It is not long since that we read the question and answer scheme of an examination of a retired village school, consisting of labourers’ children; one of the questions being, “What is chronology?” “What is its derivation?” Answer, “Derived from two Greek words,” &c. Will any one think that children so taught become wiser or better? This may not be an isolated instance. It seems possible that chronology may become rather too fashionable a study, and engage a host of collectors of valueless nothings. The neglected science has certainly some arrears to make up. Some few years ago we were authoritatively told that “History” is nothing but an “old Almanac.” Since which time, History and her sister, Chronology, have been discarded servants—out of place, and glad to pick up a few pence here and there as charwomen, in all sorts of odds and ends of corners, to sweep away time-collected dust and rubbish. Their industry seems likely to be rewarded at last. A few of the old worshippers, taking advantage of this exhaustion of “useful knowledge,” benevolently lend them a helping hand, and are trying to persuade the public that the dust was gold dust, or better than gold dust, and the rubbish a treasure, and advising that it should all be swept in again—and where?—into our National Gallery! and doubtless their next step will be to appoint a Parliamentary Commission, not so much for the purpose of sifting it, as of issuing treatises and lectures upon the value and national importance of this new-old treasure trove. So that the public may look to this, that, instead of having their eyes gratified by the beauties of art, they will be disgusted with its deformities; while their heads will be so stuffed with its history, as to leave no room for a thought of its excellence, or a sentiment to be derived from it. Let not the reader be alarmed at the very mention of the National Gallery. We are not about to inflict upon him the evidence in the Blue Book respecting the picture-cleaning, the doings and misdoings of trustees, the “discrepancies” of opinions and statement of facts, the faults of a system which is inconsistently at once condemned and recommended for continuance, the labyrinth of question and answer leading to no conclusion, the blame here and the flattery there, the unwilling admissions and unreserved condemnations: most people we see are perhaps inclined to believe, in this instance at least, that a “big book is a big evil.” We do not, therefore, intend in this place to reopen the discussion which made the subject of our former papers. The difficulty under which the Commission laboured was visible from the beginning. The trustees had approved of the cleaning. The task of very decidedly condemning this approval was naturally distasteful; therefore, what is too evidently wrong is charged upon a “system,” while the honourable personages are praised and flattered as if they had never had anything to do with it.