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and that, with a view to such legislation, the Trustees of the National Gallery should notify those responsible for the administration of the Chantrey Bequest that they are not in future prepared to accept pictures or sculpture in the selection of which they have had no voice, but for which, irrespective of merit, they are nevertheless expected to provide accommodation. Finally, they are of the opinion that, failing such legislation, the Trustees should withdraw from permanent exhibition such Chantrey pictures as are unworthy, either by placing them in the cellars, or lending them to provincial Galleries.

The last part of the Report deals with administrative reforms, especially with the separation of the administration of the National and Tate Galleries. The present system, by which the Keeper of the Tate Gallery is a subordinate of the Director, and has no official place at the meetings of the Board, which he does not even attend, is far from satisfactory. Moreover, the Tate Gallery has no income of its own; and meetings of the Trustees are never held there. Two alternatives were considered-the total or the partial separation of the administration of the two Galleries; and the Committee, while admitting that under the present system the smaller and younger institution does not get fair play, report in favour of the separation of the administration being partial. They point out that the connexion between the two Galleries must always be a close one, especially as they have already recommended the voluntary exchange of contents, which will, in future, always be going on between them. In these circumstances, they recommend that the administration of the Tate Gallery should be transferred to a new Board of Trustees, to be constituted partly by the Trustees of the National Gallery from their own number, partly from other persons appointed for their special interest in, or knowledge of, modern art; that the Keeper of the Tate Gallery be appointed its Director; and that the meetings of the Board be held at the Tate Gallery. As a consequence, they also consider that, unless the income from the Chantrey Bequest can be placed at the disposal of the new Board, an annual grant should be made to it by the Government.

Important questions are dealt with in connexion with these administrative reforms in regard to the storage, loan, interchange and sale of pictures. The Report advocates strongly an extension of the principle of storage; and the reasons in its favour are cogent. At present, considerations of wall-space dominate the situation. Consequently, the Trustees are often unable to accept a gift or legacy, for want of space, because a sufficient existing representation of the painter already exists, because of the unsuitability of the pictures offered for public exhibition, or because of the secondary rank of the artist. Practically all pictures so refused are permanently lost to the nation. On the other hand, if the principle of storage is accepted, more space is provided for the proper exhibition of the pictures. Others also can be accepted which are of real interest to students and are valuable for the history of Art, but which would, at present, be refused on any of the above grounds. The cost of storage is small and ample space exists in the basements. The pictures exhibited under these conditions could be lent to provincial and other Galleries if desired, and would be in considerable demand for this purpose. On the other hand, as the Committee point out, there would not, under such a system, be the slightest depreciation of the high standard of quality which the Trustees have hitherto endeavoured to maintain, a standard which is perhaps the outstanding feature of the National Gallery Collection. Indeed no single picture that is not in every respect worthy of exhibition would be hung upon the walls of the National Gallery. On the contrary, the standard would be actually raised by withdrawing into storage some of the least good pictures at present exhibited.

In regard to loans, the Committee recommend that the existing provisions, which are governed by the National Gallery Loan Act (1856), should be applied on a greatly extended scale, and be made applicable even to our Colonies and over-seas Dominions. They further suggest that powers of interchange both with the Galleries in the United Kingdom and abroad be simultaneously obtained. The Report lays stress on the fact that many Continental Galleries are lamentably deficient in works by English masters, in which we are very rich,

and illustrates this by the case of Turner, as regards both his oil-paintings and his drawings. On the other hand, foreign Galleries are often as generously supplied with works of their own schools, in which we are seriously lacking. An exchange of superfluities by way of mutual loans for urgent needs would obviously be to the advantage of both countries. What do Frenchmen who cannot come to England know of the work of Turner or Gainsborough? Gainsborough is represented in the Louvre by a still-life picture of doubtful authenticity. We could well spare one or two examples of both these great English painters in exchange for, say, some fine French portraits and genre pictures of the 18th century in which we are found wanting.

