the eye of the fool whom the melancholy Jaques met 'i' the forest.' Could it possibly appear otherwise? a drawing-room without ladies-a universe without its central suns! On 'visiting-days,' however, ladies are permitted to have a peep at the dreary splendour, which they alone could fitly embellish. Adjoining the drawing-room is the library, generally well stored with books and attended by a resident librarian. One club, the Athenæum, possesses upward of 25,000 volumes, and sets apart the considerable sum of L.500 per annum for the library alone. Generally speaking, the card-room is on the same floor as the library and drawing-room. In all clubs, games of mere chance are strictly forbidden, on penalty of expulsion; and the highest play permitted even at whist is halfguinea points. The billiard and smoking rooms are mostly situated on the upper story. The extra expenses of the card and billiard tables are defrayed by a small fee paid by each member who uses them, and not out of the general fund; it obviously being unjust that members who do not play should be called upon to contribute to the amusement of those who do. The club is managed by a committee, carefully chosen from among the most scientific gourmands, and skilled connoisseurs in wines, on the roll of membership. The post is one of honour, but the responsibility is equally great, as the reputation of the club principally depends on the skill of the committee in the art of good living. Except on very important occasions, such as the appointment of a new cook, when certain experienced members are selected to assist the managing committee, the latter rule absolute, and command the whole working-staff of the establishment. These consist of a secretary, housesteward, cook, butler, coffee-room clerk, clerk of the kitchen, head and under waiters. The female servants are more particularly under the superintendence of a matron, and comprise, a still-room maid, who prepares tea and coffee, a needle-woman, with a number of house and kitchen maids. One of the puzzling peculiarities of club economy is, that the inferior servants are always invisible. Possibly the greater part of the house-work is done at early hours in the morning; but however that may be, a man may be a member of a club for years without ever seeing one of the female servants. A French writer has, in a few words, given a fair general description of a London club. He says, it is a sort of private restaurant, with the advantages of the very best viands, wines, cookery, and attendance at the lowest possible expense; and, we may add, that the mode of transacting business is well calculated to prevent mistakes, and serve as a check upon each department. For instance, a member wishing to dine, fills up a printed form of dinner-bill with whatever dishes he may choose to select from the carte of the day. The bill is then passed to the head-waiter, who sends it down to the clerk of the kitchen, and the latter appends the established price of each dish as it is sent up to the coffee-room. The bill thus filled up is passed to the butler, who, in turn, charges in it whatever wine the member has ordered; and it is then delivered to the coffee-room clerk, who sums up the entire amount, adding a small charge for what is termed 'table-money.' This charge, which averages from sixpence to a shilling, according to the rules of the club, is to defray the contingent expenses of the dinner-the clean cloth, vegetables, cheese, and other minor condiments. The bill is then presented to the member, and paid at sight; for however much the various clubs may differ in their regulations, the spirit of the following rule, copied from the laws of the Carleton, is common to all: 'Members are to pay their bills for every expense they incur in the club before they leave the house, the steward having positive orders not to open accounts with any individual.' | By way of consolation, however, for this pay-upondelivery system, the member, if he has, or fancies he has, any complaint to make against the charges, quality of viands, wines, or cooking, can enter his protest on the back of the bill, which is duly laid before the committee, and seriously investigated. A clubbist, for about half-a-crown, can get as good a dinner-exclusive of wine-at his club, as he would pay half-a-guinea for at a tavern; moreover, he is not expected, whether he wants it or not, to drink a pint of wine 'for the good of the house;' nor to give an evidently anticipated shilling to the thankless waiter; all gratuities to club-servants being strictly forbidden. Previous to the establishment of clubs, the poor gentleman who found himself adrift on the great ocean of London life, had but two choices-the extravagant tavern-dinner, or the cheap and nasty cut at the greasy and odorous cook-shop. Another element of cheapness in the club-system is, that no charge is made for bread, table-ale, sauces, or pickles; nor is table - money charged but at dinner-that is to say, after the tables are changed at four o'clock. Consequently, a member may lunch on bread and ale free of charge; or if he order cold meat, chop, or steak, he may, under the denomination of luncheon, make a cheap and excellent, if not luxurious dinner, any time previous to four o'clock. A person who desires admission to a club must be proposed and seconded by two or more members; his name is then placed on the candidates' book; but his election does not take place till-through vacancies occurring in the club by deaths or resignations-all the previous names on the same book have been admitted or rejected. There are at present several thousand names on the candidates' lists of the London clubs. Not long since, the Athenæum, which consists of 1500 members, had no less