How to See the British Museum in Four Visits Part 8

On the fifty-first a rider is represented habited in full armour, with another rider, dismounted, who appears to be rubbing a hurt on his left leg. The two following slabs (52,3) are horses and men;--on the latter, a dismounted man in a flowing robe endeavouring to curb a rearing steed. On the next slab (54) are two hors.e.m.e.n mounted, the one to the right wearing a hat that has a modern appearance, and is similar to those worn by dignitaries of the Greek church at the present time. A fine horse and graceful horseman occur in the right corner of the slab 55,--the action of the horse is finely sculptured.

The remaining sculptures of the western frieze represent figures of mounted and dismounted hors.e.m.e.n, of which the visitor may notice the graceful figures on slab 57 (where the horse is rubbing his leg), and slab 60, where the figure to the right appears to be only preparing to join the procession. Having examined these, the visitor should at once proceed to examine the remarkable points of the

SOUTHERN FRIEZE.

These are numbered from 62 to 90, and reach back to the northern side of the entrance to the saloon. The slabs marked from 62 to 77 consist of hors.e.m.e.n, galloping, often two or three abreast: some with helmets and armour, and others nude; and the slabs marked from 78 to 82 have sculptures of chariots drawn by four horses (mostly) abreast. These, however, present no new points to which it is necessary to draw the visitor's particular attention. The business of the festival, &c., begins to be apparent in the seven last slabs (84-90). Here the victims appear. In the first (85) a bull appears to be giving no little trouble to some attendants, and to be utterly regardless of the solemnity of the occasion. A bull, full of action, is the princ.i.p.al object on the next slab (86): and on the next (87), one appears calmly walking to his doom. Upon the return of the slab (90) is a figure finely executed, supposed to be that of a magistrate surveying the progress of the procession. The sacrificial oxen are said to be masterly representations of the finest specimens of these animals.

Having examined these bas-reliefs, the visitor should at once turn to the groups which occupied central s.p.a.ce in the saloon, and which originally adorned the eastern and western pediments of the Parthenon.

SCULPTURES FROM THE EASTERN PEDIMENT.

These occupy the central s.p.a.ce towards the southern end of the saloon.

The group on the eastern pediment originally represented the birth of Minerva. The visitor will probably be first attracted to the great rec.u.mbent figure marked 93, generally believed to have represented Theseus, the Athenian hero, whose biography opens the series of Plutarch's Lives. The figure is now much mutilated; the nose has been chipped, and the feet are wanting, but still the form reclining on a rock is majestic. Mr. Westmacott, in a lecture, gave his reasons for believing that this statue was meant for Cephalus, of whom Aurora was enamoured, and not Theseus. "This work [the pediment] it must be observed, related to the most remarkable event in Athenian mythology, and was confined only to that event. All the G.o.ds of Olympus were present at the birth of Minerva. Now Theseus was not only not in existence, but was patronised and protected by Minerva; it would seem, therefore, extraordinary that he should be admitted as a witness of her birth. If it is really Theseus, he could only have been introduced by Phidias in compliment to the Athenians; but whether this could on so very sacred an occasion have been allowed, may very reasonably be doubted. Hercules, even the older, or Idaean Hercules, was, upon the same principle, equally inadmissible, the Athenians acknowledging or worshipping no Hercules prior to the son of Alcmene, who was contemporaneous with Theseus, and consequently posterior also to Minerva. Now the mythology of Cephalus is not only in unison with Pausanias, but the admission of that person would in no degree affect the harmony of the Attic types, or principles of Athenian worship.

Cephalus was as celebrated for heroic virtues as for his beauty."

The fragment numbered 91 is part of a figure of Hyperion rising out of the sea. It marked that angle of the pediment to the left of the spectator, and the arms are stretched forward urging his coursers.

Near him are, alas, only the heads of two of his horses (92). The next group that presents itself for notice is that of two sitting figures (94), the one to the left leaning on the right shoulder of the other.

This is a wreck of a group that represented Ceres and her daughter Proserpine on the pediment. Next in succession is a figure full of action (95): this is Iris, the messenger of the G.o.ds, but the particular property of Juno, on her way to carry to remote parts the interesting intelligence of the birth of Minerva. A torso of Victory is placed next in order of succession (96). The figure is now wingless, but holes can be seen which once attached them to the statue. Three Fates, beautifully draped (97), and a head of one of the horses (98) of the chariot of Night which occupied the angle of the pediment on the spectator's right, complete the recovered fragments of the eastern pediment.

