It is barely fifty years since England refused the gift of the
pictures that now constitute the Dulwich Gallery. So rapidly,
however, did public opinion and taste become enlightened, that
twenty-five years afterwards Parliament voted seventy-three thousand
pounds for the purchase of thirty-eight pictures collected by Mr.
Angerstein. This was the commencement of their National Gallery. In
1790 but three national galleries existed in Europe,--those of
Dresden, Florence, and Amsterdam. The Louvre was then first
originated by a decree of the Constituent Assembly of France. England
now spends with open hand on schools of design, the accumulation of
treasures of art of every epoch and character, and whatever tends to
elevate the taste and enlarge the means of the artistic education of
her people,--perceiving, with far-sighted wisdom, that, through
improved manufacture and riper civilization, eventually a tenfold
return will result to her treasury. The nations of Europe exult over
a new acquisition to their galleries, though its cost may have
exceeded a hundred thousand dollars.
We are in that stage of indifference and neglect that one of our
wealthiest cities recently refused to accept the donation of a
gallery of some three hundred pictures, collected with taste and
discrimination by a generous lover of art, because it did not wish to
be put to the expense of finding wall-room for them.
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