for His sanity and goodness, are not to be numbered amongst His enemies. With Browning, in his "Christmas Eve," I would be cautious "How I suffer to slip

The chance of joining in fellowship

With any that call themselves His friends."

It is something no doubt to be thankful for, that

"When the Critic had done his best,

And the pearl of price, at reason's test,

Lay dust and ashes levigable

On the Professor's lecture table

When we looked for the inference and monition

That our faith reduced to such condition,

Be swept forthwith to its natural dust-hole.

He bids us, when we least expect it,

Take back our faith-if it be not just-whole;
Yet a pearl indeed, as his tests affect it."

But the separation of elements on which Mrs. Ward insists, logically involves such a dissolution of Him whom millions worship, that only natures of the Elsmere type can exult in the residuum restored to us under the name of Christ. The analytical process requires indeed so much of what is naïvely called the translation of testimony, that it really translates Christ, not heavenwards after the manner of Elijah, but earthwards as a falling "son of the morning." For such a minor mercy as is offered in the new East-end gospel we must summon all we can of gratitude, but thanks are mixed with a sorrowful sense of something not quite rational in the gift.

Surely for this I may praise you, my brother!
Will you take the praise in tears or laughter?"

Alliances in this world are generally limited by diverging aims in those who unite for a short space to promote a common purpose. Having employed Mrs. Ward's account of recent biblical criticism to correct Professor Huxley's exposition, I am well aware that here the alliance terminates, and that in the great struggle of our time all the forces of her pen are likely to be engaged against that faith which I believe enshrines a transforming energy for mankind. As against that faith many mutually antagonistic parties are in league, and the contest must be severe. But for this conflict we are not unready.

Those Christians who lack acquaintance with the story of religious controversy in the past and present centuries are sorely afraid of the impending shock, and would do all in their power to prevent or even postpone it. But that story is full of promise. We are now in a totally different position for the contest from that occupied by our predecessors. When Strauss began his work he scorned to discuss the possibility of miracles, Resting his case on "Hume's argument" as having "virtually settled" this question, he brushed aside every particle of the testimony he disliked. "History," he proclaimed, must renounce the "most honourable part of her problem the moment she is ready to admit the existence of miracle,

interrupting, as it does, the causation of one thing by another."* Thus fortified with an invincible repugnance, he proceeded to assign the Christian documents to the season most convenient for his theory, and in the name of history produced a romance from the depths of his own consciousness. Renan was equally imperious, and assumed in one or two sentences the whole case which requires to be decided. "It is an absolute rule of criticism," he asserted, "to deny a place in history to narratives of miraculous circumstances."† But the possibility of miracles is frankly admitted by philosophy and science, and can henceforth only be disputed by those who deny the existence of God. Hitherto negative criticism has been too ready to found itself on a supposed conclusion of philosophy, while philosophy, confessing its inability to advance any à priori arguments against the miraculous, has calmly relegated, and still relegates, the problem to the critics, by affirming that it is purely a question of testimony. This pleasantly easy process by which each throws the burden on an absent partner cannot much longer be maintained. Criticism has

presented us with historic documents bearing her seal as honest, intelligent, and invaluable. She can never withdraw her gift. She is no longer the weapon of a party, but the instrument and servant of us all. Unhampered, therefore, by any abstract theories of impossibility, and frankly confessing that the value of primitive testimony to the miraculous is the great question of the day, issue must be joined afresh. Meanwhile, those of us who have satisfied our minds on this subject, and believe that Jesus Christ was more than man, and that He was raised from the dead in no mere visionary sense, are not likely to suspend our preaching of what we believe until its reasonableness is universally allowed. From the days of Paul until now preaching has been regarded as foolishness by many wise men in all generations. There is nothing modern in this idea. But despite its "foolishness" preaching has won its way in the earth by appealing to the hearts and consciences of men in the manner Reuss applauds, and the testimony of those who have verified the claims of Christ, "by the process which He gave to His disciples," will always and most justly count as a factor in the production of faith, however lightly its evidential value may be esteemed in scientific circles and on controversial fields.

T. VINCENT TYMMS.

"New Life of Jesus," vol. i. p. 197.

+ "

The Life of Jesus," p. 8.

PRICES AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY.

WHA

The

HAT are "the best pictures" in the National Gallery? question has hitherto escaped the plébiscite-mongers, although a set of answers to it would have been of considerable interest and value. The fact that ninety-nine men in the street out of a hundred preferred Frith's “ Derby Day" to Raphael's "Madonna," would not indeed settle the question whether Frith is a greater painter than Raphael. But, on the other hand, the judgment of all duly qualified persons that Raphael is greater than Frith would not diminish the significance of the fact that the people in the street do not think him So. Worthless as a standard of intrinsic merit, the plébiscite may be of great value as a criterion of public taste. Given the pictures which a people most admires, and you may deduce the character of its perceptions, the quality of its mind, and even perhaps the calibre of its morals. But the difficulty is to find out what a people really does like. One may parody Browning's words:

"One may like whate'er one likes

In art; the only thing is, to make sure

That one does like it-which takes pains to know."

