776 THE GEOEGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



by their Indian owners, and form a collection which every succeeding year will render 

 more and more valuable. The portraits of distinguished warriors, &c, the repre- 

 sentations of religious ceremonies, war dances, buffalo hunts, &c, are depicted by 

 Mr. Catlin himself, and that with a force and evident truth that bring the whole de- 

 tail of Indian life in eloquent reality before the eyes of the spectator. We have no 

 hesitation in saying that this gallery supplies the most effective and valuable means 

 for acquiring an exact acquaintance with the great American continent that has ever 

 been offered to the hunger and thirst after knowledge so prevailing a characteristic 

 of the age. Mr. Catlin is about to publish the details of his eight years' sojourn among 

 the interesting people with whom his portraitures have made us so familiar ; and we 

 have no doubt that this work will render the stores of information he has opened to 

 us in his gallery entire and complete. As works of art their merit depends chiefly on 

 their accuracy, of which no doubt can be entertained. 



EFFORTS TO RETAIN THE GALLERY IN ENGLAND. 



[From the Quarterly Review, London, 1840.] 



We submit to Lord Melbourne, to Sir Robert Peel, to Lord Lansdowne, to Sir R. 

 Inglis, and to all who are deservedly distinguished among us as the liberal patrons of 

 the fine arts, that Mr. Catlin's Indian collection is worthy to be retained in this country 

 as the record of a race of our fellow-creatures whom we shall very shortly have swept 

 from the face of the globe. Before that catastrophe shall have arrived, it is true, a 

 few of our countrymen may occasionally travel among them ; but it cannot be ex- 

 pected that any artist of note should again voluntarily reside among them for seven 

 years as competent as Mr. Catlin, whose slight, active, sinewy frame has peculiarly 

 fitted him for the physical difficulties attendant upon such an exertion. 

 ' Considering the melancholy fate which has befallen tfc.3 Indian race, and which 

 overhangs the remnant of these victims to our power, it would surely be discreditable 

 that the civilized world should, with heartless apathy, decline to preserve and to 

 transmit to posterity Mr. Catlin's graphic delineation of them; and if any nation on 

 earth should evince a desire to preserve such a lasting monument, there can be no 

 doubt that there exists none better entitled to do so than the British people ; for with 

 feelings of melancholy satisfaction we do not hesitate to assert that, throughout our 

 possessions on the continent of America, wo have, from the first moment of our ac- 

 quaintance with them to the present hour, invariably maintained their rights, and at 

 a very great expense have honestly continued to pay them their annual presents, for 

 which we have received from them, in times of war as well as of peace, the most une- 

 quivocal marks of their indelible gratitude. Their respect for our flag is unsullied by 

 a reproach ; their attachment to our sovereign is second only in their breasts to the 

 veneration with which they regard their "Great Spirit; " while the names of Lord 

 Dalhousie, of Sir Peregrine Maitland, and of Sir John Colborne, who for many years 

 respectively acted towards them as their father and as their friend, will be affection- 

 ately repeated by them in our colonies until the Indian heart has ceased to beat there, 

 and until the red man's language has ceased to vibrate in the British •' wilderness 

 of this world." Although European diseases and the introduction of ardent spirits 

 have produced the lamentable effects we have described, and although as a nation we 

 are not faultless, yet we may fairly assert and proudly feel that the English Govern- 

 ment has at least made every possible exertion to do its duty towards the Indians, 

 and that there has existed no colonial secretary of state who has not evinced that 

 anxiety to befriend them which, it is our duty to say, particularly characterized the 

 administration of the amiable and humane Lord Glenelg. 



VIEWS OF THE FRENCH PRESS. 



When Mr. Catlin opened his gallery in Paris in 1845 the press of the 

 capital was unanimous with praise. The Constitutionnel, Le Charivari, 



