have been acquired to the country. What is there to show for the 78,1857. 4s. 9d. which has been spent in Art by the Trustees of the National Gallery since the year 1844. The finest picture acquired since that time is unquestionably the PAUL VERONESE which was secured by this very plan of concentration, which witness recommends. A nation like this wants, for its national collection, the finest pictures in the world, not merely curious pictures, or such as are to be found in many private houses. Witness hopes that the Jury will perceive that he goes to no excesses in his views, that he commends some of the purchases made by the trustees while he condemns others; and that he does not affirm that the school of the pre-Raphaelite painters should not be represented at all, but only that it should not altogether overwhelm us, and that a collection paid for by the public, and got together for the public, should give that public pleasure. SACCIO by himself, and a good Portrait of a Lady by ZELOTTI. Still none of these, not even the admissible ones, are remarkable pictures, or such as will evoke any degree of enthusiasm; while there is one of the purchases of this period, the Infancy of Jupiter by JULIO ROMANO, which cost 9207., and which is so vile as to call for an especial censure and reprobation. It is so bad a picture that if one saw it on the blind of a coffee-shop window, one would feel no surprise. It is hung in a central position, and is framed and glazed in a manner so magnificent, as only to make its badness more conspicuous. This plan of putting vile pictures in the most costly and magnificent frames and glasses does nothing to mitigate their vileness, and is a system carried so far at the National Gallery as to be highly suggestive of jobbery. The two RUYSDAELS purchased about this time are not satisfactory examples of the master, and were bought of a certain COUNT STOLBERG for 11877. 15s. 6d., and 10697. 15s. 3d. respectively. Sir George Beaumont remarks that he is well acquainted with the pictures in question, and that it seems to him that they want that rich brown tone which should always pervade the works of this master, and without which no land-giving an immense sum for what we did want. scape is complete. The PAUL VERONESE was a single picture acquired at an enormous, an almost unprecedented, price. Still that is not a thing to be complained of, as we were not paying for a quantity of things we did not want, but simply Would it not be better to save the money that goes in these timid purchases of a quantity of paltry pictures at paltry prices, and let our fund for Art-purchases accumulate till it reaches an amount which may be large enough to tempt some of the proprietors of the really fine works which are lighted now by the dirty windows of the Italian palaces? The Eye-witness, in resuming his evidence, observes that the next purchases made for the National Collection are comprised in what is called the BEAUCOUSIN lot, which came into the possession of the country in this present year 1860. Here, again, a number of bad pictures have to be bought, in order to secure one or two good, and three or four that are unobjectionable, The ghost of Sir George Beaumont having but which the collection would do just as well discovered at this juncture that he was expected without. Indeed, this is a sorry bargain at in a distinguished Art-circle, where an eminent 9205/. 3s. 1d., and one looks daily in the Times medium was at that moment awaiting his rap very for an acknowledgment on the part of the Chan-impatiently, the inquiry on the subject of the cellor of the Exchequer of the receipt of this National Collection was adjourned for a week. sum from M. BEAUCOUSIN as conscience-money. The gem of this collection, for which probably it was purchased, is the Head of Ariosto, by TITIAN. Besides this, there are some nine or ten allowable pictures, good characteristic portraits, or works which their high finish renders admissible. The disgusting but highly-wrought BRONZINO, placed in a conspicuous position in the principal room, is not included among these. Do these allowable pictures, and the one prize of the Ariosto, justify the Beaucousin purchase? Dr. Waghorn remarks-not for the first time -that it is desirable that the different masters of the different periods should be represented in our National Collection. Witness replies, that, to carry this to excess, as has been recently done, is to turn that collection into a museum. A specimen of GIOTTO, of TADDEO GADDI, of VAN EYCK, of PERUGINO, would be enough for every chronological purpose; there would be no necessity for spending thousands on endless repetitions of the same things by these men, and their obscure disciples. The public money has been frittered away in timid purchases, when by