Menie Laurie put down Jenny’s passionate disclaimer by a motion of her hand. “If this was what you came to tell me, Nelly, I fear I shall scarcely be grateful for your visit. Do you know that it is an impertinence to say this to me? Whisht, Jenny, that is enough; and I came here to look after no one. Whatever you may have thought before, you will believe this now, since I say it. Jenny will see that you are comfortable while you stay out here; but I think, Nelly, you have said enough to me this morning, and I to you—Jenny, whisht.”
“I’ll no whisht,” cried Jenny, at last, freed by Menie’s pause. “Eh, ye evil spirit! will ye tell me what cause of ill-will ye ever could have against this innocent bairn? I’m no gaun to whisht, Miss Menie—to think of her coming up here ance errand to put out her malice on you! My patience! how ony mortal can thole the sicht o’ her, I dinna ken.”
“I can forgive ye, Jenny,” said the meek Nelly Panton, “for a’ your passions, and your glooms, and your ill words—I’m thankful to say I can forgive ye; but, eh, sirs, this is a weary world;—wherever I gang, at hame, or away frae hame, I’m aye miskent—naebody has the heart to take a guid turn frae me—though, I’m sure, I aye mean a’thing for the best, and it was richt Miss Menie should ken. I thocht I would just come up this far to give ye an advice, Miss Menie, when we were our lanes; and I’m no gaun to blaze up into a fuff like Jenny because it’s ill ta’en. I’m just as guid friends as ever. The next time I come I’ll come with our Johnnie, so I bid you a very good morning, Miss Menie Laurie, and mony thanks for your kind welcome. Jenny, fare-ye-well.”
Menie sat down in the window when the dark figure of her unwelcome visitor was gone. The sun came in upon her gaily—the genial August sun—and the leaves without fluttered in a happy wind and a maze of morning sounds, broken with shriller shouts of children, and rings of silvery laughter floated up and floated round her, of themselves an atmosphere fresh and sweet; but Menie bowed her face between her hands, and looked out with wistful eyes into the future, where so many fears and wonders had come to dwell; and vigilant and stern the meagre yew-tree looked in upon her, like an unkindly fate.
NATIONAL GALLERY.
REPORT OF COMMISSION.
The publication of the evidence given before the Select Committee on the National Gallery, enables us to return to the subject of our article of December with a more complete knowledge of the facts than we could gather from the unfinished Report and the extracts of evidence, which the press of the day supplied. The whole Blue Book is a valuable document: it contains a very clear index by which references to all details, as well of fact as of opinion, can be readily made, rendering the alarming bulk of the materials very manageable. We can now see what each witness actually said, so that none need complain of partial or mutilated extracts; every passage may be taken with its context. We shall take occasion thereby to correct some portions of evidence, upon which we commented in our former paper, having been misled by the versions in the newspaper reports, from which we took them. To correct a misstatement should be our first task. We were certainly much surprised to find it stated that Sir Charles Eastlake had made such a declaration as this, that he would not hesitate to clean a picture, and “to strip off the whole of its glazings.” We thought it at the time so improbable that we could not believe such to have been his meaning; and accordingly said, that Sir Charles must have meant coats of varnish, for that we knew him to be too experienced a master of his profession to mean the glazings. We have, since the publication, carefully examined his evidence, and not only do not see the words attributed to him, but collect from his answers to the queries put to him, a general aversion to “cleaning,” and that, in most instances, he opposed subjecting pictures to it, as a dangerous process.