than 1600 candidates waiting in regular order for admission. The election is by ballot. In some of the smaller and more aristocratic clubs, a single black ball excludes the anxious aspirant; but the majority of clubs are not so ridiculously particular; generally speaking, one black ball in ten is the fatal number equivalent to rejection. Immediately after an election, the secretary writes to the successful candidate, enclosing a printed copy of the club-rules, and requesting prompt payment of the entrance-fees and annual subscription for the current year. When these are paid, and not till then, the newly elected member is entitled to all the rights and privileges of his club. As may naturally be supposed, the entrancefees and annual subscriptions of the various London clubs differ considerably in amount. The entrancefees vary from eight guineas to thirty. The lowest annual subscription is five, the highest ten guineas: in most clubs, however, it is not more than six. Our limits, even if it were desirable, do not admit a detailed description of the London clubs. Suffice it to say, that four are military and naval; three, political; one at least claims to be literary; one represents the universities; another consists solely of gentlemen who have travelled in foreign parts; while the remaining clubs, though they do not claim any particularly distinctive character, may be described as compounds of the above, strengthened by a further intermingling with the legal, mercantile, and financial elements of the community. DOUGLAS JERROLD'S WITTICISMS. JERROLD was, beyond all doubt, the prince of English wits in his day. His witticisms were generally made on the prompting of the occasion, and surprised every one by the quickness with which they were conceived and uttered. What made their freedom from premeditation the more certain, they very often consisted of some clause of a sentence-perhaps of but a single word—which only was sense as taken in connection with what some other person had just said. Jerrold, who was a little spare man, with an oval, pallid face, a keen gray eye, and resolute mouth, usually sat somewhat aside from what might be called the current of conversation, and only opened his mouth when he could cap something with a bon mot. It is universally acknowledged that such good things, when put in print, fall greatly short of the impression they made when first uttered by their author; neyertheless, the few which here follow, taken down some years ago, will perhaps give a faint idea of the style of the man. At a dinner of a society connected with the fine arts, where a queen's counsel happened to be present, the Law was unexpectedly toasted, out of compliment to him. The learned gentleman blundered out a few sentences, stating that he did not see how the law could be considered as one of the arts- 'Black!' rapped out Jerrold, like a dart from a bow. On a literary friend producing a volume of miscellanies under the title of Prose and Verse, Jerrold bantered him about it, as Prose and Worse.' A tedious old gentleman, meeting Jerrold in Regent Street, and having stopped him, posed himself into buttonholding attitude, while preparing to grapple. Well, Jerrold, my dear boy, what is going on?' 'I am,' quoth the wit, instantly shooting off along the pavement. A dull foreigner was indulging in a rapturous description of the beauties of the Prodigue. 'As to one song in particular (naming the song), I was quite carried away.' 'Is there anybody here that can sing it?' said Jerrold. Somebody told Jerrold that George Robins, the auctioneer, was dead; and, of course,' added the gentleman, 'his business will go to the devil.' 'Oh, then, he'll get it again,' said the wit. A friend was telling, one evening, where he had been dining, and what he got to eat. There was one article I never saw before; none of you could guess what it wasit was a soup made of calves' tails.' 'Extremes meet,' was Jerrold's remark. A literary friend, who had set up a neat barouche with a pair of grays, drove Jerrold out one day into the country. As they passed through a village, the people came to their doors to behold the pretty equipage. 'I think they're rather struck with our grays,' remarked the charioteer. 'I wonder what they would say of our duns?' quoth Jerrold. He had a theory in the spirit of the Caudle Lectures, that women rather liked that their husbands should stay out late occasionally-'it gives them a wrong.' GOLD-DIGGING SCENE. Twenty thousand people, at least, were all scuffling together like ants in an ant's nest, or tadpoles in a pool. The whole valley, through which ran the creek or brook, for several miles was in the act of being turned upside down. Close as the crowd could press upon each other so as to leave the prescribed number of feet for each party, they were digging, delving, throwing up earth, carrying away bags of it, supposed to contain the gold, to the creek, and there delivering it to other crowds, who, at a long line of cradles, were in as great a bustle, throwing in the earth, rocking it to and fro under deluges of water from tin dippers. There was an incessant noise of rattling cradles and shouting voices. Strange figures, all yellow with clay, and disguised in bushy beards, and veils to keep off the flies, seemed too desperately busy to have time to breathe. It was all one agitated scene of elbowing, swearing, hacking, hewing, and shovelling. Not a tree was left standing over the whole great space, and the sun flamed down on unsheltered heaps and holes of gravel, with a burning, sweltering force.