time of war. Another measure of protection which is immediately practicable is the strengthening of the Committee of Imperial Defence on the financial side.

This Committee is an advisory and not an executive body. Its primary business is to study and determine what is the best provision that can from time to time be made for the naval and military requirements of the Empire as a whole. In theory, it sits purely to advise the Prime Minister. He nominates its members and can add to or diminish the number at his own will, and in accordance with the particular problems which for the time being demand investigation. The Committee consists of six Cabinet Ministers in addition to the Prime Minister, namely, the four Secretaries of State (exclusive of the Home Secretary), the First Lord of the Admiralty, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It includes also the First Sea Lord and the Director of Naval Intelligence, as representing the Navy; and, as representing the Army, the Chief of the General Staff, the Director of Military Operations, and the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief in the Mediterranean. In addition to these official members the Committee has the services and co-operation of the Inspector-General of the Forces (Sir John French), of Lord Esher, and Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher. The most striking feature in the constitution of the Committee is the absence of any representatives of the banking, commercial, and shipping interests of the Empire. Considering the importance of these interests, and their intimate connexion with matters of peace and war, it would surely not weaken the influence and authority of the Committee if the Prime Minister invited, say, the President of the Institute of Bankers, the President of the Associated Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom, and the President of the Chamber of Shipping, to attend the deliberations of a body which is primarily responsible for the defence of the Empire. EDGAR CRAMMOND.

Art. 2.-FOUR GREAT COLLECTIONS.

1. The Royal Collection of Paintings at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle. With an introduction and descriptive text by Lionel Cust. 2 vols. London: Heinemann, 1905-06.

2. Wilton House Pictures. With an introduction by Sidney Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, and a history of Wilton House and other matters by Captain Nevile R. Wilkinson. 2 vols. London: Chiswick Press, 1907. 3. Catalogue of the Pictures in the Collection of the Earl of Radnor. By Helen Matilda, Countess of Radnor, and William Barclay Squire, with a preface by Jacob, sixth Earl of Radnor. 2 vols. London: Chiswick Press, 1909.

4. The Mond Collection, an Appreciation. By J. P. Richter, Ph.D. 2 vols. London: Murray, 1910. BEFORE the days of photography few illustrated catalogues of great collections of paintings were published. In recent years, however, the new means placed at our disposal permit even sale-catalogues to be splendidly illustrated. Catalogues of the great collections have been issued in a fairly steady stream during recent years. The Kann and Martin Le Roy collections in France, the Kaufmann and Lutzschina collections in Germany, the Widener and Elkins collections in America, the Crespi Gallery at Milan, are some of those in foreign countries which have thus been put on record and rendered accessible to students. In this enterprise England has not been behindhand. The Wantage collection was thus published in 1905; a catalogue of the Northbrook collection was edited by Mr W. H. James Weale; two splendid volumes illustrating selected pictures at Windsor and Buckingham Palace were issued in 1906 at the command of King Edward; complete catalogues of the Wilton House and Longford Castle Galleries were published in 1907 and 1909; and now Dr Richter has poured forth his stores of erudition in an illustrated account of the Mond collection.

To produce a really valuable catalogue of this kind is no easy matter, altogether apart from the question of the illustrations. It should be a work of ripe scholarship;

and ripe scholars who have leisure for such prolonged and discursive investigations are none too numerous. To Mr Lionel Cust, Surveyor of the King's Pictures, naturally fell the task of preparing the text for the volumes on Buckingham Palace and Windsor. He was familiar with the pictures themselves and had had repeated opportunities of discussing the various related problems, artistic and historical, with the many students, English and foreign, who had made acquaintance with the collections under his guidance. The Wilton House catalogue was written by Captain Nevile Wilkinson, now Ulster King at Arms, whose family connexion with their owner not only gave him access to all the papers relating to the formation of the gallery, but had, of course, rendered him familiar with the works themselves. He also was able to avail himself of the help of many other experts of various countries; and, being himself free from prejudice, he thus produced the very complete and scholarly work now under review. His volumes, moreover, besides being finely printed at the Chiswick Press, are adorned with a tasteful set of headings, tailpieces, and initials of his own design, many of them aptly and entertainingly heraldic. The Longford Castle gallery is described by Helen Countess of Radnor and Mr Barclay Squire. It may be assumed that the domestic history of the various works and the details of family history recorded in connexion with the portraits are contributions by Lady Radnor, whilst researches into authorship and the like were Mr Squire's share. In this task he was aided by a valuable series of articles on the subject in The Art Journal' from the pen of Mr Claude Phillips.