It might, however, be supposed that artists would agree as to the meaning of terms of art. Those on the Commission unacquainted with the processes of painting, must have been very much surprised and perplexed by the very different meanings given to technical terms, and that not by one or two, or by artists of little note, but by nearly all, including the most celebrated. The confusion caused by this non-agreement among the artists, with regard to the terms of their art, the contradictions, and explanations, occupy a very large portion of the Blue Book. Nor does it appear that the Commissioners are able to come to any clear conclusion upon the matter. They labour hard, it is true, and put their questions in every shape, to learn what seems to be simple enough—in fact, whether any paint, put on a picture by the original painter, in a thin transparent manner, has been removed by the cleaning process; but the examined force their examiners into a labyrinth of words, of various and tortuous uses, in which there is all bewilderment, and no master-clue is given them by which they might escape into unobscured ground. Thus, we see in the index the word “glazings” requires four heads of examination—1. Explanation of the process; its susceptibility to injury by cleaning. 2. How far it was used by the ancient masters. 3. Proofs of glazings having been extensively used. 4. Removal by cleaning of the glazings from certain pictures in the Gallery. There is, at least, one certain conclusion to be drawn—that there was, and is, such a thing as glazing. That is generally agreed upon—in fact, is only doubted by the keeper, Mr Uwins, R.A.; and his denial, causing so much astonishment, has raised a storm of contradictory opinions, which have obfuscated the whole artistic atmosphere. The public attention had been drawn to a supposed injury, said to have been inflicted on some of the finest pictures in the National Gallery. The attack, through letters in the Times, on the trustees, keeper, cleaners, and general system, was so vigorous that the Commission of Enquiry became absolutely necessary, in order either to allay the public alarm or to provide security for the future. The result has been certainly to justify and confirm the alarm, and to offer certain propositions for the better providing for the safety and progressive improvement of our National Gallery. The system, which includes the whole management of the Gallery, is condemned, in unhesitating terms of compliment to those who made the system, and who ought to have made a better, or to have refused position in one so bad. Yet we really think it is straining a point of grace to dignify the general mismanagement with the title of “system” at all, for no regular system seems ever to have been pursued from the beginning. As we showed in our former article, (and not from our own surmise, but from the evidence of a parliamentary report), our several Governments were never in earnest with regard to the Fine Arts; and a National Gallery having, by a kind of accident, been forced upon them, they chose trustees as to an honorary office in which there was nothing to do, selected for their title and rank rather than for their taste, knowledge, or ability. The consequences have been sad indeed, and exhibit a catalogue of sins of commission and omission. A National Gallery was founded thirty years ago; what is the great production of these thirty years of peace? It is the old fable of the mountain’s labour. The evidence as to losses sustained by omission to purchase is quite vexatious; there is a long list, to which every one acquainted with the picture world may make additions. We have often and often expressed our astonishment, when we have seen pictures on sale, wanted in the Gallery, and not purchased. To say nothing of the greater schools, the Italian, less understood by collectors of pictures, and for which there is as yet unhappily no sufficient public taste—How many pictures of value, of the schools for which a taste is professed, have been allowed to pass away, and many of them sent out of the country? We allude to pictures of which there could be no doubt, either as to their condition or originality. For instance, how miserably poor is our gallery in the works of the younger Vanderveldt, who may be almost classed as an English painter; yet the country had an opportunity of making a purchase of that exceedingly fine one sold from the collection of Sir Bethel Codrington. How poor are we in the works of Ruysdael, of Hobbima—painters so highly estimated by private collectors. We are not giving a preference to these schools; we only show, that what entirely falls within the taste of all collectors among us the nation disregards. An indifference has been proved. Did not a member of the Government declare, in his place in Parliament, that it was preferable that pictures should rather be in private collections than in a public gallery?
