The collection now under Mr.Doyle's charge was begun only in 1864, and the Government makes it an annual grant of no more than L2500, or about one-half the current price, in these days, of a fine Gainsborough or Sir Joshua! "They manage these things better in France," was evidently the impression of a recent French tourist in Ireland, M.Daryl, whose book I picked up the other day in Paris, for after mentioning three or four of the pictures, and gravely affirming that the existence here of a gallery of Irish portraits proves the passionate devotion of Dublin to Home Rule, he dismisses the collection with the verdict that "_ce ne vaut pas le diable_." Nevertheless it already contains more really good pictures than the Musee either of Lyons or of Marseilles, both of them much larger and wealthier cities than Dublin.

Leaving out the Three Maries of Perugino at Marseilles, and at Lyons the Ascension, which was once the glory of San Pietro di Perugia, the Moses of Paul Veronese, and Palma Giovanni's Flagellation, these two galleries put together cannot match Dublin with its Jan Steen, most characteristic without being coarse, its Terburg, a life-size portrait of the painter's favourite model, a young Flemish gentleman, presented to him as a token of regard, its portrait of a Venetian personage by Giorgione, with a companion portrait by Gian Bellini, its beautiful Italian landscape by Jan Both, its flower-wreathed head of a white bull by Paul Potter, its exquisitely finished "Vocalists" by Cornells Begyn, its admirable portrait of a Dutch gentleman by Murillo, and its two excellent Jacob Ruysdaels.

A good collection is making, too, of original drawings, and engravings, and a special room is devoted to modern Irish art.

I wish the Corcoran Gallery (founded, too, by an Irishman!) were half as worthy of Washington, or the Metropolitan Museum one-tenth part as worthy of New York! The National Gallery in London has loaned some pictures to Dublin, and Mr.Doyle is getting together, from private owners, a most interesting gallery of portraits of men and women famous in connection with Irish history.

The beautiful Gunnings of the last century, the not less beautiful and much more brilliant Sheridans of our own, Burke, Grattan, Tom Moore, Wellington, Curran, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, O'Connell, Peg Woffington, Canning, and Castlereagh, Dean Swift, Laurence Sterne are all here--wits and statesmen, soldiers and belles, rebels and royalists, orators and poets.