We like Lord Cromer's gift, however, for the time at
which it is given almost as much as for its object. It seta a true example. We hate the notion of being afraid to continue our devotion to literature and the arts because of the diabolic frenzy of the Hun. It makes Lord Cromer's gift all the more memorable, and we trust it will be remembered by all those who win his prize, that the gift was announced on the morrow of the battle of Jutland. It was as if some Elder Statesman of Greece had given a gold crown to be contended for on the morrow of the battle of Salamis. We have always liked to think that in the year 1810 or thereabouts—at the very worst period of the Napoleonic War, when our credit was at its lowest, and when Napoleon was strutting before his parterre of Kings at Erfurt, i.e., before he had broken with Russia and been broken by the Moscow campaign—Lord Liverpool's Government voted E18,000, equivalent to £100,000 now, for buying the Towneley marbles for the British Museum. "Not only shall you not conquer us, but you shall not even prevent us from enjoying the arts and graces of life," was our proud boast then, and now Lord Cromer reminds us that the war shall not prevent us drawing strength, solace, and refreshment from the elixir of the Greeks.
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