LONDON. 189 



tion. In it are arranged a classified catalogue in a thousand Tolumes, and 20,000 

 works of reference, freely at the disposal of the readers. Unfortunately the 

 Museum authorities are much hampered for want of accommodation. Some of the 

 most precious sculptures have had to be relegated to sheds or vaults, and many 

 offers of donations haxe been declined owing to want of space.* 



The JN^ational Gallery occupies a magnificent site in Trafalgar Square, in 

 which artesian w^ells send forth fountains of wateri There does not, how- 

 ever, exist another building in London which stands so much in need of an 

 apology. True it is stated to be merely a temporary home for the great 

 National Gallery, but the paintings have nevertheless been kept there for 

 over half a century. The National Gallery started with a small collection of 

 forty paintings, but purchases and donations have caused it to grow rapidly. In 

 a single year (1872) seventy-seven paintings, of the value of £76,000, were added 

 to it, and it includes now more than a thousand paintings, together with several 

 works of the sculptor's chisel. The large funds at its disposal have enabled 

 its trustees to secure many of the most highly prized treasures of European 

 collections. The old Italian schools are well represented in this gallery, and 

 paintings of the older masters are numerous, including the " Raising of Lazarus," 

 the joint production of Sebastiano del Piombo and Michael Angelo, Correggio's 

 " Mercury and Yenus" and " Ecce Homo," and various paintings by Raffael and 

 other Italian masters. We meet, likewise, with the masterly productions of 

 Velasquez, Murillo, Rembrandt, Rubens, and Yandyck, and with landscapes by 

 Ruysdael and Hobbema. Two paintings by Turner have, by express desire of 

 the artist, been placed side by side with two similar works by Claude Lorraine. 

 Dulwich Gallery, near the Crystal Palace, contains A'aluable paintings by 

 Murillo, Yelasquez, and the Dutch masters. Yery considerable, too, are the 

 private collections in London, including those in Bridgewater House, in 

 Devonshire House, Grosvenor House, and other princely mansions of the 

 aristocracy. 



South Kensington Museum possesses, next to the British Museum, the largest 

 number of priceless art treasures. It was founded in 1851 as an aid towards the 

 development of art industries, in which the English were confessedly behind some 

 of their neighbours, as was clearly demonstrated by the Exhibition held in the year 

 named. The museum includes quite an agglomeration of buildings, some of them 

 of a provisional character ; but a permanent edifice, in the purest style of Italian 

 Renaissance, is rapidly approaching completion, and promises to become one of the 

 great ornaments of London. The collections exhibited at South Kensington include 

 an immense variety of objects, but owing to the provisional nature of a portion 

 of the buildings, it has not yet been found possible to classify and arrange them in 

 a thoroughly satisfactory manner. Nevertheless progress is being made, and now 

 and then the eye alights upon a masterpiece which commands admiration, quite 



* The expenditure of the Museum amounts to £110,000 per annum. It is visited annually by about 

 650,000 persons, of whom 115,000 make use of the reading-room for purposes of research, each reader, on 

 an average, consulting 12 volumes daily. The library increases at the rate of 35,000 volumes a year. 



