I will not trust myself to criticise the statues of Napier and Havelock. The figures are poor, and unworthy of the fiery soldier and the Christian hero they misrepresent. They should be in the Abbey. Why has the Abbey grown, like the Court, less receptive than ever? What passport is there into the Abbey, where such strange people sleep, if the conquest of Scinde and the relief of Lucknow will not take a body there. But to return to the National Gallery. Mr. G. Agar-Ellis, afterwards Lord Dover, first proposed a National Gallery in Parliament in 1824; Government having previously purchased thirty-eight pictures from Mr. Angerstein for £57,000. This collection included “The Raising of Lazarus,” by Del Piombo. It is supposed that Michael Angelo, jealous of Raphael’s “Transfiguration,” helped Sebastian in the drawing of his cartoon, which was to be a companion picture for Narbonne Cathedral. It was purchased from the Orleans Gallery for 3500 guineas.[400] In 1825 some pictures were purchased for the Gallery from Mr. Hamlet. These included the “Bacchus and Ariadne” of Titian, for £5000. This golden picture (extolled by Vasari) was painted about 1514 for the Duke of Ferrara. Titian was then in the full vigour of his thirty-seventh year.[401] In the same year “La Vierge au Panier” of Correggio was purchased from Mr. Nieuwenhuy, a picture-dealer, for £3800. It is a late picture, and hurt in cleaning. It was one of the gems of the Madrid Gallery. In 1826, Sir George Beaumont presented sixteen pictures, valued at 7500 guineas. These included one of the finest landscapes of Rubens, “The Chateau,” which originally cost £1500, and Wilkie’s _chef-d’œuvre_, that fine Raphaelesque composition, “The Blind Fiddler.” In 1834 the Rev. William Holwell Carr left the nation thirty-five pictures, including fine specimens of the Caracci, Titian, Luini, Garofalo, Claude, Poussin, and Rubens. Another important donation was that of the great “Peace and War,” bought for £3000 by the Marquis of Stafford, and given to the nation. It was originally presented to Charles I., by Rubens, who gave unto the king not as a painter but as almost a king. The British Institution also gave three esteemed pictures by Reynolds, Gainsborough, and West, and a fine Parmigiano. But the greatest addition to the collection was made in 1834, when £11,500[402] were given for the two great Correggios, the “Ecce Homo” and the “Education of Cupid,” from the Marquis of Londonderry’s collection. To the “Ecce Homo” Pungileoni assigns the date 1520, when the great master was only twenty-six. It once belonged to Murat. The “Education of Cupid,” which once belonged to Charles I., has been a good deal retouched.[403]