arge farm system.

CHAPTER V.

DUBLIN, _Tuesday, Feb. 14th._--I left Abbeyleix this morning for Dublin,
in company with Mr. and Mrs. Henry Doyle. Mr. Doyle, C.B., a brother of
that inimitable master of the pencil, and most delightful of men,
Richard Doyle, is the Director of the Irish National Gallery. He was
kind enough to come and lunch with me at Maple's, after which we went
together to the Gallery. It occupies the upper floors of a stately and
handsome building in Merrion Square, in front of which stands a statue
of the founder, Mr. William Dargan, who defrayed all the expenses of the
Dublin Exhibition in 1853, and declined all the honours offered to him
in recognition of his public spirited liberality, save a visit paid to
his wife by Queen Victoria. The collection now under Mr. Doyle's charge
was begun only in 1864, and the Government makes it an annual grant of
no more than L2500, or about one-half the current price, in these days,
of a fine Gainsborough or Sir Joshua! "They manage these things better
in France," was evidently the impression of a recent French tourist in
Ireland, M. Daryl, whose book I picked up the other day in Paris, for
after mentioning three or four of the pictures, and gravely affirming
that the existence here of a gallery of Irish portraits proves the
passionate devotion of Dublin to Home Rule, he dismisses the collection
with the verdict that "_ce ne vaut pas le diable_." Nevertheless it
already contains more really good pictures than the Musee either of
Lyons or of Marseilles, both of them much larger and wealthier cities
than Dublin. Leaving out the Three Maries of Perugino at Marseilles, and
at Lyons the Ascension, which was once the glory of San Pietro di
Perugia, the Moses of Paul Veronese, and Palma Giovanni's Flagellation,
these two galleries put together cannot match Dublin with its Jan Steen,
most characteristic without being coarse, its Terburg, a life-size
portrait of the painter's favourite model, a young Flemish gentleman,
presented to him as a token of regard, its portrait of a Venetian
personage by Giorgione, with a companion portrait by Gian Bellini, its
beautiful Italian landscape by Jan Both, its flower-wreathed head of a
white bull by Paul Potter, its exquisitely finished "Vocalists" by
Cornells Begyn, its admirable portrait of a Dutch gentleman by Murillo,
and its two excellent Jacob Ruysdaels. A good collection is making, too,
of original drawings, and engraving