and archeologists busy with our winding sheet ! Well, at the least, these thoughts are not idle. It does all of us good to think often of what has been, and to dream of the future to which we are driving "down the ringing grooves of time "-to think sometimes of the fine people who had their glorious days, when London was distributed, untouched by human hands, in clayey strata, and remote stone quarries; and hereabouts, to the minds of the Greeks, lay the islands of the blessed.

The visitor should now proceed southward into the room called The Bronze Room. Here are collected the ancient bronzes of which the Museum trustees are in possession; including specimens of the fine castings of ancient Greece, which, with all our modern contrivances, we cannot surpass in the present day. The cases to the left are filled with a supplementary collection of the remains of ancient Egyptian art, for which space could not be found in the Egyptian room. These occupy no less than twenty-six cases. The first eleven cases (1-11) are filled with various sepulchral fragments in various substances, and porcelain and terra-cotta figures, which the visitor who has just emerged from the Egyptian room will again recognise. Here the strange figures of the Egyptian deities occur again and again; but the visitor should pause before the case 10, 11, in which are deposited models of the Egyptian funeral boats, in stone and wood, from Thebes, and on the fourth shelf a Roman caricature on papyrus, representing lions and goats playing at dice, and foxes driving geese. In the Egyptian cases are more specimens of cynocephali, jackal, and hawks' heads, models of the four sepulchral vases, in pottery and wood; more mummy coffins, fragments of inscribed pottery, large Egyptian terra-cotta vases, and in cases 24, 25, are deposited

some fragments in terra-cotta, and bronze excavated by Mr. Layard, in ancient Assyria. Having glanced at these Egyptian cases the visitor should turn at once to the collection of

GREEK AND ROMAN BRONZES,

which fill the cases numbered from 29 to 112. The visitor particularly interested in Greek and Roman art, might here spend an entire day. Bronze, a mixture of copper and tin, was used by the ancients for the manufacture of all kinds of edge-tools, long before iron was smelted from the earth in which it is invariably found; and mineralogists of the present day are surprised to see the works which the ancients executed with a material, that no modern workmen could use as a cutting medium. Stone masons' chisels, and fine edged weapons of war, were made of bronze in those days. The collection of bronzes which the visitor is now about to examine, cannot be said to be a perfect collection; yet it contains some beautiful specimens, and one that is said to be the finest bronze in Europe. The antiquarian pauses with delight before these marvellous specimens of ancient skill; and reflecting upon the difficulties which beset the caster in bronze, it is astonishing to see the precision and the exquisite finish with which the artists of ancient Greece and Rome performed their labours. Some of their bronze manufacture were hammered, but most of those works from which we derive a knowledge of their greatness as artists were cast. Of those colossal bronzes which were studded about Rome, Athens, and Delphos, few remain at the present day. The material of which they were composed was too valuable to escape the clutch of barbaric conquerors; therefore

the bronzes which remain are chiefly of a small size, but still sufficiently perfect to assure us of the great works that filled every open place in the towns of ancient Greece and Rome. In these cases the visitor will find a great number of bronze utensils and personal ornaments: metal mirrors; lamps; incense vessels, or thuribula; the saucers for pouring libations, called pateræ; tripods of all kinds and variously ornamented ; candelabra ; and the clasps of the Romans called fibulæ.

Beginning with the first case, 29, 30, the visitor will first remark three ancient vases or amphora, and five jugs, from Corfu, aged about five centuries before our era; and in the same cases, on the third and fourth shelves, Athenian vases, variously ornamented with geometrical designs, animals, and birds, in the most ancient style. The next case also contains vases of the most ancient style, from Athens, including a fine specimen surmounted by two horses. In cases 33, 34, are further specimens of the vases of ancient Greece, on some of which red figures are traced upon a black ground, and on others a red ground is adopted, with the ornamental figures in black: among the ornaments on those vases the visitor should notice the cupids represented in blue and white on one of these vases, and on another the figure of a crawling boy, with a low stool and an apple before him. The vases in the next cases (35, 36) contain some fine specimens of Athenian art about the time of Pericles, with figures traced red and black, representing Orestes and Electra at the tomb of Agamemnon. In these cases also are some Athenian glass vases, and opaque glass vessels from Melos; terra-cotta bas-reliefs, representing Bellerophon destroying the Chimera; Perseus destroying the gorgon Medusa, and other classical subjects; and upon the third shelf, amid unguent boxes, terra-cotta lamps, and