Hence the visitor should turn to the fragments from the

WESTERN PEDIMENT.

The subject ill.u.s.trated on the western pediment was the contest between Minerva and Neptune for the honour of giving a name to Athens.

The relics of these sculptures will now engage the visitor's attention. Undoubtedly the first object that will attract his notice will be that numbered 99. This rec.u.mbent figure has a n.o.ble presence even now, headless and otherwise mutilated as it is. Canova stood undecided between this figure and that of Theseus (or Cephalus, according to Mr. Westmacott) as to which was pre-eminently beautiful.

The figure before which the visitor now stands is generally received as the statue of Ilissus, who was the Athenian G.o.d of the river Ilissus, which watered the southern side of the Athenian plain. Others have declared it to be Theseus reposing after his herculean labours, and contemplating the contest between the two deities. Having fully examined this fine sculpture, the visitor should turn to the fragments of the Minerva. A small fragment of the upper part of a face (101) is all that remains of Minerva's head, the holes being still visible by which the G.o.ddess's bronze helmet was fastened to the statue.

Hereabouts, also, is a fragment of the statue (102), and a coil of the serpent that was about the figure (104). The torso marked 100, from the western pediment, is conjectured to be part of a statue that represented Cecrops, the founder of Athens, at the contest. The next fragment is the torso of Neptune (103); and hereabouts is the cast of the group supposed to have originally represented Hercules and Hebe.

The second object, marked 104, is the cast, presented by M. Charles Lenormand, of a head in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris, supposed to belong to one of the statues of the western pediment. A torso of a wingless or Athenian Victory is the next object that demands notice (105): the figure was represented without wings, in token of the inseparability of the G.o.ddess from the Greek capital. Another object is marked 105: this is the head of the Victory; or rather a cast from the original head presented to the trustees by Count de Laborde.

Lastly, of the western pediment sculptures, the visitor will remark the lap of a figure, with a portion of an infant remaining: this ruin is all that is left of Latona and her two children, Diana and Apollo.

Having fully examined these ruins of the Parthenon, the visitor must direct his immediate attention to the remains collected from the ruins of the celebrated

DOUBLE TEMPLE OF THE ERECTHEUM AND PANDROSUS.

The temple of the Erectheum was situated at Athens, less than two hundred feet distant from the Parthenon. It was the temple of Athene Polias, or Minerva and Erectheus; and adjoining it was the chapel of Pandrosus. Philocles of Acharnae was the architect of the building, which Lord Aberdeen, reiterating the opinion of many great authorities, in his "Inquiry into the Principles of Beauty in Grecian Architecture," styles the most perfect known specimen of the Ionic order of architecture. It was built on the spot where Neptune and Minerva are supposed to have contested the honour of naming Athens.

When Lord Elgin visited Athens, the vestibule of the temple was a Turkish powder magazine.

Before examining the few relics from this fine building in the saloon, the visitor should notice the second object, marked 106, which is the cast of a head found during the progress of excavations at Athens, between the ancient gate of the Peloponnesus and the temple of Theseus. Having pa.s.sed from this relic, the visitor will at once examine the architectural relics of different parts of the Erectheum, which are more interesting to the architectural student than to the general visitor. The fragment 109 is the lower portion of a draped female statue; the relic marked 110 is part of the shaft of an Ionic column; the capital of a column, 125, is very beautiful: but the object that will be most attractive to the general visitor is the statue marked 128, known in architecture as a Caryatid, which was used in the temple of Pandrosus instead of columns. Hereabouts also, amid the miscellaneous fragments, the visitor should notice a colossal headless and heavily-draped figure, marked 111. This is the wreck of the great statue of Bacchus which surmounted a monument erected three hundred and twenty years before the Christian era, by Thrasyllus of Deceleia, to record the victory of a tribe at a great festival of Bacchus. This statue has been variously christened. Some believe it to be the fragment of a Niobe; others of a Diana. It is generally allowed to be a n.o.ble sample of Greek sculpture. Hereabouts, also, is the well-known imperfect statue of Icarus (113), brought in fragments from the Acropolis. The urn marked 122 is a sepulchral vessel, with figures in bas-relief; 123 is a sepulchral column, with an Athenian name upon it; and then the visitor will pa.s.s rapidly the fragments of Doric and Ionic columns from various Greek temples. With the casts beginning from 136, the visitor will start with his examination of the fragments from the

TEMPLE OF THESEUS.

