How to See the British Museum in Four Visits | Page 3

sewing-instruments of barbarous tribes: the stone-mason perhaps compares his tombs with the sarcophagi of ancient masters. No attendant is deputed to dog the heels of five visitors and to watch them with the cold eye of a gaoler; no bell warns the company from one spot to another: all is open--free!
Through the bright new galleries of Sir Robert Smirke, crowded with the natural productions of every clime, the printed thoughts of the greatest and best men, the marvellous art of forgotten ages, and the poor barbarisms of savage life, we propose to conduct the visitor, in
FOUR DISTINCT VISITS.

VISIT THE FIRST.

On arriving in front of the British Museum for the first time, the visitor will not fail to notice the Grecian Ionic facade, ornamented with forty-four columns, and rising at its extreme point to the height of sixty-six feet. The sculpture which decorates the tympanum of the portico is the work of Sir Richard Westmacott, and is an allegorical representation of the progress of civilisation. The spiritual influences that have successively worked upon the savage natures of the dark ages, have here distinct types. Religion tames the savage; Paganism makes him a crouching sensualist; the Egyptian sees a God in the stars of heaven; and then the mathematician, the musician, the poet, and the painter set to work, and these prophets of mysterious beauties realise civilised mankind. The visitor enters the museum, after ascending a noble flight of steps, by a massive carved oak door, into a fine entrance hall, the ceiling of which is highly coloured, and the general decoration of which is Grecian Ionic. Here he will observe, in addition to one or two of the Nineveh sculptures, at once, three statues: one of the aristocratic lady sculptor, the Honourable Mrs. Damer; Chantrey's statue of Sir Joseph Banks; and Roubillac's study of Shakspeare, presented to the museum by David Garrick. Before entering the galleries of the museum the visitor should observe, that the building faces the four points of the compass, and that the facade forms the southern line. This observation will facilitate a careful and regular examination of the interior. Branching westward from the entrance hall, then eastward to the gallery, is a noble flight of seventy steps, the walls of the staircase being richly inlaid with marble. Having ascended this staircase, the visitor's attention is at once arrested by two stuffed giraffes--the giraffe of North Africa, and the giraffe of South Africa, given to the museum by the late Earl of Derby. These striking zoological specimens at once introduce the visitor to
THE SOUTHERN (CENTRAL) ZOOLOGICAL ROOM,
which is devoted, together with the next room to the east, to Hoofed Animals. Looking eastward from the western side of the room he will observe at once that his way lies down a passage, marked on either side by formidable zoological specimens, which he would rather meet, with their present anatomy of hay, than in their natural condition. In the first room, near the giraffes, stand the walrus of the North Sea; the African rhinoceros; and the Manilla buffalo. He will next observe, that the walls of the room are lined with glass cases, about twelve feet in height, and that in these cases various stuffed animals are grouped. The groups in this room include the varieties of the Antelope, Sheep, and Goats. Grouped together in two or three cases, are the sable and other antelopes from the Cape of Good Hope; the algazelle, and the addax and its young from North Africa; the sing-sing, and the koba from Western Africa; the sassaybi; the chamois of the Alps--the subject of many a stirring mountain song; the goats of North Africa; the strange Siberian ibex; the grue and gorgon from the Cape; varieties of the domestic goat, and the beautiful Cashmere goat. Here also are specimens of sheep, including the wild sheep from the Altai; the bearded sheep of North Africa; the American arguli; the nahorr and caprine antelopes from Nepal; and upon the higher shelves of the cases are grouped the gazelles from Senegal, Nepal, and Madras, whose praises have been sung more than once. The beauty and grace of these delicate creatures, with their taper active limbs, and the soft expression of their heads, may be faintly gathered even from these inanimate stuffed skins with the glassy eyes instead of "the soft blue" celebrated by the poet. Grouped hereabouts are also the four-horned antelope of India; the pigmy antelope from the coast of Guinea; and the madoka from Abyssinia. Before leaving this room, or ante-room, to the great zoological sections of the museum, the visitor should notice the varieties of horns,--straight and tortuous, but all graceful,--of different kinds of hoofed animals.
Advancing eastward the visitor arrives in
THE SOUTHERN ZOOLOGICAL GALLERY.
Here the visitor is still in the midst of the hoofed beasts.