_Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain_, etc. By DR. WAAGEN.
Forming a Supplemental Volume to the "Treasures of Art in Great
Britain." 8vo. London. 1857.

The Manchester Exhibition, although containing a vast number of works
of Art, displayed but a small portion of the treasures of painting and
sculpture scattered through Great Britain, in the city and country
houses of the upper classes. Every year is adding greatly to the number
and value of both private and public galleries in England. It is but
three years since Dr. Waagen published his three ponderous volumes on
the "Treasures of Art in Great Britain," and he has already found new
material for a fourth, not less cumbrous than its predecessors. The
larger part of this last volume is, indeed, composed of descriptions of
galleries existing at the time of the publication of his first work, but
the most interesting portion of it relates to the acquisitions that have
been made within the last three years.

A better taste, and a truer appreciation of the relative merits of works
of Art, prevails in England now than at any previous time, and the
recent acquisitions are distinguished not more by their number than by
their intrinsic value. The National Gallery has at last begun to make
its purchases upon a systematic plan, and is endeavoring to form such a
collection as shall exhibit the historic progress of the various schools
of painting. The late additions to it have been of peculiar interest in
this view; including some very admirable pictures by masters whose works
are rare and of real importance. Among them are very noble works of
some of the chief earlier Florentine, Umbrian, and Venetian masters;
especially a beautiful picture by Benozzo Gozzoli, (the Virgin enthroned
with the infant Saviour in her arms and surrounded by Saints,)--a
thoroughly characteristic specimen of Giovanni Bellini, (also a Virgin
holding the Child,) in which the deep, fervent, and tender spirit, the
manly feeling, and the unsurpassed purity of color of this great master
are well shown,--and one of the finest existing pictures of Perugino,
the three lower and principal compartments of an altarpiece painted for
the Certosa at Pavia. We know, indeed, no work by the master of Raphael
to be set above this. Two of the best pictures of Paul Veronese have
also just been added to the National Gallery.

Still more important are the recent private purchases. The Duke of
Northumberland procured