When the ashes of Theseus, long after his death, were conveyed in state to Athens, festivals were inst.i.tuted in his honour; and a magnificent temple was erected to his memory nearly five centuries before our era. The sculptures of the temple represented the exploits of Theseus, and of Hercules, with whom Theseus was always on terms of great friendship, and to whom he gave the highest honours his country could afford. The subject of the frieze (which the visitor will find against the eastern wall of the saloon, numbered from 136 to 149), has been variously explained, but is shrewdly conjectured to be the Battle of the Giants, in which Hercules played a prominent part, and in which the giants are said to have hurled rocks at their adversaries, like pebbles. This battle was fought in the presence of divinities, who are represented seated upon slabs (137-8-133-4.) This frieze was on the most conspicuous part of the temple. The frieze that flanked the building was sculptured with the exploits of Theseus; and here the visitor will once more see the battle of the Centaurs and the Lapithae ill.u.s.trated (150-154). The Centaurs hurling huge stones, and wielding the stems of trees; and the invulnerable Coeneus, half crushed by his savage enemies, are again represented. The casts of three metopes (155-157) are from the north side of the temple of Theseus. Upon the first the hero is represented destroying the King of Thebes, Creon; upon the second he is throwing Cercyon, King of Eleusis; and upon the third he is overcoming the Crommyonian sow. "About this time,"

Plutarch tells us, "Crommyon was infested with a wild sow named Phoea, a fierce and formidable creature. This savage he attacked and killed, going out of his way to engage her, and thus displaying an act of voluntary valour: for he believed it equally became a brave man to stand upon his defence against abandoned ruffians, and to seek out and begin the combat with strong and savage animals. But some say that Phoea was an abandoned female robber, who dwelt in Crommyon; that she had the name of 'sow' from her life and manners, and was afterwards slain by Theseus."

A series of bas-reliefs from an Ionic temple, dedicated to the Wingless Victory of Athens, are the next objects that command the general visitor's attention. They are numbered from 158 to 161 successively. Upon these are represented battles between the Greeks and Persians; and maidens leading a sacrificial bull. The fragments marked successively from 165 to 175 are remarkable for the Greek inscriptions on them, which cannot interest the general visitor. Let the visitor, therefore, next pause before the fragment of a frieze in green stone, marked 177, which is from the tomb of Agamemnon at Mycenae. The sculptured scroll-work is of very remote antiquity. The next fragment is a bas-relief, on which a bearded man is represented, pressing a child towards him, and directing its attention to a votive foot which he holds in his hand. Pa.s.sing from this, the visitor may next direct his attention to the fragment of a colossal statue numbered 178. It belongs to one of the pediments of the Parthenon.

Hereabouts are various sepulchral urns and columns of no particular interest to the casual observer;--the circular altar from Delos, ornamented in relief with sacrificial bulls and other subjects. 179 may, however, be noticed, together with the column marked 183, which bears the name of Socrates, son of Socrates, a native of Ancyra, of Galatia. The object marked 186 is a Greek sun-dial found at Athens, of a time not long before the reign of the Emperor Severus. Pa.s.sing other altars and fragments of columns, the visitor should pause on his way, to notice a bas-relief upon which Latona and Diana are sculptured, forming part of a procession (190). The bas-relief numbered 193 is from the theatre of Bacchus: it is a Baccha.n.a.lian group, in which Bacchus is holding forth a vessel to be filled by an attending Bacchante. The next object to be noticed is marked 194, and is a fragment of a head of the G.o.ddess Pasht, surmounted with a crown of serpents. A spirited scene occurs upon bas-relief 197, where a charioteer, heralded by a flying Victory, is represented driving four horses at full speed. A series of urns and votive altars are grouped hereabouts, which the casual visitor may pa.s.s, pausing before the small statue of Ganymede (207); a fragment of a boy supporting a bird on his arm (221); a small figure of Telesphorus, headless, and draped; more sepulchral urns and steles; capitals of Corinthian and Ionic columns; various inscriptions, including a decree of a society of musicians (235); an amphora (238); a female head; a large and small head of a bearded Hercules (243-242); heads and fragments of heads; the base of a statue supposed to have been that of the Minerva of the western pediment of the Parthenon; urns and columns, and stales and inscriptions; a bas-relief showing Health, the daughter of AEsculapius, feeding a serpent; two more bas-reliefs; an inventory of the articles of gold and silver belonging to the Parthenon (282); steles, inscriptions, and columns; fragments of colossal statues, a small statue (headless) of a Muse, 316; fragments of figures from the metopes of the Parthenon; a sculptured oblong vessel, found near the plain of Troy, for containing holy water (324); a mutilated colossal head supposed to represent Nemesis, found in the temple of Nemesis, at Rhamnus (325); a mutilated female statue found also at Rhamnus, in the temple of Themis; fragments of colossal statues, steles, inscriptions, and altars. And hereabouts the visitor should pause once more to examine a consecutive series of sculptures. These are marked from 352 to 360. They are casts from the monument of Lysicrates, erected to celebrate a musical contest about three centuries and a half before our era. This monument is commonly known as the

