columns of Carlton House were to be used up; and true faith in architecture insisted on having porticos, dome, and cupolas; moreover, the building, by no means too large for a National Gallery, was to be shared with the Royal Academy. With such instructions, Mr. Wilkins prepared his plans and estimates. The building was to cost 50,000l., but no architect is to be bound by his estimate; and judging from late instances, the public got well out of this job in having to pay only 76,867l.
The structure was scarcely occupied before it was discovered to be much too small. The National Gallery had no space to display its additional purchases and bequests, and the Royal Academy found itself obliged to close its schools of art whenever its annual exhibition was open. For these inconveniences parliaments and governments have been for nearly twenty years trying to find a remedy. In 1848, Lord John Russell, Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Hume, and others, forming one House of Commons Committee, "after careful deliberation, unanimously concurred in the opinion" that the present National Gallery should be enlarged and improved. In 1850, Lord John Russell, Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Hume, and others, constituting another Commons Committee, reported that they could not "recommend that any expenditure should be at present incurred for the purpose of increasing the accommodation of a National Gallery on the present site," and "were not prepared to state that the preservation of the pictures and convenient access for the purpose of study and improvement of taste would not be better secured in a gallery farther removed from the smoke and dust of London."
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 167,000l., 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