a terra-cotta doll, is a curious vase containing bones, with a silver Athenian coin, attached to the jar by careful relatives, to pay for the deceased's transit across the Styx. A collection of terra-cotta figures are arranged upon the four shelves of case 37. These include an ancient comic actor as Hercules; Athenian ladies bearing water jugs, called Hydriophora; Ceres; a dancing group from Athens; animals; stools; and dancing figures from the south of Italy. No less than three hundred and thirty-three handles from the wine vessels or amphora of ancient Rhodes are deposited in cases 38, 39. Some are inscribed with the names of the chief magistrate. Varieties of vessels in terra-cotta fill the two first shelves of the cases 40, 41, from Etruria; upon the third shelf are fragments of large bronzes, including the staff of Esculapius with the serpent; and the bronze groups distributed upon the fourth shelf include three figures of Hercules; and two figures supposed to be a Ptolemy and his queen arrayed as Fortune. The cases 42-45 are filled with bronze weapons, including spear-heads from the sepulchres of Etruria; arrow-heads and bronze swords of the Roman time; standards with the famous Roman eagles; helmets, including a famous one dedicated to Jupiter Olympius, by Hiero I. on the occasion of gaining a victory over the Tuscans at Cumæ, upwards of four centuries before our era; and one found at Olympia, dedicated by the Argives; bronze plates, and military belts, from Vulci. The next six cases (46-51) are filled with various Grecian and Roman antiquities, of which the visitor should particularly notice amid bronze amphoræ, tripods, glass beads, weights in the shape of busts, sacrificial knives, and bronze hatchet heads, three cista or boxes, with classical groups in relief upon them, the subject of one being Hercules

grasping serpents. These cista were the toilette boxes of the ancients. Here too the visitor should remark the hearth (a tripod) with charcoal still upon it, with fire-irons and cooking utensils; and a variety of tripods variously ornamented with sphinxes, Boreas carrying away Orithyia; and leaden vases from Delos, holding the ashes of the dead. An interesting collection of candelabra, from the Etruscan sepulchres, is arranged in the next cases (52, 53). These candelabra were highly esteemed throughout ancient Greece. They are decorated chiefly with mythological subjects, and have, attached to them, vessels for dipping into larger vessels. Those in the next case (54) are of the Roman period. Having glanced at the censers and bronze lamps in the next cases (56–57) the visitor may pass on to the case numbered 58-64, in which is a large collection of bronze vessels, including unguent vases, which are the most highly decorated, braziers, cauldrons, and jugs. The two next cases contain a great number of bronze figures of various heathen deities, Here are, representations of mythological events.

a winged Victory holding an egg; figures of Juno Sospita; figures for mirrors; Apollos; a giant hurling a rock; one of the Gorgons; figures of Mars, in the old grotesque style; a reclining Dionysus, drinking; satyrs; Aphrodite; Aurora bearing off Tithonus or Cephalus; Hercules; Ariadne playing on the lyre; Hercules killing the Mænalian stag; Minerva; and other figures, all drawn from Grecian mythology. These cases present, at a glance, more than any other in the collection, the various excellences of ancient bronzes. The ancient mirrors are arranged in the next two cases (68, 69)-one polished to show their old effect; and in the 70th case are Etruscan and Roman fibulæ or clasps in general use in the olden time, in lieu