twenty persons being found engaged for hours in the way I have mentioned. No man accustomed to reflection can look on the various memorials of remote ages, with which this part of the British Museum abounds, without a deep and hallowed interest. His thoughts at once go back to the eventful periods to which those memorials point. He is struck with the advanced state in which the kindred arts of sculpture and architecture must have been in those days, compared with their state in this enlightened or "march-of-intellect age. The Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans were immeasurably superior to us in all that pertains to the arts in question. Not only do we see innumerable traces of the highly cultivated minds of the architects and artists of those times, in the designs which everywhere, in this part of the Museum, meet our gaze; but, even in a mechanical point of view, we are mere pigmies compared with them. Supposing, in other words, that we possessed the same genius, or that our taste in these matters was equally cultivated with theirs, and that we were consequently capable of conceiving those designs which they carried into execution, we have not the implements by which we could execute such designs. We know of no implements which could make the slightest impression on those extremely hard stones on which they were wont to carve, with admirable taste, such an infinite variety of figures. Fragments of Egyptian monuments surround us while we stand in this room: the architects or scientific men of the present day know of no mechanical power by which the immense blocks of stone, of which these are parts, could have been raised in the air. This is, no doubt, mortifying to our vanity; but still the fact, we fear, must be admitted. But the unbounded admiration with which we cannot help regarding the singularly cultivated taste of the ancients in sculpture and architecture, is not unmingled with feelings of regret that their minds should have been so deplorably debased in other respects. What could be more humiliating to the human mind, than to think that men whose attainments in the respects to which I have referred were so splendid, should yet have had such erroneous ideas on the most momentous of all matters-the matters, namely, which relate to the government of the world, and the great interests of futurity? In this respect the Egyptians, and Greeks, and Romans, in the most brilliant eras of their history, were not a whit above the most savage or the most ignorant heathen nations of the present day. Who can survey the ruins of the magnificent temples of ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, or gaze on the fragments of their triumphs in the art of sculpture, which are scattered about in our National Museum, without feeling the deepest pain? Who can help blushing for poor human nature, when he recollects that the gifted individuals who could conceive and execute such designs, should be devout believers in all the absurdities of their preposterous mythology-should acknowledge from 30,000 to 40,000 gods, and should fall down and worship as deities, birds, beasts, onions, and almost every vegetable or inanimate object which crossed their path? Yet so it was. Such was, in their case, the results to which the light of nature, so much boasted of and magnified in the present day, conducted them. And so it now is, and so it ever will be, in every country and clime unblessed with the light of revelation. No one can look on the antiquities in the British Museum, without feeling a train of reflections arise in his mind as to the changes which have taken place in the world since the periods to which these antiquities point us back. I look on a block of stone richly carved with Egyptian hieroglyphics, and I think of the moral and political vicissitudes, which not only nations, but whole continents, have experienced since the hand that executed those figures was laid in the dust. I look on a fragment of exquisite sculpture, and I think of the numerous events of unutterable importance which have taken place since the bosom of him who formed it ceased to beat. The most momentous of all the transactions the universe ever witnessed, the death of the Redeemer, is one of those events which occurred since that time. What vast and mighty empires have crumbled into dust, leaving no trace of their fame, glory, and power! And nations, which were then sunk to the lowest depths of degradation, being not many removes in point of intelligence above the brute creation, are now the most civilised and powerful on the face of the earth. The Greek and Roman empires, then so glorious and powerful, have for numerous ages been among the things that were; and France and Great Britain, then scarcely known among the countries of the world, may now be said to be the mistresses of the world. And not only have new powers of great moral and political importance since that period started into existence, but we have now an entire world, (America,) then unknown and undreamed of. This, however, is a topic on which I may not dwell. I have thus glanced at the leading departments into which the productions of nature and art contained in the British Museum are sectioned. We see in many of those productions of art remarkable proofs of human ingenuity; but how shall we express ourselves in speaking of the productions of nature, or rather of nature's God, with which the Museum so richly abounds! If the man of devout and intelligent mind cannot walk abroad among the fields-cannot survey inanimate creation, without, as Burns happily expresses it, looking "through nature up to nature's God," how much more impossible were it to behold the vast variety of the Deity's animated works which are exhibited in our National Museum, without being lost in adoration of that Intelligent Power by which they were called into being! What displays of divine wisdom, power, and goodness, are there made! Let the reader only fancy, what in the British Museum he would find to be matter of fact, that he is surrounded with fifty or sixty thousand different species of creatures, all fearfully and wonderfully made, and for every one of whose continued existence due provision was made by the same Providence who breathed into them the breath of life; let the reader only imagine this, and then say, whether the thought be not calculated to overpower every intelligent and virtuous mind. The more scientific and better informed a man is, the more will he see to admire in the structure of every creature before him. It is a touching and deeply affecting though de lightful thought, that not one of those myriads of once living creatures were made in vain, any more than are the existing species which they respectively represent. Each individual had a certain purpose to answer in the great economy of creation; a purpose which, in the vast majority of cases, is hidden from us in our present state, but which shall be fully revealed when the light of a brighter and better world has chased away the clouds and darkness of the present. It is gratifying to know, that if there are men sufficiently thoughtless and