Sincerity is not the key-note of plébiscites. You cannot be sure that a man tells you what he really does like; and it is not always his fault, for the chances are ten to one that he does not know himself. But one criterion remains-infallible so far as it goes-the criterion of cash. The prices paid for the pictures in a national collection depend mainly on two factors, and each of them depends in its turn on the taste of the day. The Director buys the pictures which he thinks the public want, and the price he has to pay depends on the higgling of the market between his desire to buy and the value given to the pictures by the current demand of the day. If we

ascertain, therefore, the prices paid at different times for the national pictures, we shall obtain some sort of index to successive stages of national taste.

Fortunately for the taxpayer, but unfortunately for the statistician, the materials afforded by the National Gallery to such an investigation are by no means complete. Of the 1250 pictures in the collection, more than 700 passed into it, not by public purchase, but by private gift or bequest. The prices paid by the last owners for such pictures are, indeed, in many cases ascertainable; but an inquiry into them lies beyond the scope of the present article. The pictures in question belong very largely to the Dutch and English schools-comprising the Wynn Ellis bequest, the Vernon gift, and the Turner bequest. Most of the Italian pictures in the Gallery have, on the other hand, been acquired by public purchase; and the public taste in such pictures can, therefore, be traced with tolerable completeness from the foundation of the Gallery in 1824 to the present day. But here another deduction must be made from the materials at our disposal. A considerable number of the 536 pictures,* which have been purchased for the Gallery, were purchased in "lots"; and it is impossible to affix any particular prices to individual pictures in such lots. Thus the 38 Angerstein pictures, with which the Gallery was started, were bought for the lump sum of £57,000. This gives an average of £1500 for each picture, but it would be very misleading to price them all at that figure, for they were of notoriously unequal value. Thus no one would have dreamed of giving £1500 each for the two "Groups of Heads" (Nos. 7 and 37), "after Correggio," which have long since been consigned to the cellars at Trafalgar Square. On the other hand, many of the pictures which came from the Angerstein collection are amongst the most valuable in the Gallery. For instance, to the Angerstein collection we owe the celebrated" Raising of Lazarus" (1), by Sebastiano del Piombo, which one critic described as "doubtless the greatest Italian painting in this country," and another pronounced "the second painting in the world." A more judicious criticism would perhaps describe the picture as large rather than great; but undoubtedly it is worth a great price-if only for its historical interest as the work which was painted under Michael Angelo's direction, "to bring the sweat into the brow" of Raphael. The Dutch and English pictures in the Angerstein collection, though fewer in quantity than the Italian, were not less valuable in quality. From it came the so-called "Portrait of Gevartius" (52), by Van Dyck-the picture which the artist used to carry about with him from Court to Court to show his skill; and from it, that noble portrait of Lord Heathfield (111), in which Sir Joshua has enabled us to read the

* The figures throughout this article extend to the end of 1887 only.

history of a siege in a hero's face. These are but a few of the gems acquired in the Angerstein collection, but they are enough to show that the "lot" was bought at a bargain. Mr. John Julius Angerstein was a great man at Lloyd's, and policies which he took up were by way of distinction called "Julians." The "Julian" pictures deserve to be as honourably remembered as the Julian policies.

The system of buying en bloc that obtained in the case of the Angerstein collection rules several other pictures out of any detailed calculations. Thus, two years later, three pictures were bought from Mr. Hamlet for the lump sum of £9000. It would be absurd to say that each of them was valued at a third of that sum, for one was obviously more valuable than the two others. This is Titian's "Bacchus and Ariadne" (35)-a masterpiece, which is at once a school of poetry and a school of art-famous not more for the splendour of colouring and skill of composition which delighted Sir Joshua Reynolds, than for the incarnation of the spirit of revelry which was celebrated by Charles Lamb. The second best of Mr. Hamlet's three pictures was also one of revel-the "Bacchanalian Dance" (62), by the learned Poussin," from which Keats might have taken his chorus in "Endymion

"For wine we follow Bacchus through the earth;
Great god of breathless cups and chirping mirth!
Come hither, lady fair, and joinèd be

To our mad minstrelsy!"

The third Hamlet picture was Annibale Carracci's "Domine quo vadis?" (9)—to mention which is enough to show how impossible it is to apportion the lump sum of £9000 by mere simple division. A similar remark applies to three pictures bought from Mr. Beckford in 1839 for £7350. Two were comparatively unimportant "Holy Families," by Mazzolini (169) and Garofalo (170) respectively; but the third was Raphael's incomparable" St. Catherine" (168)," looking up to heaven in the dawn of the eternal day, with her lips parted in the resting from her pain." The next important purchase of pictures en bloc was in 1857, when 31 pictures were purchased from the Lombardi-Baldi collection at Florence for the lump sum of £7035. These pictures were almost entirely of the early Florentine school, and chiefly of historical interest, among the most notable being Cimabue's Madonna (565), and Paolo Uccello's quaint "Battle of Sant' Egidio" (583). Three years later a very similar purchase was made. This was of the Beaucousin collection at Paris, for which the sum of £9205 odd was paid. The collection comprised 46 pictures,

* In 1834 two Correggios (10, 15) were bought together for £11,500 the two. But they are of such nearly equal value that it seems reasonable to price them at half that figure each. They are, therefore, included in the detailed tables given further on in this article. A similar method has been followed-with perhaps somewhat less justification-with Murillo's "Holy Family" (13) and Rubens's "Brazen Serpent" (59), which were bought in 1837 for £7350 the two, and with a few other purchases in later years.