THE BRITISH MUSEUM AND NATIONAL GALLERY.
ON Great Russell street, Bloomsbury square, is the British Museum, one
of the chief glories of the English metropolis, and an institution of
which every Londoner is deservedly proud. There is, perhaps, no finer
collection of curiosities and antiquities, and the nation has been
for a century gathering the tributes of Science, Art, and Antiquity
together in this vast building, which covers, with grounds and
outbuildings, an area of seven acres.
The first purchase for the collection was made in 1750, when Sir Hans
Sloane, a great collector and scientific man, died, leaving a will, in
which he suggested that his collection which cost him £50,000 should be
bought by Parliament for £20,000. This offer was accepted, and an act
was passed purchasing Sir Hans Sloane's "library of books, drawings,
manuscripts, prints, medals, seals, cameos, and intaglios, precious
stones, agates, jaspers, vessels of agate, crystals, mathematical
instruments, pictures, &c." Thus was laid the first foundation of the
now world famous British Museum. By the same act a purchase was made of
the Harleian Library of about 7,000 rare volumes of rolls, charters,
and manuscripts, to which were added the Cottonian Library, and the
library of Major Arthur Edwards. A lottery was devised, from which
£100,000 was realized, and the collections were paid for from this
fund, as well as the sum of £10,250 which was paid to Lord Halifax for
Montague House, in which the museum was then located, and on which
site the present building has been erected. The additional sum of
£12,873 was paid for the repairs of Montague House, and a fund was also
set apart for its taxes, salaries of officers, and Trustees, who were
chosen from the best and noblest in the land, and in 1759 the Museum
was opened to the public.
[Sidenote: THE READING ROOM AND ITS OCCUPANTS.]
The present lofty and imposing building was thirty years in
construction, although the Museum was all that time open to the public,
the building being erected piecemeal. The main buildings form a
quadrangle with spacious and lofty galleries and courts. The entrances
to the buildings are by magnificent staircases of stone, and the
portico is adorned with giant figures and groups of sculpture.
Even in the old Egyptian days, no greater masses of stone were ever
used than those which have been placed in the grand flight of steps
of the main facade. There are twelve stone steps, 120 feet in width,
terminating with pedestals, on which are the groups of sculpture. There
are 800 huge stones in the edifice, weighing from five to nine tons
each.
In the pediment, on the main front, are typified in storied stone,
Man, Religion, Paganism, Music, the Drama, Poetry, the Patriarchs,
Civilization, Science, Mathematics, and other allegorical figures. The
entire buildings have cost upward of £1,000,000. The principal doorway
is really majestic, being twenty-four feet high and ten feet wide.
The Reading-Room of the Library contains 1,250,000 cubic feet of space,
the dome being 140 feet in diameter and 106 feet high. In this vast
room an echo is heard like the sound of a trumpet, and on its shelves,
and in contiguous alcoves, are 800,000 volumes of books upon every
known subject and in every known language. This room cost £150,000.
4,200 tons of iron were used in the construction of the dome alone.
There is accommodation for 300 readers, each person having a desk and
table in a space of four feet three inches.
There is a great silence in this vast room where every one seems bent
on study. The very doorkeepers who take your hat and umbrella, have a
studious look. Every visitor presents his ticket of admission, and is
registered for the benefit of the statistics of the Kingdom. Scores of
men who have a taste for literature and reading, and no money to buy
books, come here, and, during lunch-hours, those who are anxious to
study, and do not wish to leave their seats, may be seen taking from
under their tables light luncheons, kidney-pies, and sandwiches, of
which they partake with that peculiar shamefacedness which is always
observable in people who eat in public places.
There is a member of Parliament in his natty suit, and with a heavy
watch-chain, who has gotten him down an old rusty tome, from which he
is cramming with great earnestness for the next debate. Last night he
had never heard of the subject of which he is reading, and just now he
is full of it, and so puzzled with the wealth of the material before
him that he does not know at which end to begin.
