§ MR. EWARTbegged the noble Lord at 1368 the head of the Government to state whether it was intended to place the collection of paintings left to the country by the late Mr. Vernon in any part of the building called the National Gallery; and whether it was intended to adhere to the intimation made by Mr. Spring Rice, when Secretary to the Treasury, to the House in the year 1834, that the part of the National Gallery now occupied by the Royal Academy was only to be retained by that body as long as it was not required for the extension of the national collection of works of art?
§ LORD J. RUSSELLunderstood the substance of the hon. Member's question to be this—whether that part of the National Gallery now occupied by the Royal Academy for the exhibition of pictures, and for the purposes of their schools, was henceforth to be appropriated to the reception of the pictures given to the nation by the late Mr. Vernon, and of others which might hereafter be given by individuals to the national collection. Taking that to be the sum of the hon. Member's question, it was his (Lord J. Russell's) duty to state in reply, that an arrangement relative to this subject had for some time been under consideration, which there was reason to expect would soon be brought to completion; and in the meantime he would, for the satisfaction of the House, state generally what were the intentions of the Government. It was the wish of the Government that the National Gallery should be devoted to the reception of works of art, at present belonging to the nation, including the pictures of the late Mr. Vernon, and any others that might be given to the country. At the same time, George III., having given the Royal Academy rooms in Somerset House, and various privileges, with a view to the founding of a national school of art in this kingdom, by means of which the Academy had been enabled to maintain schools both of sculpture and painting, it was due to the Royal Academy, as well as desirable in a national point of view, that the Academy should have it in their power to carry on their schools. The Government, therefore, did not think it right to ask the Royal Academy to give up the rooms which they possessed in the National Gallery for the reception of national works of art, without proposing that the House of Commons should grant that body a sum of money to enable them to obtain a site for a building which they might devote to the purposes to which the rooms they now occupied in the National Gallery were ap- 1369 plied. As this arrangement could not be effected immediately, it, of course, implied that room could not, at once, be found for the Vernon collection in the National Gallery; but in the course of the present Session the Government would introduce a Bill into the House to accomplish the object at the earliest possible moment. In the meantime Marlborough House, which was recently in possession of the late Queen Dowager, had been given up to the Crown, and was destined to be the residence of the Prince of Wales; but Her Majesty had been graciously pleased to declare that for the present, and for two years to come, the pictures of the late Mr. Vernon and any others that might, within that period, be added to the national collection, should be placed in Marlborough House for the purpose of being exhibited to the public. That was a general outline of the arrangement which the House would hereafter be called upon to sanction.