-Howitt's Tallangetta. SINGULAR ICEBERGS. Here, at all events, was honest blue salt water frozen solid; and when, as we proceeded, the scattered fragments thickened, and passed like silver argosies on either hand, until at last we found ourselves enveloped in an innumerable fleet of bergs, it seemed as if we could never be weary of admiring a sight so strange and beautiful. It was rather in form and colour than in size that these ice-islets were remarkable. In quaintness of form, and in brilliancy of colours, these wonderful masses surpassed everything I had imagined; and we found endless amusement in watching their fantastic procession. At one time, it was a knight on horseback, clad in sapphire mail, a white plume above his casque; or a cathedral-window, with shafts of chrysophras, new powdered by a snow-storm; or a smooth sheer cliff of lapis lazuli; or a banyan-tree, with roots descending from its branches, and a foliage as delicate as the efflorescence of molten metal; or a fairy dragon, that breasted the water in scales of emerald; or anything else that your fancy chose to conjure up.-Lord Dufferin's Letters from High Latitudes. A FLOWER OF A DAY. OLD friend, that with a pale and pensile grace Climbest the lush hedgerows, art thou back again, Marking the slow round of the wondrous years? Didst beckon me a moment, silent flower? Silent ? As silent is the archangel's pen, That day by day records our various lives, And turns the page-the half-forgotten page Which all eternity will never blot. Forgotten? No, we never do forget: We let the years go; wash them clean with tears, Or lock them careful by, like dead friends' clothes, Flower, thou and I a moment face to face- So, the volume close! This July day with God's sun high in heaven, And the whole earth rejoicing; let it close! I think we need not sigh, complain, or rave: With all Its doings and undoings strange I would not alter in it one poor line. My dainty flower, my innocent white flower, The wisdom and the sweetness of God's world. Printed and Published by W. and R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH. Also sold by WILLIAM ROBERTSON, 28 Upper Sackville Street, DUBLIN, and all Booksellers. POPULAR LITERATURE Science and Arts. CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. No. 192. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1857. THE SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM. Ir is curious to watch the attempts of the English government to become a manufacturer, a teacher, an instructor in art. Nothing can be more clumsy than the mode in which these attempts are usually made, and few things more uncertain than the amount of success that will follow. There is sound reason for this, which we should do well to bear occasionally in mind. In a despotic country, such as France at the present time, the will of one man is paramount over all. If a district of Paris be covered with mean dilapidated houses, there is one man whose strong will suffices to determine the razing of those houses, and the building of a sumptuous new street on the site; but if such a work be needed in London, there is no centre of power that can control all difficulties, and make them bend to a predetermined plan. Our state is representative and departmental, surrounded with checks to insure honesty; but these very checks are the sources of delay and inefficiency. Despite the sarcasm of a popular writer, the government employés feel no great pleasure in determining how not to do it;' nor do they feel proud or satisfied with the achievements of a 'circumlocution office,' or with 'routine and red tape.' They are bound to observe formalities, or they would fall into disfavour with the heads of departments; and these heads cannot change the system without the aid of parliament; and parliament cannot change the system without the countenance of the people; and the people are not always certain whether particular duties should be left to the executive, or be intrusted to private enterprise. Without touching on the well-worn subject of the Crimean war, let us only glance for a moment at the building of the new houses of parliament. The structure has been nearly twenty years in hand, it has cost five times the original estimate, and it is found to be badly arranged both for seeing and hearing. Well, who is in fault? 'Nobody did it.' No one person or department will consent to bear the blame. Too many cooks,' &c., is a saying applicable by analogy here. The Treasury, the Board of Works, the House of Commons, committees of the Commons, the House of Lords, committees of the Lords, and many royal commissions, were severally and separately engaged in authorising works to be done to the building; but there was no one power supreme over all these; and hence the gorgeous but heterogeneous and costly result. The South Kensington Museum, recently opened, may be used as an illustration in a double sense. If it be judged by autocratic and æsthetic rules, it will appear PRICE 1d. as a curious jumble of odds and ends, thrust into a new iron building, shaped very much like three monster steam-engine boilers placed side by side, and situated so far from the heart of London that a long journey is necessary to get to it; but if regarded as an attempt to give practical value to the labours of many disconnected commissions and boards, and to surmount difficulties of almost every kind, it becomes really a creditable and most interesting display, shewing that many of our government officers are proud to do their work well if they can only have free scope for the exercise of their good sense. The history of this museum is almost as curious as its contents-as the reader will presently admit. Nearly twenty years ago, the government timidly became an educator in art, by establishing a School of Design at Somerset House, having for its objects the training of designers, who might perchance improve the patterns and