also because I have no time to make representations in official ways, the very hours which I could give to the work needing to be redeemed by allowing none to be wasted in formalities.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
J. Ruskin
Denmark Hill, Oct. 27.
[From “The Times,” July 9, 1857.]
THE TURNER BEQUEST AND THE NATIONAL GALLERY.
To the Editor of “The Times.”
Sir: I am sorry that accident has prevented my seeing the debate of Friday last[85] on the vote for the National Gallery until to-day. Will you permit me, thus late, to correct the statement made by Lord Elcho, that I offered to arrange Turner’s pictures, or could have done so as well as Mr. Wornum[86] I only offered to arrange the sketches, and that I am doing; but I never would have undertaken the pictures, which were in such a state of decay that I had given up many for lost; while, also, most of them belonged to periods of Turner’s work with which I was little acquainted. Mr. Wornum’s patience and carefulness of research in discovering their subjects, dates of exhibition, and other points of interest connected with them, have been of the greatest service; and it will be long before the labor and judgment which he has shown in compiling, not only this, but all the various catalogues now used by the public at our galleries, will be at all justly appreciated. I find more real, serviceable, and trustworthy facts in one of these catalogues, than in half a dozen of the common collections of lives of painters.