A NATIONAL GALLERY OF NATURAL PICTUREs,
WE have received the annual Report of the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, and desire to commend this society and the good work it is doing to the attention of our readers. It is based on an admirable idea, and it does its work quietly and assiduously. Its aim is to make old and curious buildings, historic sites, and beautiful landscapes a national possession, and provide for the country a great national gallery, not of painted simulacra, but of the living originals. "Books," as Stevenson said, "are good enough in their way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life " ; and while pictures are highly desirable, and art is, of course, of vast importance, we cannot always stifle a wholesome preference for the things depicted. Our gallery would not be bounded within four walls ; it would meet the traveller in every county in Britain, and wherever it met him it would be his possession. Every one is familiar with that sense of alienness which seizes one sometimes in a 'beautiful country at the thought that all this is owned exclusively by others, and that one is only a stranger on sufferance. But if the scheme of this society is carried out, the private ownership of scenes or buildings of national interest will be greatly cur. tailed, and everywhere there will be ruins, old dwellings, parks, and riversides as free to the wayfaring man as the pictures in Trafalgar Square. We do not object to private property in historic objects ; we can well understand the point of view of the owner of Stonehenge or Abbotsford; but in cases where private sentiment does not exist, or where there are the strongest public reasons why it should be over- ridden, we would be glad to see the nation become proprietor. A great gallery, to pursue the metaphor, will provide for two things. It will buy and own pictures as its absolute property, and it will receive pietures on loan for its frequenters to enjoy. So in our natural gallery the pictures will be there in two classes. Some, such as buildings and historic sites, will be the freehold property of the society on trust for the nation ; others, such as a famous prospect, will be on loan; the society will purchase a view-ground from which the people may enjoy all the advantages of ownership without its burdens.
Apart from the positive attractions of the idea, there is much to be said for it from the point of view of the evils which it will prevent. The Trust will act as the aesthetic guardian of the nation and keep a jealous eye on the vandalism which certain short-sighted commercial speculators would indulge in. The dangers which await old buildings of historic interest and beauty are innumerable. They may be scan- dalously destroyed to make way for a villa or a new Board. school. They may suffer, again, the crowning indignity of a tasteless restoration ; or they may simply be forgotten, and left hidden in byways and side-streets, a result which means a public loss, though it may be very good for the relics themselves and the few antiquarians who know of them. Finally, and most insidious fate of all, they may be mono- polised, and what was meant for mankind may become the exclusive possession of a country gentleman who preserves them for his acquaintances, or, worst of all, for such as care to pay a shilling. The larger kind of landscape will, of course, escape most of these dangers. Even aluminium works, do not destroy the Falls of Foyers or a light railway Snowdon, and the best of our scenery will happily not allow itself to be forgotten. But every landscape may suffer in some degree from monopoly. The finest view. ground may be held strictly against trespassers, sporting rights may make certain hills and glens inaccessible, and there are endless beauties hidden away among Highland deer. forests which most people know nothing of. We make no complaint about such preserving, for it has its value ; but if the Trust can acquire for the nation in an orderly and reasonable way means of free access to such natural beauties, it will do, in our opinion, a most valuable work. A glance at some of the recent acquisitions of the National Gallery of natural pictures owned by the Trust shows the sensible lines upon which the society is working. A. pre-Reformation clergy house at Alfriston, the old Joiners' Hall at Salisbury, the Court House of Long Crendon in Bucks, and Duffield, the ancient Ferrara Castle, are among the buildings, while among other lands the Trait has secured Barras Head, which commands the best view of King Arthur's Castle at Tintagel, fifteen acres of wooded hillside on the beautiful Ide Hill near Sevenoaks, and part of the original Wicken Fen, which is almost the last remnant of the primeval fenland of the Eastern Counties. The latest scheme for which subscriptions are asked is the purchase of the Brancllehow estate in the Lakes, by which "a mile of the shore of Derwentwater and woods and meadows adjacent can be secured for ever from the woodcutter's axe and the speculative builder." Miss Octavia Hill has already pleaded eloquently in our columns for help in this most praise- worthy undertaking, and we would join in her appeal. Those who waste thousands in unneeded public buildings and unattractive statues might well consider if their money would not be spent in a wiser and more truly public way f they assisted in dowering the nation with this least perish- able form of treasure.
The National Trust is still in its infancy, but we believe that the idea it modestly propounds to-day—an idea which we take pride in remembering we ourselves recommended to the public some ten years ago under exactly the same title as that which stands at the head of this article—will become a commonplace of the future. In Froude's "Fortnight in Kerry" he has a story of an Irish landlord who had a simple theory about modern society. The wear and tear of cities, he held, would always grow more exhausting, and therefore the country must be jealously guarded, BO that beyond the centres of industry there should be "solitudes of mountain and forest, where the deer ranged free as on the prairies, and wearied man could recuperate his energies in contact with primitive Nature." That is to say, an artificial solitude should be maintained in opposition to an artificial crowd. Stated crudely, the theory is economically and socially impossible ; but it has this germ of truth, that though the clear, absolute division could never be made, a created solitude or an artificially preserved land. scape may be necessary in the way in which a park is necessary to a city, as a tonic, though not as a change of diet. With the growing area of cities there comes the serious question of the maintenance of wild Nature intact in certain places. A national park will be in time as much a necessity as a municipal pleasure-ground, and though at present there are many places happily untouched, we cannot count upon this immunity for ever. Such a national park can only, it seems to us, be created by such a method as the National Trust adopts, by buying beautiful objects and beautiful places, for restrictive legislation and State interference with private rights would prove in the long run less satisfactory. The park would be unlike other parks in that it would be scattered over twenty counties. In all beautiful and historic neighbourhoods it would have its site, a real playground for all classes of the population, where boys could camp, and every lover of the country be made sure of an undisturbed holiday. Its scope might be extended ; in wilder districts it might own large tracts which could be made use of for military manceuvres ; and it might even in places follow the lead of the Yellowstone Park and become a preserve for rare animals. Its purpose and character would remain the same throughout,—free to all within reasonable limits, owned by the nation, and inalienable. In conclusion, we would notice one proposal which seems to us highly valuable. Joy's Hill, overlooking the Kentish Weald, has been given to the Trust as a memorial, and it has been suggested that such a gift is the best monument which a man could desire. We do not think that a finer public monument could be found than some country acres linked to the name of the deceased and dedicated to the perpetual use of the people. Marble and bronze are tawdry and meaningless in comparison.
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