concentration some half-dozen or even fewer fine pictures might| NELSON. AN OLD MAN-O'-WAR'S-MAN'S YARN. God bless your dear eyes! didn't you vow To keep my soul together? And gentle as a lamb : I live twice over every time Our best beloved of all the brave That ever for freedom fought; For fatherland were wrought! You should have seen him as he trod Fighting for his good land, Turned to a sword in hand. He sailed his ships for work; he bore His creed was "Best man to the fore!" There was but room for one: Was any death to shun. The Nelson touch his men he taught, And his great stride to keep; For him, their blood ran free; The tyrant saw our sea-king thwart He gnashed his teeth, he gnawed his heart, Who set his fleet in flames, to light The lion to his prey, And lead destruction through the night Around the world he drove his game, Nor rested till he hunted them From off the ocean's face; Like that old war-dog, who, till death, Hung to the vessel's side Till hands were lopped, and then with teeth He held on till he died. Oh, he could do the deeds that set Old fighters' hearts a-fire; The edge of every spirit whet, And every arm inspire. Yet I have seen upon his face And when our darling went to meet It saw him through the battle move: Magnificently glorious sight Their ships, fresh painted, stood up tall Straining for it on wings of might, Our sailor blood at swiftest pace I felt the brave, bright spirit burn As though the sword this time was drawn And when its work to-day was done All would be dark in death. His deep eyes glowed like lamps of night He smiled to see the Frenchman show And held him then half-beat. You should have seen our faces! heard Like men before some furnace stirred Good Collingwood our lee-line led, As his first broadside flew, And near four hundred foemen fell. Up went another cheer. "Ah, what would Nelson give," said Coll, "But to be with us here!" We grimly kept our vanward path; Till they or we went down. How calm he was! when first he felt As though the glorious blood ran wine, And if I fall, thy will be done. Amen, Amen, Amen!" With such a voice he bade good-by, The mournfullest old smile wore : "Farewell! God bless you, Blackwood, I Shall never see you more.' And four hours after, he had done With winds and troubled foam. The Reaper was borne dead upon Our load of harvest home. Not till he knew the old flag flew Then said he, "Hardy, is that you? The deck in triumph trod; "Not a great sinner." No, dear heart, Because it burned so bright; All lost in greater light. And so he went upon his way, And of the old time talk Where amidst London's roar and moil There lies the dark and mouldered dust; And mighty seaman's soul, I trust, Is living yet with us. THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER. hair or her bonnet, and glancing at you between her fingers. She does not often go to sleep herself in the daytime, but will sit for any length of time beside the man. And his slumberous propensities would not seem to be referable to the fatigue of carrying the bundle, for she carries it much oftener and further than he. When they are afoot, you will mostly find him slouching on ahead, in a gruff temper, while she lags heavily behind with the burden. He is given to personally correcting her, too-which phase of his character develops itself oftenest, on benches outside alehouse doors-and she appears to become strongly attached to him for these reasons; it may usually be noticed that when the poor creature has a bruised face, she is the most affectionate. He has no occupation whatever, this order of tramp, and has no object whatever in going anywhere. He will sometimes call himself a brickmaker, or a sawyer, but only when he takes an imaginative flight. He generally represents himself, in a vague way, as looking out for a job of work; but he never did work, he never does, and he never never will. It is a favourite fiction with him, however (as if he were the most industrious character on earth), that you never work; and as he goes past your garden and sees you looking at your flowers, you will overhear him growl, with a strong sense of contrast, “You are a lucky hidle devil, you are!" The slinking tramp is of the same hopeless order, and has the same injured conviction on him that you were born to whatever you possess, and never did anything to get it; but he is of a less audacious disposition. He will stop before your gate, and say to his female companion with an air of constitutional humility and propitiation THE chance use of the word "Tramp" in my-to edify any one who may be within hearing last paper, brought that numerous fraternity so vividly before my mind's eye, that I had no sooner laid down my pen than a compulsion was upon me to take it up again, and make notes of the Tramps whom I perceived on all the