Ithrrs fa Or Chitin.
A_GEM FROM TICE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY REPORT.
Cambridge, 22d November 1852.
Sin—You were good enough, two years since, to insert a letter of mine, ex- pressive, I believe, of the universal feeling of the resident members of the University of Cambridge, on the bad taste which dictated the removal of two valuable pictures from a conspicuous place in the Fitzwilliam Museum, to make room for a vulgar tawdry portrait of Prince Albert, decked out in all his Chancellor's finery, and presented by his Royal Highness, not by the re- quest of the University. You may imagine the broad grins that the fol- lowing passage in the Report of the Commission has excited among us here. Not mentioning a single other picture in the collection, the Commissioners say—" There have been several valuable additions to the gallery of paintings, and one which has been especially grateful to the feelings of the University, the portrait of the Chancellor, Prince Albert, presented by his Royal High- ness." (Report, p. 126.) Down here, such a special remark devoted to this portrait, and in such a work as the Report of a Commission appointed to inquire into the important question of University Reform, is dismissed at once with a sarcastic reference to the well-known characters of the two most active members of the Commission ; and in the quarter to which this "expectant gratitude" is supposed to be directed, the vulgar obtrusiveness of the flattery is not likely to escape a mind which good sense, high breed- ing, and cultivation, have raised above the ordinary level of royalty. But to clear the University at large from the shame, in the eves of the public, of having any sympathy in the transparent flunkeyism of the Commissioners, I beg to state, as the result of extensive intercourse with various resident mem- bers, that the opinion of the vast majority is—what it ever was—that the picture is in a low style of art, has no business at all in the Fitzwilliam Museum, and that the Commissioners have as a body lowered themselves by giving it specific mention; though, as I said before, three of them are ac- quitted of all but acquiescence, and the initiation is wholly imputed to two dignitaries of the Church, who, "in their frequent perusals of the sacred volume," have especially marked, learned, and inwardly digested the advice therein given, to honour those set in authority over us.
Previous page