undevout to look on the once animated treasures of the British Museum, without feeling one adoring thought ascend to the throne of the great Creator, and Preserver, and Governor of all, there are others who pay repeated visits to this noble Institution for the special purpose of seeing and worshipping the Supreme Being through the medium of his works. Galen was converted from Atheism to Christianity by viewing the wonderful anatomy of the human frame. I cannot refer to individual instances of similar conversions by means of an inspection of the once animated productions exhibited in the British Museum; but I do think it is no great stretch of fancy, or rather no stretch of fancy at all, to suppose that instances of such conversions have taken place. It is gratifying to know that the British Museum is yearly becoming an object of increased attention to the public. The number of persons that visited it in 1823, when a parliamentary report was published, was 153,000. In 1836, another parliamentary report was published, and the number that visited it in the previous year was, in round numbers, 250,000. I have not learned the number that visited it last year, but I am convinced it must have been close on 300,000, if, indeed, it was not greater. On the Monday of the week preceding the late coronation, the astonishing number of 10,000 paid a visit to the Museum. On Monday there is always a greater number of visiters than on any other day; a fact which is to be accounted for from the circumstance of two days intervening between the exhibitions of Friday and Monday, while, between the other days on which the institution is open, there is only an interval of one day. One of the officers has mentioned to me that the average number of visiters per day is now about 2,500. This would give for three days each week 380,000 visiters per annum. The new arrangement made last year, extending the time for which the Museum is to be kept open for the public from ten till seven during the summer months, instead of from ten till four, has tended considerably to increase the number of visiters. The taste for such exhibitions ought to be encouraged and extended, by every possible means, by the legislature. They have a softening and ennobling effect on the minds of all who witness them. If the lower classes could only be made to become partial to such sights, every trace of their fondness for prize-fighting, or anything brutal or barbarous, would speedily be obliterated. In conclusion I have much pleasure in stating, that the administration of the affairs of the British Museum has undergone a very great improvement within the last ten years. The mismanagement in the affairs of the Institution, of which some years ago there were such just grounds of complaint, were principally to be ascribed to the fact of many of the trustees never attending any of the meetings, or in any way discharging the duties of their office. The parliamentary report of 1836, which gently hinted to such individuals that it would not be amiss if they were to resign and make way for noblemen and gentlemen who would make a principle of discharging the duties pertaining to the office of trustee, has had the best effect. Some have resigned, and others, who formerly paid little or no attention to the affairs of the Institution, are now among the most active and efficient of its governors. A visible improvement has taken place within the last two years. Everything is now seen to the best advantage, and new objects of interest and value are being daily added to the collections in the various departments. If the Museum goes on at the same rapid rate of improvement which it has done for the last two years, it will in a very short time compete with any similar institution in Europe. This ought to be with us an object of national ambition; and it is to be hoped that the government and the legislature will enter into the thing with becoming spirit. An average annual grant of 15,000l. or 16,000l., (which is all that has been given for four years past,) for the purpose of adding to the treasures in the natural history department, is altogether unworthy of a great country. The amount ought to be at least 50,000l. The public money could not only not be applied to a better purpose, but no application of it would meet with a more general or cordial approval. MUSEA MORIBUNDA. FROM THE GREEK. WASTE not on me one pitying line; SHAKSPEARE FANCIES.1 No. II. DESDEMONA AND FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS. How shall we compare Desdemona and Mrs. Hemans? To dwell on the good points only of character, affords a much purer pleasure than to enlarge on failings and petty imperfections to which all flesh is heir. Therefore, in alluding to authoresses, we pass over every frailty of which the inquisitive love to hear, making no mention of affectation, self-complacency, envy, jealousy, and other feminine fallings-off, which the gossiping of the day has brought to light. Their poetical and amiable attributes alone render them fit emblems of the women of Shakspeare, who never bestows a fault on any of his heroines. They are not consequently sinless; but we can infer their misdemeanours from circumstances merely, for they are not stated as errors, nor moralised on in mawkish style; and well-chosen incidents, simply sketched by a master-hand, possess many more powers of usefulness than the elaborate lectures of prosing imitators, or the longwinded sermons of fairly-intentioned dullards. In Romeo and Juliet, for instance, we are not in so many words told that Juliet did wrong in marrying without consent of parents, nor that Romeo was faulty in having concealed from the authors of his being the state of his affections, and engagement of his hand; but does not the unhappy consummation of things brought about by their duplicity speak volumes in itself? Many people read the hapless story of Desdemona, believing her only a little lower than the angels while they do so; that is, if they reflect at all on the characters, and not solely on the occurrences of the piece. Yet may not her undutiful conduct to a fond father lead us to anticipate the attendance of misfortunes on her path? And though, as a wife, she is perfect, her untimely end seems scarcely more than the desert of her unfilial behaviour, especially as, at the discovery of her decease, we are informed of Brabantio's death, whose gray hairs her desertion had brought down with sorrow to the grave. She has not even a probibition of Othello's suit to plead in apology: if Brabantio had been previously addressed on the subject, he must, when aroused by Roderigo and Iago, have instantly suspected the truth, instead of, with implicit confidence in his child, at first entirely discrediting their announcement of her defection, and then, without any preconception that the Moor is her chosen one, remaining wholly dependent on their information. The short part of Brabantio is an interesting and affecting one. Such a high opinion has he of his daughter, that, even after he has learned her departure, he cannot blame, he will not suspect her; but 1 Continued from vol. xxii. p. 304. |