summer roads in all directions. Whenever a tramp sits down to rest by the wayside, he sits with his legs in a dry ditch; and whenever he goes to sleep (which is very often indeed), he goes to sleep on his back. Yonder, by the high road, glaring white in the bright sunshine, lies, on the dusty bit of turf under the bramble-bush that fences the coppice from the highway, the tramp of the order savage, fast asleep. He lies on the broad of his back, with his face turned up to the sky, and one of his ragged arms loosely thrown across his face. His bundle (what can be the contents of that mysterious bundle, to make it worth his while to carry it about ?) is thrown down beside him, and the waking woman with him sits with her legs in the ditch, and her back to the road. She wears her bonnet rakishly perched on the front of her head, to shade her face from the sun in walking, and she ties her skirts round her in conventionally tight tramp-fashion with a sort of apron. You can seldom catch sight of her, resting thus, without seeing her in a despondently defiant manner doing something to her behind a blind or a bush-"This is a sweet spot, ain't it? A lovelly spot! And I wonder if they'd give two poor footsore travellers like me and you, a drop of fresh water out of such a pretty gen-teel crib? We'd take it wery koind on 'em, wouldn't us? Wery koind, upon my word, us would!" He has a quick sense of a dog in the vicinity, and will extend his modestlyinjured propitiation to the dog chained up in your yard: remarking, as he slinks at the yard gate, "Ah! You are a foine breed o' dog, too, and you ain't kep for nothink! I'd take it wery koind o' your master if he'd elp a traveller and his woife as envies no gentlefolk their good fortun, wi' a bit o' your broken wittles. He'd never know the want of it, nor more would you. Don't bark like that, at poor persons as never done you no arm; the poor is down-trodden and broke enough without that; O DON'T!" He generally heaves a prodigious sigh in moving away, and always looks up the lane and down the lane, and up the road and down the road, before going on. Both of these orders of tramp are of a very robust habit; let the hard-working labourer at whose cottage door they prowl and beg, have the ague never so badly, these tramps are sure to be in good health. There is another kind of tramp, whom you majority of the Judges and the ole of the legal profession but through ill elth in my family and the treachery of a friend for whom I became security and he no other than my own wife's brother the brother of my own wife I was cast forth with my tender partner and three young children not to beg for I will sooner die of deprivation but to make my way to the seaport town of Dover where I have a relative i in respect not only that will assist me but that would trust me with untold gold Sir in appier times and hare this calamity fell upon me I made for my amusement when I little thought that I should ever need it excepting for my air this"here the well-spoken young man puts his hand into his breast-" this comb! Sir I implore you in the name of charity to purchase a tortoiseshell comb which is a genuine article at any price that your humanity may put upon it and may the blessings of a ouseless family awaiting with beating arts the return of a husband and a father from Dover upon the cold stone seats of London Bridge ever attend you Sir may I take the liberty of speaking to you I implore you to buy this comb!" By this time, being a reasonably good walker, you will have been too much for the well-spoken young man, who will stop short and express his disgust and his want of breath, in a long expectoration, as you leave him behind. encounter this bright summer day--say, on a road with the sea-breeze making its dust lively, and sails of ships in the blue distance beyond the slope of Down. As you walk enjoyingly on, you descry in the perspective at the bottom of a steep hill up which your way lies, a figure that appears to be sitting airily on a gate, whistling in a cheerful and disengaged manner. As you approach nearer to it, you observe the figure to slide down from the gate, to desist from whistling, to uncock its hat, to become tender of foot, to depress its head and elevate its shoulders, and to present all the characteristics of profound despondency. Arriving at the bottom of the hill and coming close to the figure, you observe it to be the figure of a shabby young man. He is moving painfully forward, in the direction in which you are going, and his mind is so preoccupied with his misfortunes that he is not aware of your approach until you are close upon him at the hill-foot. When he is aware of you, you discover him to be a remarkably well-behaved young man, and a remarkably well-spoken young man. You know him to be well-behaved, by