Not, observe, the Old question as to the New
site of it ! for that problem has already been
solved, and solved, we rejoiced to think, most
satisfactorily. But the still Older question as to
the mismanagement of the National Gallery. And
that, unfortunately, has decidedly not been settled
yet 1 In fact, it was not even prospectively in-
terfered with, much less immediately mitigated
in the smallest particular last evening. But at
any rate it was—in Parliamentary slang—ven-
tilated I And that, though very little, is at least
—something 1 If it does nothing better it, at
least serves to keep the public mind alert as to the
otherwise snug and secret peccadilloes of an exceed-
ingly Close Corporation. It lets a ray of
light into the darkness, from time to time, • most
opportunely. It gives us a glimpse or two of
the mysterious doings behind the scenes of the
dramatis personce in that grand, interminable,
tedious, tantalizing Fine Arts Masque of " The
National Gallery." The Travelling Agent—by
Herr OTTO MIINDLER. [Or, as the Hon. Gentle-
man the Member for Finsbury called him last
night—cribbing a very old joke of our own in
saying it—Herr MUDDLER 0 The Secretary—by
Mr. RALPH WORNIIM. The Director-General, or,
"Lord of Misrule"—by Sir CHARLES EASTLAKE.
The whole—as the Play-bills have it—By PARTI-
017LAR DESIRE. That one inconsiderable star first
mentioned (Herr MIINDLER, or " MUDDLER" to
wit) being secured at an annual stipend of 750/.
and a Commission ! Really and truly the thing
has long been getting far advanced indeed
beyond a joke. More especially when we
have witnessed the jobbery going on behind those
ricketty scenes, behind those inefficient screens in
the "darkness visible" of that same unfortunate
National Gallery. People have turned restive at
last—and no wonder—when they have observed
thousands upon thousands of the public money
thrown away in the purchase of pieces of tawdry
rubbish called Great Pictures! Reputed Originals,
that have no sooner been bought than they have
proved on examination to be no originals at all—
but, in lieu of that, merely vamped-up copies by
unknown and ungifted hands, spurious works and
such like trumpery ! Now, these things we main-
tain have long been notorious. They have not
only been notorious, but—worse than that—they
have been reiterated I Nevertheless, while the
" facts" of the case have long been thus, and, for
that matter, are still thus undeniably—nobody is
to presume to raise a whisper against their conti-
nuance ! Sir CHARLES EASTLAKE is still to be
allowed an almost irresponsible authority in a
matter in which, notwithstanding all his un-
doubted ability, he has proved himself again and
again to be wholly incompetent ! Herr MIINDLER
and MR. WORNUM are still to be highly remune-
rated, each in his respective capacity—for what ?
For assisting in squandering the public money in
the purchase of daubs, some of them even worse
than worthless—daubs that are monuments of our
want of taste, and attestations of our lack of dis-
cernment ! Noy, if my Lord ELcso, for example,
presumes to raise his voice against these follies, in
the most good-humoured way in the world, in
expostulation—the Prime Minister (vide his
speech last evening) "listens to the levities of
his noble friend " with astonishment The
Prime Minister even will not tolerate the motion
of that same "noble friend," the member for Had-
dingtonshire venturing upon the temerity of
denying the first rank in art to an eminent
Painter, but certainly not one of the most emi-
nent of Painters—PAULO VERONES2 I Ne-Lthe
fact being that a very dubious specimen by that
i master had been snapped up by us for close upon
2,0001. (viz. just 1,977/.) although it had been
valued at something under 4001. (viz. at 370/.),
by its proprietors—PAUL VERONESE must needs
be vaunted to the skies by our indignant Prime
' Minister as apparently quite upon a par with
MICHAEL ANGELO, and DA VINCI, and TITIAN,
and RAFFA.ELLE l " His pictures," exclaims Lord
PALMERSTON, "are master-pieces of composition,
as well as excellent examples of colouring."
Good—but that patched, and botched, and cob-
bled daub of his in the National Gallery
is certainly at the same time not worth close upon
two thousand guineas ! Lord &ono may surely
be permitted to express that as his opinion with-
out necessarily implying thereby that he gainsays
the glory of the great Venetian artist, whether in
regard to colour, or in regard to composition.
Again—when the Noble Lord the Prime Minister
forgets himself so far as to talk (as ho did talk
last evening) of " the long stored-up spleen of the
hon. Member for Brighton against that amiable
at.d dis tiriguished man Sir C. EASTLAKE"—We
don't w onder in the least that the remark was
greeted in the House of Commons with "loud
laughter." Of course—it was greeted with loud
laughter. The notion is altogether preposterous
—the notion of this "long stored-up spleen" of
Mr. CONINGHAM. We repudiate the faintest idea
of having the slightest particle of " spleen"
against Sir CHARLES EASTLAKE -- the notion
of our It ►ving this " spleen" would be simply
ridiculous ! Yet we are to the full as indignant
as either Mr. CONNINGHAM or Lord ELCHO can
be with the bungles and blunders of " that
amiable and distinguished man," the Royal