LANTERN OF DEMOSTHENES.

This name is derived from a story long current, that the monument was built by Demosthenes as a place of retirement. It was in reality a monument erected in honour of Lysicrates, and the musicians or actors who carried off the palm in musical or dramatic entertainments. This monument is interesting as being the oldest existing specimen of the Corinthian order of architecture. The frieze, of which there are specimens before the visitor, represents the story of the revenge Bacchus indulged in towards some Tyrrhenian corsairs, who endeavoured to convey him to Asia to sell him as a slave. It is related that discovering their infamous project, he transformed the masts and oars of the vessel into snakes. The frieze is divided into nine compartments, and the central figure is Bacchus seated with his panther before him, a vessel in his hand, and attendant fauns. The fantastic punishment of the pirates is forcibly depicted. Here one bound to a rock finds the cord changed into a powerful serpent; there men leaping into the sea are already half changed to dolphins; and others are receiving severe castigation. Having examined these curious sculptures, the visitor may rapidly review the rest of the relics which he will care to examine. Pa.s.sing the inscriptions (all interesting to the antiquarian), the votive altars, and other fragments, he may halt here and there before various interesting bas-reliefs. Among these are a bas-relief representing Vesta and Minerva crowning a young man (375); a bas-relief of Jupiter and Juno; a bas-relief representing a sacrifice before an altar (380); an imperfect bas-relief representing three G.o.ddesses (383); a lion's head from the roof of the Parthenon (393); a fragment from Mantell's collection, of a female figure found on the plains of Marathon (397); the upper part of a female figure, in bas-relief, from Athens (419); two women and a child making offerings found in Laconia (430); another bas-relief from Laconia (431); a curious subject in bas-relief from Athens, representing the upper part of a youth holding something, supposed to be a lantern, with a boy near him, and a cat on a column (432); a cast from a tablet representing in bas-relief Pan seated on a rock with a draped nymph, supposed to be Echo, before him (433); a cast of the tablet of Euthydia, daughter of Diogenes, who is taking leave of friends (435); and lastly, a bas-relief representing the shape of a shield, on which the names of the _ephebi_ of Athens, under Alcamenes, are inscribed. This is said to have belonged originally to the Parthenon. And here the visitor will close his inspection of the Elgin Saloon. That he will return to these fine relics of the old Greeks, if he have the opportunity, is certain. He may come again and again, and each time gain something in the contemplation of these cla.s.sical models; n.o.ble thoughts before the masterly figure of Theseus, a keen sense of beauty near the beautiful forms of the Parthenon frieze. Of all the glorious monuments of antiquity that have reached us of the proud nineteenth century, none have so n.o.ble a significance as the broken marbles collected in this room. The contemplative man, seeing their perfect beauties, asks himself in their presence many puzzling questions. But perhaps the first that rises in the mind is wonder at the contrast between the development of art and the poorness of science in this splendid antiquity. No steam then to wield the hammer; only the most limited knowledge of the earth: the west an indescribable region of harmony and glory; the world a flat surface; fearful mariners hugging the sh.o.r.e close at home, and trusting to the stars; and England a savage place where wolves rent the air at night; and a heathen mythology the faith of the most civilised people of the earth. Under these barbarous circ.u.mstances, the poetry that dwells in the heart of all people who cultivate some affinity to nature, fashioned the mould of a Phidias for the people of Athens. A man with a stern soul, an eye large and grand, a frame built to realise the soul's tasks--we see this Phidias of the Greeks as he hovered about the foundations of the Parthenon, when the name of Pericles was every Greek's watchword, four centuries and a half before our Christian era. The man appears to have been of colossal parts in every way. Versed in history, a poet given to study fables (as all poets are), keen in sifting the subtleties of geometry, a pa.s.sionate reader of Homer; this was indeed the sculptor of the G.o.ds! Of the high estimation in which the sculptures of the Parthenon should be held, it is superfluous to say more than all writers on art have agreed in saying. Here we have master-pieces, beyond which the sculptors of the many ages that have pa.s.sed away since Phidias laboured at his Jupiter in the Olympian grove have never reached. High praise this to say of a man who has been twenty-two centuries in his grave, that he accomplished in the utmost perfection those ideals to which his imitators have vainly aspired. It appears that Phidias had his troubles, knew the force of a frown from men in power, and in exile produced his master-piece. Whether he died in disgrace and by foul means are points upon which the dust of ages has settled for ever. We know thus much of him and no more. But the visitor who has probably been more impressed with the contents of the Elgin Saloon than with the ma.s.sive coa.r.s.eness of the Egyptian antiquities, will be glad to hear a few general words--an authoritative summing up of the matter from a pen more clearly authorised to touch the subject than ours can be. A brief summary, a terse description, a.n.a.lytical and picturesque, of a field of speculation or a region of wonder, systematises the spectator's impression, and with the view of fastening the proper contemplation of these master-pieces upon the visitor's mind, we quote a few pointed sentences on the sculptures of the Elgin Saloon, from the pen of Sir Henry Ellis.

