The result of this recommendation was to instigate architects and _dilettanti_ to bore an ungrateful public, year after year, with different solutions of the vexed question. A few specimens of them may be amusing. One suggestion was to put a third story on the top of the Greek porticos and columns of the British Museum, and invite the public to climb a hundred stairs to get to the picture gallery; another was to pull down Burlington House, which Sir William Chambers characterizes as “one of the finest pieces of architecture in Europe,” and turn out the Royal Society. The “ring” in Hyde Park, and the inner circle of the Regent’s Park, were in turn recommended as eligible sites for a picture gallery; it was proposed to convert Marlborough House and St James’s Palace into a great National Gallery; also to pull down Kensington Palace—a favourite idea with _The Times_ and “H. B.” My Lord Elcho proposed to build on the site of the Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park, and the Duke of Somerset, when First Commissioner of Works, caused one plan to be prepared for appropriating a part of Kensington Gardens in the Bayswater Road, and a second for erecting a building opposite the Kensington Road. Finally, the House of Commons voted 167,000_l._, and the Prince Consort added to that sum the surplus of the Exhibition of 1851, with which was bought the land opposite and outside Hyde Park, at Kensington Gore,—a site the government had previously commenced negotiations for with the same object, and failed to secure. The House of Commons, however, rejected the plan for removing the National Gallery to this site; and the present conclusion seems to be that the pictures will remain where they are. Is it possible to render the structure in Trafalgar Square suitable for a National Picture Gallery? And, if so, how is this desirable object to be effected? We submit, for the consideration of our readers, a very practical answer to these questions. But first, let us take a view of the extent of the national possessions in pictures. Since the nation acquired the thirty-eight pictures of Mr. Angerstein, its possessions have increased above twenty-five fold: and they would probably have been even much larger, had suitable arrangements been made to exhibit them. To Sir George Beaumont, the Rev. Holwell Carr, Mr. Coningham, and others, the nation is indebted for many fine pictures of the older masters; whilst to Sir John Soane, Mr. Vernon, Mr. Jacob Bell, and Mr. Sheepshanks the country owes its numerous and choice selection of the works of British artists. The collection of his own paintings and drawings bequeathed by the great landscape painter, J. M. W. Turner, would fill a gallery of itself; and in a few years, Chantrey’s bequest of 2,000_l._ a year to buy modern works will come into operation.