designs for manufacturers. But the success was not brilliant: some persons sneered, some grudged public money, manufacturers were listless; and in twelve years very little was achieved. At last the Great Exhibition of 1851 shewed us that though good makers of useful things, we were not so successful as our continental neighbours in throwing beauty over the articles produced; the Society of Arts and the government took the matter up warmly; and as a result, the School of Design was expanded into a Department of Science and Art,' to train teachers in art; to aid committees in establishing schools of art; to hold examinations, and reward successful students; to form a collection of books, pictures, and works of art; and to circulate these specimens among provincial schools of art. Science, in its non-artistic relations, became gradually separated from art, and led to the establishment of a School of Mines and a Museum of Economic Geology, under distinct superintendence. Then, as a further stage, the commissioners of the Great Exhibition found themselves in possession of a large sum of money, and a collection of trade specimens, which they did not well know what to do with. Next, the Society of Arts made a curious collection of articles relating to art and manufactures, and offered it to the government, if room could be found for it. Then, again, the Commissioners of Patents had many curious models of patented inventions, with no place in which to deposit them. Furthermore, an Architectural Exhibition of valuable plaster-casts was formed. Lastly, Mr Vernon, Mr Turner, and Mr Sheepshanks made munificent gifts to the nation of pictures which could not find house-room at the National Gallery. Here was an embarras de richesses! Good things in plenty, but nowhere to place them, and no one man empowered to decide on their destination. There were male schools of art, and numerous art-specimens, at Somerset House; there was a female School of Art in Gower Street; there was an elementary class at Smith Street, aided by the Board of Trade; there was a Mineral Museum at Craig's Court, connected with the Ordnance Geological Survey; there was a Museum of Ornamental Art at Marlborough House, and the Vernon and other pictures at the same place; there was an Architectural Museum in a sort of stable in Cannon Row; there were models of patented inventions stowed away in an empty room in Kensington Palace; and there was a collection of art-furniture at Gore House, purchased by the commissioners of the Great Exhibition for presentation to the nation. No one knew where to place these numerous articles; no one had power to build a structure for their reception; no one could answer to the House of Commons that the requisite funds would be well spent; no one could decide where the site of such a building should be; no one could authoritatively settle the destiny of the National Gallery, in relation to any new scheme; and the House of Commons, bewildered by a multiplicity of advisers, was just as likely to do wrong as to do right. The result is most curious. Marlborough House contains the Vernon and Turner collections, awaiting future decision; the Museum of Economic Geology, in Jermyn Street, contains the Craig's Court collection, greatly augmented; Somerset House has turned out its schools and art-people, and sent them to South Kensington; it has also got rid of its learned societies, now located for a time at Burlington House, which has recently been purchased by the government without any clear conception of what to do with it; and, lastly-under the well-founded supposition that the House of Commons will spend many more years in deciding which of its numerous advisers on art and education are most worthy of attention-all parties have prudently assented to the construction of a temporary building to hold the unhoused national collections of odds and ends, until the various doctors have ceased to disagree about grander plans. The South Kensington Museum should therefore be regarded as a temporary expedient, to avert perplexities which no man, no department, has the authority thoroughly to conquer; it is an attempt 'how to do it,' in spite of 'circumlocution;' and if a visitor will good-naturedly view it in this light, he will forgive the anomalies, and will come away with a conviction that the collection, or collection of collections, is one of the most curious ever displayed to public inspection in the metropolis. A word concerning the site, and another for the buildings. The commissioners of the Great Exhibition joined with the Treasury in purchasing a large area of open ground between Hyde Park and Brompton, for national purposes; and the prince-consort advocated a plan for building on this spot an immense series of museums and galleries, to hold the numerous public collections. Pending the legislative consideration of this large question, a few temporary buildings have been put together at the southern part of this area, near Brompton; and these constitute the 'South Kensington Museum and Schools of Art,'* under the control of the Department of Science and Art. The whole of the government schools of art, with the various collections belonging to them, are now removed to this group of buildings; but the museum contains in addition numerous collections of other kinds-placed here for the reason before intimated-namely, that there is no room for them elsewhere. The schools are a series of brick and wooden erections; the museum is This name may possibly deceive some visitors as to the locality, which is really Brompton, not Kensington. an iron building. The schools are open only to students-mostly young men and women training to become teachers of art and pattern-drawing in provincial schools-whereas