There is an old gentleman, in threadbare clothes, and worn cuffs, who
has a very mild and placid face, and blue bulbous eyes. The table
before him is strewn with old, worn volumes, bound with parchment and
sheep-skin covers, and every time he turns a leaf a cloud of powdered
dust ascends to his nostrils, and he is nearly suffocated. It is easy
to see from this man's soft and fixed look that he is a monomaniac upon
some subject, and that he is now settled for the day. Ah! what a sigh
of relief from the old codger. He has, after great trouble, secured in
his mind the point in dispute, and now he is at work rapidly scratching
away at his notes. Looking over his shoulder I can see that the old
fellow has a number of works on the subject of Heraldry before him, and
he is, of course, tracing some mystic pedigree to the Flood, or further
back, perhaps for the satisfaction of a butcher or tailor who may be in
want of an escutcheon and a bar sinister in his shield.
In 1827, Sir Joseph Banks presented his botanical collection, and
66,000 valuable volumes. In 1837, the Prints and Drawings, the Geology
and Zoology departments were formed, and in 1857, the Department of
Mineralogy. The Museum is divided into departments of Printed Books,
Manuscripts, Antiquities, Art, Botany, Prints, and Drawings, Zoology,
Paleontology, Mineralogy, and Sculpture, each under the charge of an
"Under-Librarian."
[Sidenote: THE MAGNIFICENT LIBRARIES.]
There are five Zoological galleries or saloons, embracing everything
in the schedule of serpents, monkeys, lizards, tortoises, crocodiles,
toads, antelopes, rhinoceri, elephants, and hippopotami, giraffes,
buffaloes, oxen, lions, tigers, bears, otters, kangaroos, apes,
squirrels, whales, sharks, porpoises, and all kinds of fish and
mollusca.
There is also a gallery of Fossils, Zoological and Geological, and
a Gallery of Minerals. In these galleries are eight saloons. Then
follow the Departments of Botany, and the Department of Antiquities,
containing vases, terra cottas, bronzes, coins, and medals. There are
also three saloons of Anglo-Roman Antiquities, of Roman Iconography,
three Greco-Roman saloons, the Greco-Roman Basement Room, the Lyceum
Gallery, and the Elgin Rooms, in which are the splendid marbles
collected by Lord Elgin at Athens, and which were bought for £35,000 by
Parliament.
There are also the Hellenic Galleries of Marbles, the second Elgin
Room, the Assyrian Galleries, 300 feet in length, and thirty other
galleries, and innumerable saloons crowded with the most wonderful and
valuable objects of art and science.
There is a Newspaper Saloon with the finest collection of newspapers
in England. The catalogues of the libraries and collections of the
Museum alone amount to 620 volumes. The collections are valued at
£15,000,000. By act of Parliament, a copy of every book, pamphlet,
sheet of letter-press, sheet of music, chart, plan or map, issued in
Queen Victoria's dominions must be delivered to the British Museum.
There are three libraries in the Museum: the King's Library, presented
by George IV, consisting of 80,000 volumes; the Greenville Library,
21,000 volumes; and the General Library of 730,000 volumes, and which
is inferior only to those of Munich and Paris.
Magna Charta, if not the original, a copy made when King John's seal
was affixed to it, was acquired by the British Museum with the
Cottonian Library. It was nearly destroyed in the fire of Westminster
in 1731; the parchment is much shriveled and mutilated, and the seal is
reduced to an almost shapeless mass of wax. The MS. was carefully lined
and mounted; and in 1733 an excellent _fac-simile_ of it was published
by John Pine, surrounded by inaccurate representations of the armorial
ensigns of the twenty-five barons appointed as securities for the due
performance of Magna Charta.
An impression of this _fac-simile_, printed on vellum, with the
arms carved and gilded, is placed opposite the Cottonian original
of the Great Charter, which is now secured under glass. It is about
two feet square, is written in Latin, and is quite illegible. It
is traditionally stated to have been bought for four-pence, by Sir
Robert Cotton, of a tailor, who was about to cut up the parchment into
measures! But this anecdote, if true, may refer to another copy of
the Charter preserved at the British Museum, in a portfolio of royal
and ecclesiastical instruments, marked Augustus II, art. 106; and the
original Charter is believed to have been presented to Sir Robert
Cotton by Sir Edward Dering, Lieut.-Governor of Dover Castle; and to be
that referred to in a letter dated May 10, 1630, extant in the Museum
Library, in the volume of Correspondence, Julius C. III. fol. 191.