What the Report terms the important but complex question of the relation of the Director of the National Gallery to the Trustees is dealt with briefly at the end of the Report; but in Appendix 26 is set out Lord Rosebery's Treasury Minute of 1894, in which the system of an autocratic Director, established on the advice of a select Committee in 1855, was abolished in favour of the system now existing, under which the Board, and not the Director, is responsible for all purchases made. The public will also be able to read for the first time the Trustees' own Resolutions of 1902, placing still further restrictions upon the methods of purchase, together with Lord Carlisle's Memorandum on the subject, criticising the Resolutions of 1902, and advocating a return to the conditions existing prior to the Rosebery Minute. The Report itself points out that a considerable body of outside opinion was in favour of reverting to the older system that prevailed from 1855 to 1894, under which the Director enjoyed almost autonomous powers; and that the Committee themselves were divided in opinion on the matter, two being in favour and two against any change.

ROBERT C. WITT.

PENGE PUBLIC LIBRARY.

PENRE PUBLIC LIBRARY

Art. 4.-IÑES DE CASTRO AND PEDRO OF PORTUGAL.

THE 14th century was the time of Froissart and the Chroniclers. It was the Golden Age of story-telling. To us, who read those stories now, the picture that remains is one of a shadowy plain, half-hidden by drifting mists. The sunshine is bright on the mountain-tops, which rise here and there, crowned by palaces, with castles and fair gardens on their slopes. There in clear light people move. Knights ride out to battle, or go hunting with falcons and hounds. They revel and sing. There are tournaments and much feasting. All these things the writers of the old books loved, naïvely, as children love fairy tales. In that spirit they write their histories of the things which seem important in their eyes, uncritically, redundantly, for the pleasure of the telling. Therefore they are the most human of all historians, though they concern themselves so little with humanity in the wide sense.

It is one of these old true tales of theirs which I should like to tell again, the story of Doña Iñes de Castro, called 'Coello de Garza,' her life, her death, and the events which followed after, as they are related in the book of Fernando Lopes, Grand Chronicler of the Kingdom of Portugal in the latter half of the 14th century. It happened in the reign of Alphonso IV. This king succeeded his father Dinis on the throne of Portugal in the year 1325. A gentle-natured creature Dinis had been, delighting in poetry and music, and comfortable, pleasant things. He had made his palace a centre for the Troubadours, whose day was over in the countries whose glory they had been. In Portugal they found an Indian summer; for the verses written at the court of Dinis have for the last time the real touch of the old singers of Provence.

The King wrote many of the best of them himself. But his wife, his kingdom and his son were vexatious interruptions to his scheme of life. The Queen, the sainted Isabel of Aragon, disapproved of it actively. She disliked her husband's court and all its ways. Finally she built for herself a convent in the valley below the town of Coimbra, and adjoining it a house, in which she could

take refuge sometimes from him and his Troubadours. There she followed her own ways and led her own life austerely, practising her charities and happy among her nuns. She would have been horrified undoubtedly if she could have foreseen that an irony of fortune would make her house the retreat of Iñes de Castro. She died in 1336, ten years later than her husband, for Dinis had ended his cheerful life in 1325. He was mourned by his subjects. His death broke up a circle and ended an era. His minstrels wandered away and found no other home among the courts of Europe. Portugal, under her new King, heard the blasts of trumpets oftener than the music of lutes.

When once King Alphonso had gathered up the reins of government, he drove with a strong hand to the end. Before he came to the throne the Moors had been expelled from Portugal itself, but there was no security that they might not pour across her borders again at any moment, like the sudden waves of an ebbing tide. They were constantly invading Castile. Alphonso, who loved fighting, joyfully sped away to the rescue on these occasions, and he never returned defeated. But it was not until the year 1340 that the work was done. In that year his subjects saw him ride home, carrying the brazen trumpet of Abu Hassam, the leader of the Moors, and heard that he had fought a great battle at Tarifa, and that the enemy were scattered and flying. They never again invaded Castile in any numbers.

The King came back to Portugal and proceeded to try to set his own house in order. It is at this point that his interference in the affairs of Iñes de Castro begins; and, to make it understood, her story must be told from its beginning, long before the King plunges into the midst of it. He played a brutal part in it, but Alphonso was no cultivator of the finer feelings. He differed in this from his father and his son, as well as from his countrymen. King Dinis' delight in poetry and life's gaieties, and the passionate gloomy sentimentality which we shall presently see in King Pedro, were qualities thoroughly Portuguese. This is the reason why the tragedy of Iñes de Castro and Pedro has rooted itself so deeply in the nation's memory, and become encrusted with so much tradition. In these emotions King Alphonso had no

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