the museum is open to the public every day of the week. If an art-critic, standing in front of the buildings, were to judge them by any artistic canons of taste, he would laugh them to scorn; for the whole affair is marked by irredeemable ugliness, and can be excused only on the plea that the structures are temporary. The Department of Science and Art betrays a consciousness of this; for it is pointedly stated that the iron building was constructed under the direction of the commissioners for the Exhibition of 1851, and not passed over to the Department until after it had been completed.' A wayfarer, whether an art-critic or not, becomes somewhat cross when he finds that the new Cromwell Road, where this South Kensington Museum is situated, is a mile from Hyde Park Corner, two miles from Regent Street, three from Temple Bar, four from the Bank, and five or six from Spitalfields or Whitechapel-a great obstacle this to those who would enjoy the museum, but who would willingly shun the labour of wading through a stream of human beings miles in length. In the buildings themselves, and in the distance from the heart of the metropolis, the authorities have not made a happy choice. Having by this grumble got rid of our ill-temper, we will enter the door, prepared to do justice to the interior. The apartments or compartments are certainly well fitted to display the various collections; for the constructors, troubled by no scruples touching architectural style, have placed the windows and sky-lights just wherever they would best throw light: as a consequence, everything is well seen. And now for the collections. The Museum of Ornamental Art forms the nucleus or main part of the whole. It is this with which the public have been familiar at Marlborough House, augmented from various quarters, especially at the time of Mr Bernal's sale. The whole series now amounts to no less than 4000 articles; but just at the present time, about 1000 specimens are in the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition; many hundred others are in circulation for exhibition in the various provincial towns where schools of art have been established; while several, of a delicate and costly character, are kept packed away until a fireproof exhibition-room has been constructed for their reception. Hence this museum is just now in a transitory state. It is, nevertheless, classified into seventeen divisions, calculated to impart ideas of tasteful art-workmanship in the following articles: carvings, sculptures, bronzes, terracottas, and wax or plaster models; painting, walldecoration, paper-hanging, illumination, printing, and pattern-designing; cameos, intaglios, medals, and seals; mosaics, pietra-dura work, marqueterie, tarsia work, parquetage, buhl work, piqué work, and other kinds of inlaying; furniture and general upholstery; basket and cane work; leather work, stamped leather, and bookbinding; japanned or lackered work; glasspainting; glass manufactures; enamels; pottery; locks and keys, goldsmith's work, damasquinerie, niello work, and examples of forged, cast, stamped, pressed, chased, engraved, and etched metals; arms, armour, and accoutrements; watch and clock work; jewellery, personal ornaments, and objects in precious materials; and, lastly, textile fabrics, costumes, garment tissues, lace, embroidery, carpets, and tapestry hangings. A mere glance at the items in this list will shew how exhaustless the collection might become, and how highly interesting; for the articles are not collected and jumbled merely to make a show. There is a reason assignable for their retention-because they are really beautiful; because they illustrate a particular style of art; because they shew the difference of tastes between different countries; because they mark progression of taste in some one country; or because they were the production of some one whose art-workmanship has become famous. Models and casts from the great ruins of Italy and Greece; drawings and photographs of architectural ornament; copies of the wall-decorations of Raphael's time, including those of the world-renowned Loggie of the Vatican; a series illustrative of the history of wood-engraving; electrotype casts from some of the choicest specimens of artistic metal-work in the Louvre, the Musée de Cluny, and the Musée d'Artillerie; collections to shew how far the Mintons and Copelands of England have risen to an equality with the imperial manufacturers at Sèvres; beautiful old carved coffers, cabinets, linenchests, and escritoires, in oak, ebony, walnut, and marqueterie, displaying the taste and skill of Italian, French, and Flemish art-workmen in past ages. It is needless, however, to go on with this list; the above are a few of the objects in the museum; and when the officers of the department tell us that they have 4000 such, ready to be properly labelled if circumstances allow them to be all exhibited at once, the reader may judge what a treasure of pleasant things the nation really possesses here. The Educational Collection is another of the groups in this iron building. It may be considered as useful rather than artistic; but it is not wholly wanting in the latter quality, and is well worthy the notice of the friends of good-sense education. Its origin was simply this: When the Society of Arts reached the good old age of 100 years, in 1854, it celebrated the event in many worthy ways. Among other schemes, numerous literary and scientific institutions, philosophical societies, mechanics' institutes, athenæums, and lyceums, suggested the formation of a museum to illustrate the progress of the educational art, in reference to the books, diagrams, models, casts, implements, and school appliances, introduced in various countries for educational purposes. The society warmly took up the matter; and hence the opening of the Educational Exhibition at St Martin's Hall, described in the Journal in August of the above-named year.