THE NATIONAL GALLERY.
London, 15th April 1858. Sin—The maragement of the National Gallery and Sir Charles Eastlake personally are again becoming the subject of a cry." Statements, at once strong and loose, are hazarded on all sides. What., for instance, is the authority for the assertion, repeated as a plain fact in your paper of the 12th, that the new Paul Verenese could have been bought for M.? As far as I know, it is just this. Some one said in the Parliamentary debate that the picture could have been bought for 160t.,—another statement for which I am not aware that any authority has been produced ; later, the statement was repeated, but the price had lowered, it was now only 501. The Spec= tat or is not the paper to join a cry, because it is a cry, but only in ease at is just; and therefore, without entering further into the question of the real merits of the Veronese, which you now characterize by the comprehensive term "worthless," or into the other matters touched upon in your article as charges against Sir Charles Eastlake I will simply venture to reproduce your own opinion of the picture (9th February) when the matter in hand was to pronounce a critical judgment on artistic grounds, not to raise or join an accusation against any one : We see no reason to question its genuine- ness, and it is a work which we may be gratified to possess as a moderate specimen of a great man; but it is not in any sense a grand or a fine Vero-, nese, nor even so covetable an example as the Consecration of St. Nicholas which we already owned." This is assuredly cold praise, if not modified
censure ; but it does not amount to slashing condemnation. W. M. It.
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