"These marbles, chiefly ornamental, belong to one edifice dedicated to the guardian deity of the city, raised at the time of the greatest political power of the state, when all the arts which contribute to humanise life were developing their beneficial influence. Many of the writers of Athens, whose works are the daily textbooks of our schools, saw in their original perfection the mutilated marbles which we still cherish and admire. The Elgin collection has presented us with the external and material forms, in which the art of Phidias gave life and reality to the beautiful mythi which veiled the origin of his native city, and perpetuated in groups of matchless simplicity the ceremonies of the great national festival. The lover of beauty and the friend of Grecian learning will here find a living comment on what he reads; and as in the best and severest models of antiquity we always discover something new to admire, so here we find fresh beauties at every visit, and learn how infinite in variety are simplicity and truth, and how every deviation from these principles produces sameness and satiety. It is but just that those who feel the value of this collection should pay a tribute of thanks to the n.o.bleman to whose exertions the nation is indebted for it; and the more so as he was made the object of vulgar abuse by many pretended admirers of ancient learning. If Lord Elgin had not removed these marbles, there is no doubt that many of them would long since have been totally destroyed; and it was only after great hesitation, and a certain knowledge that they were daily suffering more and more from brutal ignorance and barbarism, that he could prevail on himself to employ the power he had obtained to remove them to England. These marbles may be considered in two ways; first, as mere specimens of sculpture; and secondly, as forming part of the history of a people. As specimens of sculpture they serve as excellent studies to young artists, whose taste is formed and chastened by the simplicity and truth of the models presented to them. The advantage of studying the ancients in this department of art rests pretty nearly on the same grounds as those which may be given for our study of their written models. Modern times produce excellence in every department of human industry, and our knowledge of nature, the result of continued acc.u.mulations, needs not now the limited experience of former ages. The sciences founded on demonstration, though they may trace their origin to the writings of the Greeks, have advanced to a state in which nothing would be gained by constantly recurring to the ancient condition of knowledge. But it is not so with those arts which belong to the province of design; they require a different discipline, and the faculties which they employ may have received a more complete development two thousand years ago, under favourable circ.u.mstances, than they have now. Their perfection depends on circ.u.mstances over which we have little control: they cannot, in our opinion, ever become essentially popular in any country but one where the climate favours an out-of-door life, and where they are intimately blended in the service of religion. If then a nation has existed whose physical organisation, whose climate, and whose religion all combined to develop the principles of beauty, and taught man to choose from nature those forms and combinations which give the highest and most lasting pleasure, we of the present day who do not possess these advantages must follow those who were the first true interpreters of nature. Their models possess the advantage of being fixed; for without some standard universally admitted, we should run into all the extravagances of conceit and affectation.