We cannot subscribe to the censure passed on our Prime-Minister, Lord Aberdeen, by a writer in the Morning Post, that he consented to the purchase of two pictures which he never saw. Surely he was justified in his reliance upon the recommendation of the Trustees, especially as he was well aware of the difficulty of obtaining their consent to make any purchases. But the inadequacy of the system is thus admitted. Question 5289.—“Your Lordship has probably become aware that a want of definite and well-subdivided responsibility is the main defect of the institution as it exists at present?”—“Yes, I think that where the trustees are numerous, and their attendance is not compulsory, there is great uncertainty; different persons attend on different days, and come with different views and different projects.” But further on we have the real cause of the difficulty exposed, the incompetency of the judges. Q. 5319.—“Your Lordship is aware that opportunities have occurred for the purchase of pictures which belonged to Mr Solly, Mr Conyngham, Mr Younge Otley, and various other gentlemen; and some persons regret that we have not availed ourselves of those opportunities. I presume your Lordship conceives it might be desirable that authority should be given to a limited body of trustees to give a positive recommendation in such cases to the Chancellor of the Exchequer?”—“Yes, I think that would be very useful; but at the same time, on all these subjects, people differ very much among those who are generally supposed to understand matters of art exceedingly well—I have never found two agree. In the case of pictures not enjoying public notoriety and celebrity, you are always liable to that: one man will think that he has found something that is invaluable, while others will think that it is good for little or nothing. You are always liable to a difference of opinion, and the selection must be left to those who are admitted to be the best judges. I do not expect to see a tribunal in which there will not often be a great difference of opinion on matters of art.” Although his Lordship is aware that there is in France, and Prussia, and other countries, “one supreme head, not an artist, but a nobleman or gentleman of high attainments in those matters, in whom the country has confidence,” he is also aware of the hornet’s nest that free discussion is: in answer to question 5314, “Yes, I believe so—a sort of minister; but in a country where there is the same freedom of discussion that there is here, I should not envy the person occupying such a position.” It would indeed be a responsibility requiring a strong and firm mind. And “public confidence” is a variable thing, as his Lordship may at the present moment shrewdly suspect; yet we doubt not there would be many candidates for, or at least many having sufficient confidence in themselves to accept, such a position. Such might be found amongst the competent and incompetent. It is not improbable that Mr Morris Moore, fully assured of his own taste and knowledge, would accept it; or if Sidney Smith were living, he would be likely to add that to the catalogue of undertakings to which Lord John Russell would think himself fully equal, even though there would be a chance of being flayed alive by public discussion and averted public confidence. There are men who desperately love to give judgment ex cathedra, whether it be about a Titian or a nation’s safety, and would hardly be restrained though the fate of Sisanes were threatened them, and they were to encounter the chance of being flayed, and their skins made cushions for their successors in the same seat, to remind them of the consequences of an ill judgment. Still we advocate the one supreme head—a minister of the fine arts—and would have him choose his council; nor should we be so unreasonable as to expect even such a one to be a competent judge in all departments. Few, indeed, are so gifted. Sir Robert Peel, who appears from the beginning to have taken great interest in the Gallery, would scarcely have been a competent authority with regard to Italian art; for, if we mistake not, in the public exhibition of his pictures, a few years ago, there were none of any of the Italian schools. We know no man whose general judgment we should so much rely upon as Sir Charles Eastlake, for he is accomplished, not only as a painter, but as a scholar of artistic research, and full of knowledge; but we learn from himself, in his evidence before this Commission, that when he was appointed to the keepership by Sir Robert Peel, he accepted the office on the condition that he was only to be consulted on, and responsible for, the purchase of Italian pictures. A minister of fine arts should certainly be well acquainted with the finest works of art, and they are undoubtedly of the Italian schools—a real knowledge of these, to a great extent, implies a Catholic taste. The possessor of such knowledge is not likely to be blind to the merits of other schools, though his preference for the higher may have limited his search, and in some measure lowered his zeal as a collector. He would, of course, have subordinate officials, who would, for final judgment, refer to him; and we should in no case fear his decision if he were versed in the fundamental principles of art discoverable in the great schools of Italy. There should be purveyors everywhere. But we have seen enough in the pages of the Report to show that such employed purveyors should not be selected from picture-dealers. Any one attached to the Gallery in this capacity should be a sworn agent, bound to renounce all picture-dealing as a trade, and not to accept anything whatever in the shape of commission. We see no reason why he should ever have been in the trade at all, quite sure that there are many gentlemen out of it perfectly qualified to undertake the important duty.
