Curiosities

VISIT THE THIRD

EGYPTIAN SALOON.--Egyptian Sculpture; Egyptian
Coffins; Egyptian Tombstones; Sepulchral Vases;
Human Statues; Egyptian Sphinxes; Egyptian Frescoes.

THE LYCIAN ROOM.--Lycian Tombs; Lycian Sculpture.

THE NIMROUD ROOM.--Assyrian Sculpture.

VISIT THE FOURTH

Townley Sculpture; Antiquities of Britain.

PHIGALEIAN SALOON.--Battle with the Amazons.

ELGIN SALOON.--Elgin Marbles; Metopes of the Parthenon;
Eastern Frieze; Northern Frieze; Western Frieze;
Southern Frieze; Eastern Pediment; Western Pediment;
Temple of the Erectheum; Temple of Theseus;
Lantern of Demosthenes.

CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION.

The money to found a British Museum was raised by a lottery in the
middle of the last century. Sir Hans Sloane having offered his books
and museum of natural history to Parliament, for less than half its
value (20,000L.), it was purchased, together with the famous Harleian
and Cottonian MSS., and deposited in Montague House, Bloomsbury, which
had been bought of the Earl of Halifax, for the sum of 10,250L. Of the
present British Museum this beginning forms a very insignificant part.
The nucleus was established however; and soon eminent men, who valued
their literary and scientific collections as storehouses that should
be accessible to all classes of students, began to turn their
attention to the collections in Montague House. Foremost among the
donors George the Second should be mentioned, as having made over to
the nation the royal library, together with the right of demanding a
copy of every book entered at Stationers' Hall. Successively, the
libraries of Sir Joseph Banks, Dr. Birch, Sir John Hawkins, Dr. Burney
and Garrick, and the Royal, Arundel, Lansdowne, Bridgewater, and other
MSS. were added to the great store. Captain Cook returned home with
additions to the museum of natural history; Sir William Hamilton's
collection of vases was purchased in 1772; the spoils of Abercrombie's
Egyptian campaign enriched the museum with some fine Egyptian
antiquities; grants of money secured the Townley marbles, the
Phigalian sculptures, and at last the Elgin marbles; and of late, the
accessions to the vast collection, including Layard's treasures, the
Xanthian marbles, fossils, birds, curiosities, from the frozen seas,
China, the solitudes of Central Africa, and other remote places, where
scientific men have been of la