In the Museum, also, is the original Bull, in Latin, of Pope Innocent
III, receiving the kingdoms of England and Ireland under his
protection, and granting them in fee to King John and his successors,
dated 1214, and reciting King John's charter of fealty to the Church
of Rome, dated 1213. Also, the original Bull, in Latin, of Pope Leo X,
conferring the title of Defender of the Faith upon Henry VIII.
[Sidenote: ADMISSION TO THE MUSEUM.]
The Reading Room is open every day, except on Sundays, on Ash
Wednesdays, Good Fridays, Christmas-day, and on any Fast or
Thanksgiving days ordered by authority; except also between the 1st
and 7th of May, the 1st and 7th of September, and the 1st and 7th of
January, inclusive. The hours are from 9 till 7 during May, June,
July, and August (except on Saturdays, at 5), and from 9 till 4 during
the rest of the year. To obtain admission, persons are to send their
applications in writing, specifying their Christian and surnames, rank
or profession, and places of abode, to the principal Librarian; or,
in his absence, to the Secretary; or, in his absence, to the senior
Under-Librarian; who will either immediately admit such persons, or lay
their applications before the next meeting of the Trustees.
Every person applying is to produce a recommendation satisfactory to
a Trustee or an officer of the establishment. Applications defective
in this respect will not be attended to. Permission will in general
be granted for six months, and at the expiration of this term fresh
application is to be made for a renewal. The tickets given to readers
are not transferable, and no person can be admitted without a ticket.
Persons under eighteen years of age are not admissible.
The Reader having ascertained from the Catalogue the book he requires,
transcribes literally into a printed form the press-mark, title of the
work wanted, size, place, and date, and signs the same. Readers, before
leaving the room, are to return the books or MSS. they have received to
an attendant, and are to obtain the corresponding ticket, the reader
being responsible for such books or MSS. so long as the ticket remains
uncanceled. Readers are allowed to make one or more extracts from any
printed book or MS.; but no whole or greater part of a MS. is to be
transcribed without a particular permission from the Trustees. The
transcribers are not to lay the papers on which they write on any part
of the book or MS. they are using, nor are any tracings allowed without
special leave of the Trustees. No person is, on any pretence whatever,
to write on any part of a printed book or MS. belonging to the Museum.
The persons whose recommendations are accepted are Peers of the Realm,
Members of Parliament, Judges, Queen's Counsel, Masters in Chancery or
any of the great law-officers of the Crown, any one of the forty-eight
Trustees of the British Museum, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London,
rectors of parishes in the metropolis, principals or heads of colleges,
eminent physicians and surgeons, and Royal Academicians, or any
gentleman in superior position to an ordinary clerk in any of the
public offices.
Some idea of the magnitude of this great Museum may be formed when
I state that the clerical and literary force connected with the
institution is larger than that of any similar foundation in Europe but
one--the Imperial Library at Paris.
There is first a Principal Librarian, a Secretary, fifteen keepers
of departments, beside a little army of attendants, messengers,
bookbinders, watchmen, and doorkeepers, numbering over one hundred
persons. Beside there are fifty or sixty persons of literary eminence
and celebrity connected with the Museum, and employed to perfect the
collection, to collate and arrange the books and to classify subjects.
In this way alone the expenses of the establishment amount to £40,000
yearly.
The average number of visitors to the Museum yearly is over one
million, and the galleries are entirely free to the public.
[Illustration: NELSON'S MONUMENT.]
Next to the British Museum, the most frequented place in London is the
National Gallery of Art, in Trafalgar Square, facing Nelson's Monument.
This lofty monument fills the eye of the spectator as it takes in the
range of one of the finest squares in Europe. The column is a circular
one, 145 feet high, and the figure of the great naval hero, Nelson,
on the top, is 17 feet high. The monument was built in 1840-43, and
is placed on an elevated pedestal of granite. The Emperor Nicholas of
Russia gave £500 toward the erection of the monument, and the rest was
raised by public subscription. The two immense lions of bronze who lie
couchant at the base of the monument, were modeled in iron from visits
made by Sir Edwin Landseer to the live lions at the Zoological Gardens.
[Sidenote: THE NATIONAL GALLERY.]