his respectful manner of touching his hat; you know him to be well-spoken, by his smooth manner of expressing himself. He says in a flowing confidential voice, and without punctuation, "I ask your pardon sir but if you would excuse the liberty of being so addressed upon the public Iway by Towards the end of the same walk, on the one who is almost reduced to rags though it as same bright summer day, at the corner of the next not always been so and by no fault of his own little town or village, you may find another kind but through ill elth in his family and many un- of tramp, embodied in the persons of a most merited sufferings it would be a great obligation exemplary couple whose only improvidence apsir to know the time." You give the well-spoken pears to have been, that they spent the last of young man, the time. The well-spoken young their little All on soap. They are a man and man, keeping well up with you, resumes: Iwoman, spotless to behold-John Anderson, am aware sir that it is a liberty to intrude a with the frost on his short smock-frock instead further question on a gentleman walking for his of his " pow," attended by Mrs. Anderson. entertainment but might I make so bold as ask John is over ostentatious of the frost upon his the favour of the way to Dover sir and about raiment, and wears a curious and, you would say, the distance?" You inform the well-spoken an almost unnecessary demonstration of girdle young man that the way to Dover is straight on, of white linen wound about his waist-a girdle, and the distance some eighteen miles. The snowy as Mrs. Anderson's apron. This cleanliwell-spoken young man becomes greatly agi-ness was the expiring effort of the respectable tated. "In the condition to which I am reduced," says he, "I could not ope to reach Dover before dark even if my shoes were in a state to take me there or my feet were in a state to old out over the flinty road and were not on the bare ground of which any gentleman has the means to satisfy himself by looking Sir may I take the liberty of speaking to you?" As the well-spoken young man keeps so well up with you that you can't prevent his taking the liberty of speaking to you, he goes on, with fluency: "Sir it is not begging that is my intention for I was brought up by the best of mothers and begging is not my trade I should not know sir how to follow it as a trade if such were my shameful wishes for the best of mothers long taught otherwise and in the best of omes though now reduced to take the present liberty on the Iway Sir my business was the law-stationering and I was favourably known to the Solicitor-General the Attorney-General the couple, and nothing then remained to Mr. Anderson but to get chalked upon his spade in snow-white copy-book characters, HUNGRY! and to sit down here. Yes; one thing more remained to Mr. Anderson-his character; Monarchs could not deprive him of his hardearned character. Accordingly, as you come up with this spectacle of virtue in distress, Mrs. Anderson rises, and with a decent curtsey presents for your consideration a certificate from a Doctor of Divinity, the reverend the Vicar of Upper Dodgington, who informs his Christian friends and all whom it may concern that the bearers, John Anderson and lawful wife, are persons to whom you cannot be too liberal. This benevolent pastor omitted no work of his hands to fit the good couple out, for with half an eye you can recognise his autograph on the spade. Another class of tramp is a man, the most valuable part of whose stock-in-trade is a highly perplexed demeanour. He is got up like a 66 countryman, and you will often come upon the their shoulders, their shabby bundles under their poor fellow, while he is endeavouring to de- arms, their sticks newly cut from some roadcipher the inscription on a milestone-quite a side wood, are not eminently prepossessing, but fruitless endeavour, for he cannot read. He are much less objectionable. There is a trampasks your pardon, he truly does (he is very slow fellowship among them. They pick one another of speech, this tramp, and he looks in a be- up at resting stations, and go on in companies. wildered way all round the prospect while he They always go at a fast swing-though they talks to you), but all of us shold do as we generally limp too-and there is invariably one wold be done by, and he'll take it kind if of the company who has much ado to keep up you'll put a power man in the right road fur to with the rest. They generally talk about horses, jine his eldest son as has broke his leg bad in and any other means of locomotion than walking: the masoning, and is in this heere Orspit'l as is or, one of the company relates some recent exwrote down by Squire Pouncerby's own hand as periences of the road-which are always disputes wold not tell a lie fur no man. He then pro-and difficulties. As for example. So as I'm duces from under his dark frock (being always a standing at the pump in the market, blest if very slow and perplexed) a neat but worn old there don't come up a Beadle, and he ses, leathern purse, from which he takes a scrap of Mustn't stand here,' he ses. Why not?' I paper. On this scrap of paper is written, by ses. 