The Irish Industrial Exhibition of 1853: A Detailed Catalogue of Its ...

most gratifying character,—that of an Act being passed by the Legislature for placing the Irish National Gallery on a proper basis, and for securing the necessary steps being taken for giving due effect to the wishes of the subscribers to the Testimonial fund. The inadequacy of the sum collected (about £6,000) to carry out by itself any great special object, and the uncertainty at all times attendant upon voluntary contributions, induced the Government to come forward and coufer on the project that stability which it could not otherwise attain. The founding of a Gallery of the Fine Arts in the Irish metropolis is per se an object deserving of the attention of the Government; but we have also reason to believe that a desire to aid the Dargan Testimonial Committee had no small influence in the determination of the course which has been adopted. At the opening of the Exhibition a title waited Mr. Dargan's acceptance-an offer which he respectfully declined. Although declined, the offer was gratifying, as showing a desire in high places to co-operate with the Irish people in every possible way in paying honour to the man who had proved himself to be a true benefactor of his country; and, failing in the first instance, it is creditable to the Government that so much alacrity should have been shown on an occasion where the self-denial and retiring disposition of Mr. Dargan could not stand in the way of paying what was at once an individual and a national compliment. In no other way could the idea of the Testimonial be carried out so much in accordance with the views and wishes of him who is the object of it, as by making it in some way ancillary to progress; and the Irish Government has come forward in a very handsome manner to place the new Institution on a proper basis. A great National Institution has thus, as it were, grown out of the Exhibition, with which the name of the founder of the Exhibition must be for ever indissolubly connected; and that not merely by statue or inscription, but in the Statute-Book of the country,-the Act of Parliament here referred to making special provision for carrying out the objects of the Dargan Testimonial Committee.

The circumstances which we have here recorded, must, as a matter of course, be eminently gratifying to Mr. Dargan. But while we are far from supposing that he is insensible to the good opinion of his fellow-men, the honours so profusely and, at the same time, so justly accorded to him, do not induce him to deviate in the smallest degree from pursuing the even tenor of his way. He still exhibits the cordiality, unaffected manner, and straightforward character which secured for him hosts of friends in times past, and which, at the present day, obtain for him the respect of all classes of his countrymen,—we say, advisedly, of all classes. A personal enemy he could scarcely have, and, we know, that a political enemy he could not have at all; inasmuch as in a country distracted by political and party strife, he had at all times the good sense to avoid allying himself with any class of politicians, and has hence become a universal favourite. The intervals snatched from the extensive business in which he is still engaged are passed in retirement at his residence Mount Anville, near Dundrum. There he is surrounded by all those enjoyments and luxuries that wealth and a refined taste can command. From that retirement which he prizes so much we have not here presumed to attempt to withdraw the veil. In this brief Memoir we have dealt with Mr. Dargan simply as a public man; and in wishing him all the happiness that can result from a consciousness of a faithful discharge of duty, we feel assured that we but feebly give expression to the earnest aspirations of every Irishman.

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