But, as yet, there was no National Gallery of Paintings, that was reserved till a latter period, when Government bought the collection of John Julius Angerstein, Esq., in 1824. This formed the nucleus of our magnificent collection. His gallery, at his house in Pall Mall, had long held high rank among the private picture collectors, he having two Murillos, for which he paid 3,500 guineas. The Duke of Bridgewater’s, the Marquis of Lansdowne’s, the two, or rather three, Hopes’, Lord Radstock’s, the Duke of Northumberland’s, the Duke of Devonshire’s, and the Miniatures at Strawberry Hill, were all magnificent collections; whilst Mr. Charles Townley, at his residence in Park Lane, had the finest collection of antique statues and busts, &c., in the world. These are now in the British Museum. [Illustration: DRAWING FROM LIFE AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY—1808.] The principal painters of this decade, although numerous, do not represent a school likely to be perpetuated, although, as we read them, they are well known; many are respectable, two or three are famous. First must come Benjamin West, President of the Royal Academy, who then lived in Newman Street: and, indeed, if we look at the addresses of these old painters, we find them very humble compared with the palatial habitations of some of our modern painters. As a _Master_, West will never live, he was a respectable painter, but even in his own time, was not over belauded. There was James Barry, who was once professor of painting to the Academy, but was deposed, _en plein cours_, because he could, or would, not confine his lectures to their proper subjects, besides being coarse and libellous. This made him hypochondriac, and he, besides, became poor—a position somewhat alleviated by an annuity which was subscribed for him. He died in 1806. His dwelling was in Castle Street, Oxford Street. Henry Fuseli lived in Queen Anne Street, East. His pictures were noted for the extravagance of their conception, and their anatomy; he delighted in painting the horrible, and supernatural, and was, perhaps, seen at his best in his Milton Gallery, which was opened in 1798, and closed July 19, 1800. John Opie made a name, which still lives among collectors, but he never will rank as an Art Master. He owed much of his celebrity to Dr. Wolcott (Peter Pindar), who, an artist himself, tried to bring his _protégé_ into notoriety. He lived in Berner’s Street, Oxford Street, and died in 1807. De Loutherbourg and his imitator, Sir Francis Bourgeois, are hardly worthy of a notice. The latter, certainly, left a collection of pictures to Dulwich Gallery, with £10,000 to keep them in preservation; £2,000 for the repair of the gallery, and a complimentary bequest of £1,000 to the Masters and Fellows of Dulwich College.