we are the heaviest losers, be- wider and more hazardous in cause the artistic wealth stored its scope. He would enable in our country, upon which the the Trustees, with guarantees Americans depend for the en- that they would use their richment of their houses and power aright, to dispose by museums, is far greater than sale or otherwise of duplicates that stored elsewhere. or of pictures which they thought unnecessary for the collection. Thus they might establish a fund wherewith to compete with Americans and others in the auction - room. At first sight the plan appears simple enough. But it has two faults, which we trust will prevent its acceptance. In the first place, it appears to tamper with the honour of the State, and, in the second, it suggests, what is not true, that the firmest guarantees that could he devised would be a sufficient protection against the danger of constantly changing taste. There are several methods by which we might safeguard our interests in this matter. We might follow the example of Italy, and forbid works of art to leave the country upon any pretext whatever. That we shall have the courage to approve so drastic a measure as this we do not believe for a moment. Nor, so long as the death duties remain in force, would it be just or practicable. Again, we might place such 8 sum in the hands of the Trustees of the National Gallery as would enable them to compete in the open market for the masterpieces which their owners are forced to part with. When peace comes again to the world, that (we think) would be the right and dignified way out of the difficulty. Meanwhile a well-known painter has suggested that a tax of ten per cent should be charged upon all pictures which leave the country, and that the money thus acquired should be used by the Trustees to purchase what works they deemed essential for the national collections. The suggestion is wise, and there is The National Gallery has grown by accident, like many other British institutions. It owes its increase purely to public money, partly to private generosity. And it has appealed to private generosity, because the owners of pictures, who have presented or bequeathed them to the gallery, have cherished a perfect faith in the security of their gift or their bequest. They have thought, rightly enough, that here is a place where pictures will find an undisturbed resting-place, that, if once the Trustees had accepted a work of art, it would remain upon the walls in perpetuity. Rightly or wrongly, this has been an inducement to the generous, and any scheme which would discourage the generosity of painters and col of his pictures was granted only at the last moment, and the institution for the benefit of decayed artists, which he desired, was not founded. And if, further, the proposed injustice be done to his memory, how shall we hope that other painters will follow the example of his beneficence? If we break faith with him and others, we shall most surely impoverish our collection in the future. Those who hope for their pictures a home, not an inn, will think twice before they entrust them to the care of a set of Trustees armed with all the powers of sale and disposal. lectors stands condemned at first sight. The painter whom the Trustees had primarily in their mind when they devised their scheme was Turner. Of that there can be no doubt. The National Gallery possesses some two thousand of his works, and it is thought that no advantage is done to the people by what the Trustees deem an overrepresentation. The works of Turner stand high in the market just now, though we should have thought that, with half the world at war, this was not the best time to sell, and it is hoped that by disposing judiciously of some of his pictures we might find the money wherewith to buy masterpieces, of which the Gallery stands in instant need. But where, in this policy of buying and selling, does Turner come in? He did not leave his pictures to the nation that they might be knocked down to the highest bidder, and presently find a home across the Atlantic. He bequeathed them to us to be a possession for all time, and if we get rid of one of them we are false to our trust. We need not have accepted them. If we find them an incubus, we might have declined to admit them into our National Gallery. But when once they had gained admis- those whom to-day we esteem sion, it should be beyond our as prophets. Without casting power to remove one of them, the smallest slur upon the wise An Act of Parliament may men who to-day control the enable us to do what we will. destiny of our National Gallery, It can never excuse us if we we are compelled to admit that neglect a moral obligation. they are not immortal. They The nation did not treat can neither bind their sucTurner with the highest con- cessors nor assure to us any sideration. The gallery which continuity of taste. There was he demanded for the display a time when the most of men And the other reason why we should view Lord D'Abernon's plan with distrust is no less weighty in condemnation. Human taste changes and shifts with the passing hours. There is nothing less stable in the whole experience of man. In art gospels become heresies, heresies rise to gospels more rapidly than in other fields of activity. The connoisseur, arrogant as he is, stands not upon the rock of fact, but on the moving sand of opinion. We esteem to-day what we detested yesterday, and to-morrow we shall stone would have sold Rembrandts to buy the works of Greuze, or would cheerfully have exchanged a masterpiece by Velasquez for a chaste example of Guido Reni. It may be true