"No work of the present time is ever universally admitted as an indisputable standard. It is only when time has placed an interval between the present and the past, wide enough to destroy all the rivalries of compet.i.tion; that great works receive the full acknowledgments of their merits, and become standards to which we all appeal. Thus in the art of writing our own language, we refer to the best models of past instead of to the works of our own days; and our youth at school are chiefly trained on the written models of Greece and Home, instead of those of our own country. The advantage of this consists in having before us examples which all appeal to, not because we contend that they are in all respects the best, but because they were the best of their day, and being written in a language no longer subject to change, may be taken as an universal standard by which all civilised nations may measure their thoughts and the mode of expressing them. The frieze of the Parthenon and the dramas of Sophocles, the forms of the marble and the conceptions of the great poet, still speak to our imagination and our understanding: we recognise, in both, the beauty of proportion, the simplicity and truth of design; and we all a.s.sent to a standard which we feel to be in harmony with nature, and to which all nations will yield a more ready obedience than to any other that we can name.

"Though the artist and the student may examine the sculptures of the Parthenon with somewhat different views, their studies are more nearly allied than is generally supposed. The artist who looks at them merely as delineations of form, without reference to the ideas which gave them their existence, loses half the pleasure and the profit; and the student who merely names and catalogues them, without connecting them with the written monuments of Grecian genius, that is with the ill.u.s.tration of ancient texts, is also pursuing a barren study."

And now the visitor's way lies through the sculpture galleries, back to the grand entrance. He has accomplished the labour of examining all that is exhibited to the public generally of the contents of the national museum. He may wander into the eastern wing of the building (if it be open to the general visitor), and through the northern, where the vast library of printed books and ma.n.u.scripts are deposited; but these are only accessible to the public under special regulations.

This remark is applicable also to the print-room.

The visitor, however, cannot leave the British Museum, having wandered over it and examined its various curiosities, without getting something from his journey. It is full of suggestive matter, which, with a little direction, may be turned to useful account by large cla.s.ses of the people. It affords glimpses into the mysteries of the Animal Kingdom, with all its varieties, its wonders, its traceable progresses, its past and extinct forms, its promises of future developments. Then the mineralogical galleries afford the general visitor a peep at the formations of the earth; the various developments of minerals; the natural state of ores and stones which most men see only in their manufactured state. From the mineralogical tables the visitor stepped aside to examine the wondrous revelations of extinct animal life recovered from the bowels of the earth; he saw the colossal megatherium, the towering mastodon, and the great Irish elk. He understood something of the progress of animal life, from the fishes and the saurians. Then he pa.s.sed into the Egyptian room, and found himself surrounded with the preserved bodies of the ancient Egyptians; he examined their household G.o.ds; he pried into their coffins; he saw their food; he was familiarised with their apparel.

Still proceeding onward, he came to the beautiful bronzes; and then he saw the wonders that the ancient tombs of Etruria disgorged. He still advanced in the galleries, till he came to a room that was a little museum in itself--an exhibition of the curious industries of many different countries. Here were Buddhist temples; Chinese chopsticks; marvels from savage islands; a tortoise-sh.e.l.l bonnet; a Chinese bell;--in short, a room packed from the ceiling to the floor with a compact ma.s.s of curiosities. And then he left the upper floor of the building, after having spent two days there, through two towering cameleopards. He came a third time, and at once pa.s.sing many things that tempted him by the way, he pa.s.sed on into the great and wonderful Egyptian Saloon. Here he lingered for hours over ancient Egyptian tombstones; before colossal sarcophagi; thinking of the tough work Belzoni must have had of it with the young Memnon; endeavouring to realise the approach to the ancient Egyptian temples through rows of colossal and majestic sphinxes. Next he pa.s.sed on to the ruins of Nineveh, and its mystic mounds. Here he was with Layard for a time, dreaming of the ancient a.s.syrians and their winged bulls. Hence he pa.s.sed into the Lycian room, and saw something of the strange remains of the Xanthus of old; and then, probably, he went home to dream of these great marvels of the times gone by. But he came again; and this time hovered throughout the day amid the ruins of the arts of ancient Greece. And now he has examined these; and he may leave the national museum, a.s.sured that he has some useful knowledge of the curiosities which scientific men have gathered from the remote parts of the world, for the benefit of the learned resident in England.

The tens of thousands who flock to the museum in holiday times prove its attractions; and it is with the hope that these attractions may be enhanced by the help of a methodical and homely guide, chattering to the visitor various bits and sc.r.a.ps of pertinent information as he pa.s.ses from one object to another, that these four visits have been presented to the public. They do not pretend to be scientific books, but simply companions of the hour, that urge little points of information while the mind is particularly impressible; and showing the kind of interest that attaches to objects which, for the want of a timely word, the visitor would have pa.s.sed unnoticed.

