The late Lord Revelstoke probably possessed the finest set of green Sèvres vases in existence; these, seven in number, were sold to the late Baron Nathaniel Rothschild of Vienna. Whilst in the Wallace Collection England possesses a superlatively excellent collection of French furniture, the finest English furniture of the eighteenth-century period is only to be found in the hands of private collectors. It is much to be deplored that the Victoria and Albert Museum contains no thoroughly representative collection of old English furniture. True is it that a certain number of good examples are to be seen there, but these are more or less scattered about, no special section existing to show the evolution of style from Elizabethan times to the end of the eighteenth century. This is the more to be regretted, as an assemblage of the best work of English cabinetmakers such as Chippendale, Sheraton, Hepplewhite, and others, could not fail to have an admirable educational effect upon public taste, especially were it displayed in rooms decorated in the style of their epoch. Mr. James Orrock, so well known as a fine judge of old English furniture, once attacked Mr. Gladstone upon this subject. He had long been anxious to place before that great statesman a scheme to erect a National Gallery of British Art on a site behind the great collection in Trafalgar Square, in a position quite secure from all danger of fire, his idea being that such a building should contain selected pictures from the National Gallery, from the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Museum—in fact, from each of the National Collections. In addition to this, adequate space was to be allotted to a permanent exhibition of Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Queen Anne furniture, and rooms set aside to contain the best work of Chippendale, Sheraton, and other great English cabinetmakers. Introduced to Mr. Gladstone by Sir William Agnew, Mr. Orrock at once commenced his attack, pointing out the extreme desirability, and even the necessity, of the creation of what would be a temple of British art. He added that the encouragement to collectors to give and bequeath valuable works to such an institution could not fail to have its effect, whilst the historical and educational value of the collection must obviously be enormous. Mr. Gladstone listened to all this in the most earnest manner, and cordially agreed that the idea was in every way most admirable. His opportunity appearing to have now really come, Mr. Orrock went on to point out that the cost of a building such as he proposed would most certainly be not more than half the sum expended upon the construction of a battleship. In reply to which Mr. Gladstone, after a remark as to the deplorable necessity of expending money upon such dreadful engines of destruction, said, “But, Mr. Orrock, you forget I am not now in power”; to which the latter very cleverly replied, “Mr. Gladstone, you are always in power.”