that no man is great until he be dead, but dead painters put grandeur on and off, like a garment, at the mere bidding of the auctioneer. Moreover, a collection of pictures, if it be not disturbed, has a value apart from the worth of the individual canvases of which it is composed. It reflects, and it is well that it should reflect, the changing taste of the ages. We point to one period as the time when the Italian primitives were most piously sought for, to another period as the time at which Velasquez came into his universal empire. And, where all things are re corded, why should we blot out this clear record of taste, good or evil? In brief, we like not a plan which puts so great a power in the hands of the Trustees-that if they chanced to be unanimous they might make the National Gallery a mere hospital for cranks. We prefer continuity to disturbance, even though the continuity be marred now and again by evil choices; and we look forward confidently to the future, when the munificence of the Government and the self-denial of opulent owners will make it possible for us to hold our own against all buyers without doing dishonour to the dead, or putting too large a faith in the taste and discretion of Trustees, who shall surely pass away, like the flowers of the field. Printed by William Blackwood and Sons. I HAD seen the mighty effort of our people on the Somme, and had witnessed the battle for Morval and Lesboeufs from a point very near the left wing of our gallant allies; but I had not yet seen the French in action. I was therefore glad to know that an opportunity was now to be given me of doing so. from one considered point to another. It was a road animated by all the stir and preparation of organised war; which, as it is developed by the patient and strenuous industry of her people throughout France, comes slowly, like the shaft of a lance to its bladepoint, to its final conclusion here upon the Front. So overOur headquarters were in an whelming is the interest of the old Cathedral town, in whose Fighting Line-that strange, streets and squares there were shifting, and tragic area, where almost as many Englishmen as the thoughts and ideals of men Frenchmen; while at our hotel are brought to the anvil of war the khaki and the grey-blue that one is prone to neglect were closely intermingled. It these mighty preparations, this was the meeting-point here, a patient and faithful toil that little in the rear, of the two is the prelude to victory. armies. The early morning found us on one of those straight, logical roads-unlike our own-that run with their French directness and singleness of purpose VOL. CCI-NO. MCCXVI. As we swept along the straight white road, it was thronged with these symbols of the will and tenacity of France. "Under the light, sparkling K surface of this people," said my companion, "there resides a core of indestructible granite, and the Boche is up against it now." So he is; and the granite is legible upon the faces of all those men who toil upon these long white roads that are the arteries of war. Gone for the moment are the vivacity and the joy; but the infinite patience, the undying valour, these remain; and let us bow to them when we meet them on the road. Here are the menders restoring to the road its traditional perfection; reclaiming it foot by foot from the indignity that has been put upon it. Here are the drivers of the waggons, carrying to their brethren the provender of battle; the food and the fuel they need for their sustenance, the shells and cartridges they claim for the intruder upon their ancient soil. White with the dust, seamed with the sweat and the stress of their traffic, hard and enduring, these men have but one purpose at heart, one end in view; and to this their strength is uncomplainingly directed. Beside them, along the Light Railway that cleaves the fields, there move the great guns, the armoured cars, and gallant engines, the steel waggons full of shells. The Light Railways converge at the temporary terminus a little behind the battle line, and a great activity is concentrated here at the base of supply. Here are planks by the million for huts and trenches; hurdles upon which in the approaching winter the tired soldier may sleep without becoming imbedded in the slough and mud; lines upon lines and masses of shells, like a vast army waiting to go up and slay the enemy; sidings and platforms for each variety of goods; shining rails of steel as complex as the network of Clapham Junction; stores of every imaginable kind. Side by side with the Poilus works the captive Boche. "I ask from him nothing more than I do from my own people," says the Colonel in command, "and if he would work nearly as well as my own Pères de famille of forty-five I should be content." He doesn't, of course; but then the Father of Forty-five is a freeman, working of his own will for the good of his country; the other is a captive. It is a busy scene, interrupted from time to time by the thrust of war. The German aeroplane, when it can get so far, drops its bombs, under cover of the night, upon the little colony, killing friend and foe alike; and Fritz and François lie beside each other stricken by the same missile. The sound of the battle is heard in the distance, and the shadows of evening are lit with the summer lightning of the guns. Farther upon the road are the great guns that travel by rail, and heave their shells a distance of twenty kilometres. You can see them in the autumn mists like mammoths pointing their trunks towards the invader, and from time to time you can see the flame as it issues from their lips; you |