London.
Dear Charley:—
O, we have had a noble treat; and how I longed for your company, as we spent hour after hour in the British Museum. The building is very fine, but the inside—that is every thing. The entire front is, I think, about four hundred feet, and I reckoned forty-four columns forming a colonnade; these are forty-five feet high. The portico is now receiving magnificent sculpture in relief; and when the whole is finished, and the colossal statues surmount the pediment, and the fine iron palisadoes, now erecting, are completed, I think the edifice will be among the finest in the world. The entrance hall is most imposing, and the ceiling is richly painted in encaustic. The staircases are very grand, and their side walls are cased with red Aberdeen granite, brought to an exquisite polish. To describe the British Museum would be a vain attempt. In the hall are several fine statues. Especially did we admire the one of Shakspeare by Roubilliac, and given by Garrick. We soon found our way to the Nineveh Gallery, and were wide awake to look after the relics of Nineveh dug up by Layard on the banks of the Tigris. Here is a monstrous human head, having bull's horns and ears, many fragments of horses' heads, bulls, &c., &c. The colossal figure of the king is very grand, and discovers great art. There is also a fine colossal priest, and the war sculptures are of the deepest interest. Then we went to the Lycian Room. The sculptures here were found at Xanthus, in Lycia. These ruins claim a date of five hundred years before Christ. Here are some exquisite fragments of frieze, describing processions, entertainments, sacrifices, and female figures of great beauty.
In the Grand Saloon are numerous Roman remains of sculpture. In the Phigalian Saloon are marbles found at a temple of Apollo, near Phigalia, in Arcadia, in 1814. The Elgin Saloon is devoted to the magnificent marbles taken in 1804, from temples at Athens, by the Earl of Elgin, and were purchased by Parliament for thirty-five thousand pounds. They are chiefly ornaments from the Parthenon, a Doric temple built in the time of Pericles, B.C. 450, by Phidias. No one can fail to be impressed with the great beauty of these conceptions. The famous Sigean inscription is written in the most ancient of Greek letters, boustrophedon-wise; that is, the lines follow each other as oxen turn from one furrow to another in ploughing.
There are five galleries devoted to natural history, and are named thus: the Botanical Museum, Mammalia Gallery, Eastern ZoÖlogical Gallery, Northern ZoÖlogical Gallery, and the Mineral Gallery. The specimens in all these are very fine. Nothing can be finer than the mammalia. The preservation has been perfect, and far surpasses what I have been accustomed to see in museums, where decay seems to be often rioting upon the remains of nature. The department of ornithology is wonderful, and I could have enjoyed a whole day in examining the birds of all climates. In conchology the collection is very rich. I do not often get such a gratification as I had among the portraits which are hanging on the walls of these galleries. The very men I had heard so much of, and read about, were here lifelike, painted by the best artists of their day. I was much pleased with the picture of Mary, Queen of Scots, by Jansen; of Cromwell, by Walker; of Queen Elizabeth, by Zucchero; of Charles II., by Lely; of Sir Isaac Newton; of Lord Bacon; of Voltaire; of John Guttenburg; and of Archbishop Cranmer. As to the library and the MSS., what shall I say? The collection of books is the largest in the kingdom, and valuable beyond calculation. It amounts to seven hundred thousand. We looked at illuminated gospels, Bibles, missals, till we were bewildered with the gold and purple splendor; and then we walked from one glass case to another, gazing upon autographs that made us heart-sick when we thought of our juvenile treasures in this line. If ever I did covet any thing, it was some old scraps of paper which had the handwriting of Milton, Cromwell, Luther, Melancthon, Erasmus, and a long et cÆtera of such worthies. You know how much we love medals and coins; well, here we revelled to our heart's delight. Country after country has its history here, beautifully illustrated. The museum has two spacious rooms devoted to reading, and the access to these treasures is very liberal.
If I could stay in London one year, I should certainly propose to spend three or four months in study and research at the British Museum; nor do I imagine that it would be lost time. It seems to me that such a place must make scholars; but I know, by my own painful recollection, that opportunities for improvement are not always valued as they should be. I have been much struck lately with the thought that men of leisure are not the men who do much in literature. It never has been so. Here and there a rich man cultivates his mind; but it is your busy men who leave the mark upon the age.
While in the museum, we were shown Lord Chief Justice Campbell, the author of the Lives of the Chancellors, &c. He is a working-man, if there be one in England, and yet he finds time to elaborate volume upon volume. I feel ashamed when I think how little I have acquired, how very little I know that I might have understood, and what immensely larger acquisitions have been made by those who have never enjoyed half my advantages. There is a boy, only fifteen, who resorts to this museum, and is said to understand its contents better than most of its visitors; and a livery servant, some few years ago, used to spend all his hours of leisure here, and wrote some excellent papers upon historical subjects. If I have gained any good by my journey yet, it is the conviction, I feel growing stronger every day, that I must work, and that every one must work, in order to excel. It seems to me that we are in a fair way to learn much in our present tour, for every day's excursion becomes a matter of regular study when we come to our journal, which is now kept posted up daily, as a thing of course. We are trying, at all events, to make ourselves so familiar with the great attractions of London, that in future life we may understand the affairs of the city when we hear of them.
Yours affectionately,
weld.