The main object of the Commission being to discover if the charges of injury, from cleaning certain pictures, have any foundation, it may be thought somewhat strange that they scarcely come to a conclusion upon the matter, which, if they had been inclined to trust to their perception, would not have been a difficult task. They tell us that “the preponderance of testimony is to the effect, that the appearance of the pictures has been rendered less agreeable by the operation of cleaning (the draught of Report says deteriorated)—in some of them, in regard to their general aspect, by removal of the mellow tone which they previously exhibited; in others, from special blemishes, which have become apparent, and which in a former state of the pictures were not perceptible.” In another place we are told, “the weight of evidence varies considerably in respect of the effect produced upon each of the nine pictures which have been lately subjected to the process of cleaning.” We should have thought the weight of evidence had been the preponderance; the weighing down testimony, the turning the scale for or against a varying weight, as a conclusion of evidence appears rather unintelligible. There never was so great a weight of evidence as the Blue Book itself. Did the Commissioners—admitting that, from the examination of artists, amateurs, and picture-dealers, the only result was “great contrariety of judgment and irreconcilable differences of taste”—go to the pictures and examine for themselves? They did so. They went “in company with several witnesses, and in some instances they had also the advantage of engravings and painted sketches of the pictures, so that the witness could point out in detail the precise grounds upon which his conclusions were founded.” We did expect, when we came upon this passage in the Report, that we should learn what the Commissioners themselves thought after this inspection, especially as they had immediately stated that the object of the inspection was, “in order that every facility might be afforded for the elucidation of these conflicting opinions.” But, no. They avoid throwing any opinion into the scale; so that there is no positive decision; and at this interesting point they suddenly turn aside, make, as it were, a ring, to enjoy the stand-up fight of the conflicting opinions of Mr Morris Moore and Mr Uwins the keeper, as some relief to the discrepancies among themselves. We do not doubt that they did form a judgment in their own minds, and can readily guess it. They are cautious, and avoid pronouncing it. Indeed, the Commissioners seem to have been a little vexed with Mr Morris Moore, and look unpleasantly upon him as a chief accuser who had put into their hands a very disagreeable work, which they do not at all sit easy under. They show their vexation in the Report, p. xi., where, in commenting upon the contradictory evidence of Mr Morris Moore and Mr Uwins, they embody in the Report the opinion of Mr Uwins, who characterises the evidence of Mr M. Moore as “displaying a mass of ignorance and want of intelligence.” And immediately, as if to set aside the evidence of both, we presume by the context as prejudiced, they say—“Your Committee wish to direct attention to the unprejudiced [the italics are ours] opinions of many eminent artists and amateurs.” So when Mr Morris Moore justly complains of insult from the unreproved words used by Mr Farrer, “If the imputation came from a person who I thought would be believed, I should take it up,” the Commissioners, after clearing the room to consider the charge of Mr Moore, that he had been insulted, came to the strange conclusion, not that Mr Farrer’s words were no insult, but that “Mr Moore had himself frequently used language towards others which might reasonably give offence.” Now this is not fair. Offence may be given reasonably, and therefore admissibly; but when it is of a nature to impugn the veracity generally, not as to any particular fact, of a person under examination, as one not to be believed, he has a right to demand protection; and if it be not given, their right of examination ceases. There is a great difference between what may be in the nature of the evidence offensive and what is insulting. If Mr Moore had been equally guilty with Mr Farrer, the Commissioners should, when so guilty, have reproved it; whereas they make this their omission an excuse for not doing plain justice now. Doubtless Mr M. Moore has given great offence by his evidence, but that does not justify Mr Farrer in offering an insult which is not evidence; nor are the Commissioners justified in their comment that Mr Moore had given offence, without marking still more strongly the insult offered by Mr Farrer, still unreproved. We are not acquainted with Mr Moore, nor do we in any way take up his “animosities,” if he has any; but we think towards him the Commissioners did not act quite fairly, nor consistently with the dignity of their position.
We may not unaptly look upon their visit to the National Gallery as an inquest on the bodies of certain old masters—say Claude, Titian, Velasquez—for the charge had been made of positive murder. The decision required—Were they dead, killed, murdered, or still alive and well-looking? A physician once told us an anecdote in point. He, with another physician, had been some time in attendance upon a patient. (We believe the man was a baker). One day they went up-stairs as usual, looked a moment or two at the poor man, then at each other significantly, and walked out of the room. On the stairs they met the wife, and tenderly informed her that she was a widow; and as a widow she properly conducted herself, and saw the physicians depart. It so happened that our friend, some weeks after, turning the corner of a street, came suddenly against the baker—“What! aren’t you dead?” “No,” said the man, “I recovered as soon as you left me.” A little farther on he met the widow that should have been. Perhaps she had less reason to be thankful than her recovered husband. She raised a tumult against the physician, vociferating, “Pretty fellows you must be—much you must know of your business, not to know whether a man be living or dead.” From this, he said, he determined henceforth, on most occasions, to use only dumb show, or ambiguous expressions. The Commissioners seem to have been of this way of thinking. They cannot altogether acquit the irresponsible responsibles—are unwilling to condemn; they adopt, therefore, a figure not unknown in oratory, a mystification under the ambiguity of a varying weight of evidence.[[4]]