* All the chief school-societies, all the training-schools, all the blind-schools, all the deaf and dumb schools, many of the publishers of educational books, and individuals and societies in various countries of Europe and America, warmly responded to the appeal made to them. After the close of that exhibition, a large number of the articles were presented to the government; and these, aided by subsequent acquisitions, form the educational collection at South Kensington. They are grouped into about twelve classes; the articles in each class being so arranged 'as to enable all persons engaged in teaching to see, collected into one group, the most recent, the best, and the cheapest forms of apparatus and means of imparting knowledge in its several branches-with the prices of the specimens, and where they can be obtained-enabling them to compare one specimen with another, and to select that which may best suit their requirements.' The curators also tell us, that it has been an object in labelling the specimens, to do so in such a manner as will convey as large an amount of information as possible; appealing, in some measure, like diagrams in lectures, through the eye to the understanding.' It is only fair to say that this intention has been realised in a very happy way. We may run over the twelve divisions thus: mechanical models and drawings of steam-engines, pumps, wheel-work, and other matters aiding to teach the principles of mechanism; illustrations of the physical sciences, in models and specimens relating to electricity, galvanism, heat, optics, and the like; chemical specimens and apparatus, with * Chambers's Journal, No. 32. small amateur cabinets of specimens, tables of atomic weights, &c.; geography and astronomy, illustrated by globes, atlases, relief-models, diagrams, camera slides, planispheres, and so forth; natural history, with just such a number of specimens in botany, entomology, mineralogy, and fossil geology, as may suffice to teach by actual examples; household economy, shewn in useful little contrivances bearing on the comfort of everyday-life; musical instruments and apparatus pertaining to the musical art, with any novelties that relate to facility in teaching; school apparatus, humane in purpose and ingenious in construction, for teaching the blind and the deaf and dumb; physical training, illustrated by the apparatus now used in various schools for athletic exercises, bracing the muscles, &c.; general education, applied chiefly through the medium of object-lessons, such as the singular Kindergarten system, introduced from Germany; fine arts, so far as taught in schools by the aid of models and casts; and, lastly, school buildings and fittings, illustrating suggested improvements in the arrangements and fittings of school-rooms. What renders this collection more interesting is, that each division or group has its own library, its own shelves of books relating to the matters under notice. The Commissioners of Patents' Museum is a third collection, wholly distinct from the two above described. The commissioners of patents are publishing the specifications and diagrams of all the patents ever granted in this country for new inventions, far exceeding twenty thousand in number; they also possess numerous beautiful models of patented inventions. It was resolved, therefore, that as no other convenient depository offered, the South Kensington Museum should receive the models, and one copy of all the printed works of the commissioners. In addition, there have been obtained from various quarters about a hundred portraits of the most eminent inventors and mechanicians this country has produced. The visitor may therefore gaze with admiring wonder at Scott Russell's superb model of the oscillating steam-engines for the Great Eastern; or smile at the little model of the petticoat weaving-machine; or pore over the specifications and diagrams of thousands of patents; or study the portraits of the Watts and Arkwrights of past days, or the Fairbairns and Whitworths of the present. The Trade Collection is a fourth among the list of those in the iron building. It arose out of the Exhibition of 1851. A circular was sent to all the exhibiters, 'pointing out to them the advantages of a systematic collection from different classes of objects which they respectively exhibited, and requesting their co-operation in forming such a collection. The object was to preserve a record of things in the Exhibition which might be of use for future consultation, and which, in the form of actual specimens, would be far more valuable than the most complete catalogue or the most careful diagrams. It was proposed to register the discovery and uses of various materials. The collection was to serve as a means of reference for commercial, scientific, and artistic purposes.' The exhibiters entered warmly into the plan, and offered liberal contributions of specimens; but unfortunately, through circumstances into the secret of which we are not admitted, the commissioners of the Great Exhibition found themselves unable to carry out their plan; and for six long years, some of the lower rooms of Kensington Palace have contained such of the specimens as it was decided to keep; and the packages were never opened until the spring of the present year. The truth is, as was before implied, these varied treasures have come upon the nation so rapidly, that house-room for them has hitherto been wanting. Various considerations have induced the commissioners to distribute, at some future time, all the specimens of |