Many objects which are curiosities to the scientific man, but which could not in any way interest the casual visitor, have been pa.s.sed by without hesitation.

Our main object has been to give the visitor clear impressions of the different departments or cla.s.ses into which the national collection naturally divides itself, by guiding his eye consecutively to those objects which bear relation to each other. It was necessary, to make ourselves attractive as guides, to eschew all learned and stiff formalities; to cla.s.s matters easily as we found them; and to sustain the visitor's interest throughout his four journeys. The monotony of a formal catalogue is repulsive to visitors chiefly bent upon enjoying a few hours amus.e.m.e.nt; therefore we chose to direct the eye to objects, and at once to interest the visitor in them, by shortly explaining their points of interest. The success which this endeavour met elsewhere has encouraged us to perform the present task; and we hope shortly to be at the elbow of visitors to other interesting buildings and exhibitions.

The popularity of the British Museum may be shown by quoting the last return of the number of visitors, &c., presented to the House of Commons. This return proves that, while the public interest in the collection is on the increase, that the guardians of the different departments look out eagerly for new curiosities:--"The number of readers--or rather of visits made by readers, in 1850, was 78,533:--or, an average of some 268 per diem:--the Reading Rooms having been kept open 291 days. The number of books returned to the shelves of the General Library from the Reading Rooms was 119,093; to those of the Royal Library, 11,252; to those of the Grenville Library, 387: to the closets in which the books are kept from day to day for the use of the readers, 110,950:--making a total of 241,682, or 830 per diem. The number of volumes added to the Library amounts to 16,208 (including music, maps, and newspapers); of which 837 were presented, 11,793 purchased, and 3575 received by copyright. The Keeper of the MSS. has been busy cleaning, cataloguing, and stamping. Eleven of the valuable Cottonian MSS. on vellum (including the Chronicle of Roger de Wendover, supposed to have been utterly destroyed), and two Old Royal as well as five Cottonian on paper, all injured in the fire of 1731, have been carefully repaired, inlaid, and rebound. The purchases include a Psalter of the tenth century, formerly belonging to the monastery of Stavelot, in the diocese of Liege,--'a remarkably fine Greek MS.' containing the works ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite,--and the Homilies of Gregory of n.a.z.ianzum, 'with scholia written in the year 6480 (A.D. 972);'--together with nineteen additional volumes of a series of transcripts from the Archives at the Hague, of doc.u.ments relating to English history, extending from 1588 to 1614 and from 1689 to 1702.--In the 'Department of Natural History,' we find that great progress has been made in the arrangement of the contents of Room No. VI.,--its wall cases having been entirely filled with the gigantic Osseous Remains of Edentata and Pachydermata, and that the Central Room of the Northern Zoological Gallery has been devoted to a collection of the Beasts, Birds, Fish, Reptiles, Sh.e.l.ls, Sea Eggs, Starfish, and Corals found in the British Islands. The purchases include 'a silver decadrachm of Alexander the Great,' from the collection of Colonel Rawlinson,--the first ever discovered,--'and two very rare British _gold_ coins, having on them the name TIN.'"

THE END.

NOTES

[1: Undoubtedly the finest coral is dredged from the Mediterranean; it is an important article of commerce at Ma.r.s.eilles.]

[2: "The shrikes, or butcher-birds (_laniadae_), are a numerous and widely-diffused a.s.semblage, living upon the smaller birds and insects; the former of which the shrike sticks, when killed, upon thorns, as a butcher hangs up meat in his stall; hence the name of the genus."--_Vestiges of Creation_.]

[3: Vestiges of Creation.]

[4: These birds build in the crevices of precipitous rocks, and tho female lines the nest with the down plucked from her breast. From these nests natives rob the down and sell it.]

[5: Vestiges of Creation.]

[6: "Oxides are neutral compounds, containing oxygen in equivalent proportions."--_Dr. Ure_.]

[7: Sesquicarbonate of soda that is found in the west of the Delta. In Mexico there are several natron lakes.]

[8: The cuneiform character, which was used in every part of Asia Minor, up to the time of Alexander the Great, consists of a series of wedges or accents variously combined, as, [Cuneiform: *** **]].

[9: A Metope may be described as the intermediate s.p.a.ce in a Doric frieze, between two triglyphs, or separating grooves.]