There are also some Egyptian harps; portions of flutes found in the northern brick pyramids at Dashour; a pipe with seven burnt holes in it; and a pair of bronze cymbals tied together by a band of linen. The division next to that in which the musical instruments are arranged, is filled with

EGYPTIAN TOYS.

Perhaps, no portion of this interesting Egyptian room so forcibly impresses the spectator with the truth and reality of its revelations, as these rude toys, that must have been handled by prattling Egyptian children, when all was dark throughout Europe, save on the shore of the southern sea, where glimmered fitful lights of awakening civilisation, and Homer was enshrining the poor knowledge of his period in the splendid fancies of his poet soul. Not vastly different from the rude dolls of the present century must these of Egypt have been when fresh from the workman's hand. They are in a very disabled state now, however; one being a rude representation of an Egyptian Miss Biffen, altogether guiltless of legs; and others, the flat variety, having hair made of clay beads. In the case with these relics are porcelain models of eggs, balls, fruit; wooden fish; leather and palm-leaf balls, stuffed; dice, and various draughtsmen, with the heads of cats; and one with the figure of a jackal. The last two divisions of the case under notice are entirely filled with a variety of specimens of

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN FABRICS.

This division is always interesting to visitors who have any knowledge of the essential excellences of

textile fabrics. There can be no doubt of the high repute in which the linens of ancient Egypt were held of old; but the samples which have remained in a state of preservation up to the present day, being mostly bandages of the coarse cloths from mummies, it is hardly possible to estimate fairly the excellence of the fabrics with which the great men of ancient Egypt adorned their persons and those of their wives. However, one or two samples of linen, as fine as the celebrated muslins of India, remain, and the visitor should notice particularly those clothes in the case with fine blue selvage. In the case also are part of the bandages of an Egyptian mummy of the Greek period, and a sample of ancient Egyptian linen bleached by the modern process. With these specimens are skeins of thread, spindles, and knitting-needles; bronze sewing needles; and a hackle for flax-dressing. With this case the visitor closes his examination of the wall cases of the Egyptian room. On taking a general survey of the room, the objects that will first attract his attention are the casts of the remarkable sculptures from the entrance to the temple at Beit-onally near Kalabshe, placed over the wall-cases against the eastern and western walls. These are faithful representations of the painted sculpture for which the ancient Egyptians were famous, about thirteen centuries before our era. The specimens in the room represent the triumphs of the second Rameses. The cast against the eastern wall is in two distinct compartments. In the first, Rameses, accompanied by his sons, is driving his vanquished Ethiopian enemies into a wood: in the second part the conqueror is investing the vanquished Ethiopian prince with a gold chain, and behind are the spoils of war, and Ethiopians leading strange oxen to the victor; while, in the lower division, the vanquished

prince is presenting a load of tributary treasure to the king, followed by a crowd of Ethiopians, leading all kinds of animals. These paintings, as the visitor will observe, are painted without regard to light and shade, the figures are huddled together, and the drawing is of the most rigid description. The casts against the western wall are in five compartments, and celebrate the victories of Rameses over the Asiatic nations. In the first compartment Rameses is receiving his Asiatic captives; in the second he is about to decapitate a prisoner; in the third, in his kingly cap, he is defeating an Asiatic army, who are represented in active flight; in the fourth he is attacking an Asiatic fortress; and in the fifth the king is again receiving Asiatic prisoners. Having noticed these remarkable antiquities, the visitor should examine the plaster models, placed upon the central table of the room, of the obelisks of Karnak and Heliopolis. Above the door is a leather cross, from the dress of a Copt priest, supposed to be about twelve hundred years old. Above various cases are placed mummy coffins, and figures of deities too large for the cases; but the mummy-case deposited over case 31 is worth special attention. It is scooped out of the trunk of a tree, has the face painted black, a vulture on the chest, and other ornaments and symbols. Near it, over cases 30-32, are deposited four sepulchral vases of a military officer, containing the parts removed from the body in the process of embalming. Each vase was sacred to a deity; the first, containing the stomach and appendages, was sacred to Amset the first genius of the dead; the second, containing the lesser intestines, was presided over by the second genius of the dead, Hapi; the lungs and heart, deposited in the third vase, were sacred to Siumutf, the third genius; and to the fourth genius

the vase containing the liver and gall-bladder was dedicated.

The visitor having noticed these objects has done with the Egyptian room. It is well, however, to pause upon the threshold, and before dismissing these interesting glimpses into the life, long since scattered as dust, upon the soil of Egypt, to call to mind the prominent points of the impressive story that may be read in the room he is about to quit. He may wander back through the histories of ages upon ages; pause before the revelations of Herodotus; and recall the mighty romances of Homer; and, pausing even there, where all is so dim, and little understood, turn once more to these fragmentary monuments of a civilisation that existed even centuries before the great Greek poet. So silently, for us of the present hour, time rolled by in those days, that we fail to grasp the measure of the distance which separates our fret and toil of the nineteenth century, from that busy valley of the Nile; when the second Rameses reigned in all his glory; when precise artists were ruling geometrical lines upon stones to make their careful drawings; and painters, with their palm-fibre brushes, all unconscious of the critics that lay yet silently in the womb of time, who would shovel the dust and dirt of centuries from before their works, and tell the story of Rameses from these rude revelations. Curious thoughts crowd in every busy brain, before these strange relics. Lost in the depths of the past, the mind, with a leap, often grasps at the future; and men will be found seriously saying to themselves, as they notice how we depend for our knowledge of ancient Egyptian fabrics upon the shrouds of ancient Egyptians,-what, if we looked forward, and in the remote centuries that are rolling toward us, see all our vast and busy Lancashire some layers underground,

and archæologists 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