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The King's pictures are arranged according to schools, one volume being devoted to Buckingham Palace, the other to Windsor. Captain Wilkinson has chosen an alphabetical order under the names of the artists. More convenient and lucid is the order adopted for Longford, where the family portraits are separated from the other pictures and arranged in chronological order, so that the volume containing them forms a richly illustrated family history which can be read with interest quite apart from the artistic value of the works described. The Mond catalogue has another character of its own, the collec

tion itself having been formed on a definite scheme and within a few years' span by the scholar who describes it. The first three catalogues are, and are intended primarily to be, books finely and profusely illustrated. A word, therefore, must first be said about their illustrations. Those of the King's pictures done by the 'Rembrandt' process are certainly the most brilliant; indeed it would scarcely be possible to surpass them as veracious translations of coloured paintings into black and white. But this process is best suited for use where a considerable number of impressions is required; and only so large a sale as might reasonably be expected for a royal collection of national importance could surely warrant the expense of such a publication as this. The Wilton and Longford catalogues contain photogravures of good quality, though here and there a plate leaves something to be desired. On the whole, however, there is much to be thankful for and little to complain of, so that a sense of gratitude will abide toward the noble owners who have so spiritedly placed their possessions within reach of all lovers of art. The French photogravures in the Mond catalogue are not so good.

The King's pictures form, in fact, a single collection, whether housed at Buckingham Palace, Windsor, Hampton Court, Holyrood, St James's Palace, Kensington Palace, or Osborne House. After the death of Queen Victoria many of them were moved from one of these places to another in the wisely considered redistribution ordered by King Edward. During this process a number of important works came to light and were given honourable positions, whilst others of minor or negative merit received the treatment they deserved.

The history of the collection is briefly set forth in Mr Cust's introduction. It begins with the pictures belonging to the Crown so far back as the days of Henry VIII, very few of which have survived. Numerous portraits and other pictures were acquired by the later Tudor Sovereigns, but singularly few of them were of much merit. The first royal collector of taste and discernment was Henry Prince of Wales; his pictures formed the foundation of the marvellous assemblage of works of art brought together by Charles I and dispersed by Cromwell. The story of that dispersion is well

known; but Mr Cust gives prominence to a fact generally forgotten, namely, that the Commonwealth, if it inherited the King's treasures, was likewise responsible for his and the Queen's heavy debts, with an empty treasury to pay them. The collections were therefore sold, and for a sum equivalent nowadays to about a million sterling. It was an unmitigated disaster to this country, as events have proved. To-day the Louvre, the Prado, the Vienna Gallery and other great foreign collections boast amongst their greatest gems pictures which once belonged to the English Crown. A considerable number of the less important works were brought together again by Charles II, but those of greatest value were gone for ever. A further misfortune overtook the collection in the days of William III. He removed to his palace in Holland several fine pictures belonging to the English Crown, and on his death the Dutch Government refused to give them up. Fires at Whitehall and in other English palaces took heavy toll from time to time; but, of course, acquisition was always going on to make good the waste. It was not, however, till the days of George IV that systematic collecting of beautiful things for the sake of their beauty, and not merely as personal records, once more set in. Both as Prince of Wales and as King he was a wise and successful, though also an extravagant, collector. Further important additions to the library and collections were made by the Prince Consort, and they now practically remain as he left them.

Mr Cust's volumes on the Buckingham Palace and Windsor pictures are not complete catalogues but merely a series of reproductions of selected pictures, in all 180 in number, accompanied by a critical and explanatory text. The selected works of the British school contain several modern paintings which need no further mention here. Beginning, then, with the Van Dycks, which are all at Windsor, we are brought at once face to face with Charles I and his family. Here is the family group painted in 1632, shortly after Van Dyck's arrival in England; here also is the King on horseback, done in the following year and so frequently copied; here is the King in robes of state of 1636, as well as the bust in three positions painted to be sent to Bernini as the model for that sculptor to work from.