'No beggars allowed in this town,' he ses. Squire Pouncerby, of The Grove, "Please to Who's a beggar?' I ses. 'You are,' he ses. direct the Bearer, a poor but very worthy man, Who ever see me beg? Did you?' I ses. Then to the Sussex County Hospital, near Brighton" you're a tramp,' he ses. I'd rather be that, -a matter of some difficulty at the moment, see-than a Beadle,' I ses." (The company express ing that the request comes suddenly upon you great approval.) 'Would you,' he ses to me. in the depths of Hertfordshire. The more you Yes I would,' I ses to him. Well,' he ses, endeavour to indicate where Brighton is-when anyhow, get out of this town.' "Why, blow you have with the greatest difficulty remem- your little town!' I ses, 'who wants to be in it? bered-the less the devoted father can be made Wot does your dirty little town mean by comin' to comprehend, and the more obtusely he stares and stickin' itself in the road to anywhere? at the prospect; whereby, being reduced to ex- Why don't you get a shovel and a barrer, and tremity, you recommend the faithful parent clear your town out o' people's way ?'" (The to begin by going to Saint Albans, and present company expressing the highest approval and him with half-a-crown. It does him good, no laughing aloud, they all go down the hill.) doubt, but scarcely helps him forward, since you find him lying drunk that same evening in the wheelwright's sawpit under the shed where the felled trees are, opposite the sign of the Three Jolly Hedgers. But the most vicious, by far, of all the idle tramps, is the tramp who pretends to have been a gentleman. "Educated," he writes from the village beer-shop in pale ink of a ferruginous complexion; "educated at Trin. Coll. Cam.nursed in the lap of afluence-once in my small way the pattron of the Muses," &c. &c. &c.-surely a sympathetic mind will not withhold a trifle, to help him on to the market-town where he thinks of giving a Lecture to the fruges consumere nati, on things in general? This shameful creature lolling about hedge taprooms in his ragged clothes, now so far from being black that they look as if they never can have been black, is more selfish and insolent than even the savage tramp. He would sponge on the poorest boy for a farthing, and spurn him when he had got it; he would interpose (if he could get anything by it) between the baby and the mother's breast. So much lower than the company he keeps, for his maudlin assumption of being higher, this pitiless rascal blights the summer road as he maunders on between the luxuriant hedges: where (to my thinking) even the wild convolvulus and rose and sweetbriar, are the worse for his going by, and need time to recover from the taint of him in the air. The young fellows who trudge along barefoot, five or six together, their boots slung over 666 A Then, there are the tramp handicraft men. Are they not all over England, in this Midsummer time? Where does the lark sing, the corn grow, the mill turn, the river run, and they are not among the lights and shadows, tinkering, chair-mending, umbrella-mending, clock-mending, knife-grinding? Surely, a pleasant thing, if we were in that condition of life, to grind our way through Kent, Sussex, and Surrey. For the first six weeks or so, we should see the sparks we ground off, fiery bright against a background of green wheat and green leaves. little later, and the ripe harvest would pale our sparks from red to yellow, until we got the dark newly-turned land for a background again, and they were red once more. By that time, we should have ground our way to the sea cliffs, and the whirr of our wheel would be lost in the breaking of the waves. Our next variety in sparks would be derived from contrast with the gorgeous medley of colours in the autumn woods, and, by the time we had ground our way round to the heathy lands between Reigate and Croydon, doing a properous stroke of business all along, we should show like a little firework in the light frosty air, and be the next best thing to the blacksmith's forge. Very agreeable, too, to go on a chair-mending tour. What judges we should be of rushes, and how knowingly (with a sheaf and a bottomless chair at our back) we should lounge on bridges, looking over at osierbeds. Among all the innumerable occupations that cannot possibly be transacted without the assistance of lookers-on, chair-mending may take a station in the first rank. When we sat down |