Witness declines to reply to that inquiry.
He has simply to state hat the document gives
an account of the prices of some of those
pictures which have already been alluded to, with
other information of a startling and bewildering
nature. Witness finds that a certain pairof GUIDOS
mentioned in a former part of his evidence in no
complimentary terms, viz. Susannah and the
Elders, and Lot and his Daughters, were
purchased, the first for £1260 ! and the second for
£1680.! from a certain MR. PENRICE, whom
witness begs to congratulate on his excellent
bargain. It is also revealed by this paper that
a head of a Jewish Rabbi by REMBRANDT,
was bought for £473. 11s.; and a portrait of
a man for £630—a rather long price for a
cleverly-executed portrait of an unknown
gentleman by an unknown painter. The VELASQUEZ
Boar-hunt was purchased at £2200., and
the small representation of the Vision of a
Knight by RAPHAEL, was secured at the high
price of £1050. A more serious waste of
money than, even that recorded in the case
of the two GUIDO pictures succeeds these
purchases; the sum of £787. 10s. having been
handed over to LORD DARTMOUTH for the
miserable little picture of the Temptation of St.
Anthony by CARACCI, a picture nineteen and a
half inches high by thirteen and a half inches
wide, and which, it now appears, had not even
the merit of cheapness to recommend it. In
1851, a portrait of REMBRANDT by himself was
bought for £430. 10s., and a portrait of a man by
VAN EYCK for £365., an unnecessary purchase,
as we already possessed an excellent specimen
of the artist. The portrait of Rembrandt was
a justifiable acquirement, simply from the fact
that a likeness of that master was an interesting
addition to the national collection. Then comes
the SOULT picture, TITIAN'S Tribute Money.
There may have been sufficient public curiosity
about this picture at the time (though witness
doubts it) to have justified the laying out of
£2604. on its purchase. The Franciscan Monk
by ZURBARAN, bought of Louis Philippe for
£265., was not dear at the price: though an
uninteresting work enough, and looking at first
sight more like a sack of potatoes propped up
in a corner than anything else. The Adoration
of the Shepherds by VELASQUEZ, and the
Warrior adoring the Infant Christ, by a disciple of
the BELLINI school, were both well purchased:
though the first cost £2050, and the second £525.

Professor Waghorn remarks, that on the
whole, then, witness is satisfied with the
greater number of the purchases made from the
year 1844 to the year 1853, inclusive?

Witness replies that, with the exception of
the Jewish Rabbi, the TWO GUIDOS (Lot and
his Daughter and Susannah), the Temptation of
St. Anthony, by CARACCI, the portrait by VAN
EYCK, and that by the unknown artist,
purchases which together amount to a sum of
£5496. 1s. —- with these exceptions, he is satisfied.
But he wishes to point out to the Jury how
small sums mount up, and what a large sum
might have been saved by the rejection of the
pictures he has named. He also wishes to ask
Dr. Waghorn whether he does not think that
that sum of £5496. 1s. would not have been so
large as to have offered an irresistible temptation
to the possessors of really fine works by the
old masters on the Continent to part with some
one unmistakably good picture which should
have been an ornament to our National Gallery?

Dr. Waghorn replies, that the possessors of
such works are extremely reluctant to part with
them.

The Eye-witness begs to inquire whether the
attempt has been made with such energy and
address as are thrown into private mercantile
transactions, and whether such sums as he has
just named have been offered?

The learned Professor is not in a position to
answer that question, but will probably do so on
an early day, next century.

Mr. Fudge, in resuming his evidence, refers
to the appearance on the walls of the
National Gallery of some of the most unpopular
pictures that have ever hung there—- pictures
which, if purchased at all, should have been
consigned to a museum rather than a national
gallery; but which would have been still
better housed in the apartments (if he had
any) of their original proprietor, the great
HERR KROGER, of Minden. The Eye-witness
wishes to know what the ghost of Sir George
Beaumont, Dr. Waghorn, and the Jury think is
likely to be the nature of a collection which,
numbering no fewer than sixty-four pictures, is
to be had for the sum of £2800.! or at the rate
of not quite £44. per picture? Was that a
promising purchase? Were pictures sold at £44.
apiece likely to turn out fit works to hang in
the national collection of the richest country
in the world? Truly, this was a cheap lot; but
cheap as it was, it turned out not to be worth
even the small sum that was given for it. The
authorities who bought this lot, seized (as well
they might be) with remorse, determined to sell
above half of (we will suppose) the worst of
them, and thirty-seven of the sixty-four were
thrown once more into the market. This mass
of more than half the purchase fetched only
£249. 8s., or at the rate of not quite £71. per
picture. (Sensation.) The pictures out of this
"lot" which remain are to be seen by any
persons who choose to walk into the National
Gallery. They were " purchased by the Chancellor
of the Exchequer on behalf of the public."
MR. GLADSTONE, who was in office on that
occasion, doubtless acted on the advice of some
friend with a taste for German art.

Professor Waghorn requests at this juncture
that he may not be called upon to listen to any
disparaging remarks on the German School of
Art; the purest, the severest that ever existed;
a school probably beyond the comprehension of
the witness, as it never stooped to solicit by any
ad captandum means the popularity of the masses,
while, for the connoisseur and the initiated critic,
it possessed attractions that were held out by no
other school of any period whatsoever.