u think that the artistic element should govern the archaeological
in the selection?--Yes, and the archaeological in the arrangement.

125. _Dean of St. Paul's._ When you speak of arranging the works of one
master consecutively, would you pay any regard or not to the subjects?
You must be well aware that many painters, for instance, Correggio, and
others, painted very incongruous subjects; would you rather keep them
together than disperse the works of those painters to a certain degree
according to their subjects?--I would most certainly keep them together.
I think it an important feature of the master that he did paint
incongruously, and very possibly the character of each picture would be
better understood by seeing them together; the relations of each are
sometimes essential to be seen.

_Mr. Richmond._ Do you think that the preservation of these works is one
of the first and most important things to be provided for?--It would be
so with me in purchasing a picture. I would pay double the price for it
if I thought it was likely to be destroyed where it was.

In a note you wrote to me the other day, I find this passage: "The Art
of a nation I think one of the most important points of its history, and
a part which, if once destroyed, no history will ever supply the place
of--and the first idea of a National Gallery is, that it should be a
Library of Art, in which the rudest efforts are, in some cases, hardly
less important than the noblest." Is that your opinion?--Perfectly. That
seems somewhat inconsistent with what I have been saying, but I mean
there, the noblest efforts of the time at which they are produced. I
would take the greatest pains to get an example of eleventh century
work, though the painting is perfectly barbarous at that time.

126. You have much to do with the education of the working classes in
Art. As far as you are able to tell us, what is your experience with
regard to their liking and disliking in Art--do comparatively uneducated
persons prefer the Art up to the time of Raphael, or down from the time
of Raphael?--we will take the Bolognese School, or the early Florentine
School--which do you think a working man would feel the greatest
interest in looking at?--I cannot tell you, because my working men would
not be allowed to look at a Bolognese picture; I teach them so much love
of detail, that the moment they see a detail carefully drawn, they are
caught by it. The main thing which has surprised