There are also statues of Sir Henry Havelock and of Sir Charles Napier,
on each side of the inclosure which fronts the Nelson column, twelve
feet high and of bronze, and just below in an angle of the square is a
bronze statue of George IV, which cost £10,000. These three statues,
which are all equestrian, were paid for by public subscription.
On one side of the square is the church of St. Martin, an imposing
looking building, built by Wren, and on the lofty steps of this church
the crossing sweepers and bootblacks of the Metropolis have their daily
rendezvous, and here divide their earnings with each other.
The National Gallery is, therefore, in a most commanding site, and from
its broad steps a very fine view can be obtained of the Strand, Charing
Cross, Parliament Street, and the Houses of Parliament.
The edifice was finished in 1838, and is 461 feet in length, and
its greatest width across the saloons of painting is 56 feet. The
stones were taken to construct it entirely from the King's Stables or
Mews, and the building has a peculiarly sombre and solid effect. In
it are a range of spacious galleries, whose walls are covered with
the greatest works of the old masters and modern painters. It is the
chief collection of paintings in the British Islands, and the number
of subjects amount to 1,600. The number of pictures in the National
Gallery, as compared with the number in the Continental galleries, is
as follows: National Gallery, 1,600; Dresden Gallery, 2,000; Madrid,
1,833; Louvre, 2,500; Vienna, 1,500; The Vatican, 37; the Capitol,
Rome, 250; Bologna, 280; Milan, 503; Turin, 563; Venice, 688; Naples,
700; Frankfort, 380; Berlin, 1,350; Munich, 1,300; Florence, 1,200;
Pitti Palace, 500; Amsterdam, 386; Hague, 304; Brussels, 400; and
Versailles, 4,000.
The pictures in the National Gallery are divided into the British and
Foreign Schools. Of the British School there are 795 paintings of
various artists, and of various degrees of merit, in which the names of
every English painter of consequence is included by his works.
The chief collection in this division is that of Turner, the great
colorist, and here are exhibited in a saloon by themselves the finest
specimens of that great painter's works, in all numbering over one
hundred subjects, which, together with a large collection of drawings
and water colors, he bequeathed to the English people.
The Foreign School is sub-divided into the Italian, Spanish, Flemish,
and French Schools, and these schools embrace 797 fine pictures, in
which the old masters chiefly predominate. Three of Corregio's pictures
in this gallery cost £15,000, and the latest acquisition is a Michael
Angelo valued at £30,000.
The Gallery is open to the public on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and
Saturdays; and on Thursdays and Fridays to students only. It is open
from Ten to Five from October until April 30, inclusive; and from Ten
to Six from April until the middle of September. It is wholly closed
during the month of October.
Daily this free gallery of art is thrown open to the working people
who enjoy the paintings, excepting on the days specified. There is no
charge whatever excepting for catalogues of the British and Foreign
Schools, which cost a shilling each.
The question of opening the Galleries on Sunday has been much agitated
of late, but I question if the British public, particularly the
working or artisan class, care much for paintings. The lower classes
of Englishmen are not, as a rule, very esthetical in their views or
ideas, and I think the British masses are best calculated to shine at a
cattle-show. There is nothing in this world so capable of striking an
average Englishman's fancy as a huge ox or a mountain of moving beef.
Corregio's master pieces, Turner's flaming colors, or Claude's
landscapes do not move him at all; but take him to a cattle-show, and
behold he is all life and animation, and give him a pot of beer in his
red fist, and he becomes positively witty, and capable of conversation.
[Sidenote: WANT OF TASTE AMONG THE ENGLISH.]
One thing struck me as I wandered hour after hour through these
galleries, and that was the total lack of education in the commonest
rudiments of art, and the complete ignorance manifested in the remarks
of the boors who gave the greatest works of their countrymen but a
passing glance, and walked on in stupid stolidity. At Versailles or
Florence, there was life, enthusiasm, and criticism of a very fair kind
noticeable in the remarks of delight or disapproval which came from
groups around a famous painting or a daub, but at the National Gallery
the cattle-show and the pot of beer was still uppermost in all the
looks and phrases of the spectators who used the place as a show room
to pass an hour away.
[Illustration]