THE MUSEUMS OF THE FUTURE. 429 



scientific class has been developed, that it is possible for the modern 

 library and museum to come into existence. The museum of the pres- 

 ent is more unlike its old-time representative, than is our library un- 

 like its prototype. 



There were, in the remote past, galleries of pictures and sculpture as 

 well as museums, so-called. Fublic collections of paintings and stat- 

 uary were founded in Greece and Rome at a very early day. There was 

 a gallery of paintings (Pinacotheea) in one of the marble halls of the 

 Propylaeuui at Athens, and in Rome there was a lavish public display of 

 works of art. 



M. Dezohry, in his brilliant wink upon "Rome in the time of Augus- 

 tus" 1 [Home an .sieele d'Auguste), described this phase of the Latin 

 civilization in the first century before Christ. 



" P'or many years," remarks one of his characters, " the taste for 

 paintings has been extending in a most extraordinary manner. In for- 

 mer times they were only to be found in the temples, where they were 

 placed, less for purposes of ornament than as an act of homage to the 

 gods; now they are everywhere, not only in temples, in private houses, 

 and in public halls, but also on outside walls, exposed freely to air and 

 sunlight. Rome is one great picture gallery ; the Forum of Augustus 

 is gorgeous with paintings, and they may be seen also in the Forum of 

 Caesar, in the Roman Forum, under the peristyles of many of the tem- 

 ples, and especially in the porticoes used for public promenades, some 

 of which are literally filled with them. Thus everybody is enabled to 

 enjoy them, and to enjoy them at all hours of the day." 



The public men of Rome at a later period in its history were no less 

 mindful of the claims of art. They believed that the metropolis of a 

 great nation should be adorned with all the best products of civiliza- 

 tion. We are told by Pliny that when Caesar was dictator, he purchased 

 for 300,000 deuiers two Greek paintings, which he caused to be pub- 

 licly displayed, and that Agrii a placed many costly works of art in 

 a hall which he built and bequeathed to the Roman people. Constan- 

 tino gathered together in Constantinople the paintings and sculptures 

 of the great masters, so that the city before its destruction became a 

 great museum like Rome. 



The taste for works of art was in the days of the ancient civiliza- 

 tions generally prevalent throughout the whole Mediterranean region, 

 and there is abundant reason to believe that there were prototypes of 

 the modern museum in Persia, Assyria, Babylonia, and Egypt, as well 

 as in Home. 



Collections in natural history also undoubtedly existed, though we 

 have no positive descriptions of them. Natural curiosities, of course, 

 found their way into the private collections of monarch s, and were 

 doubtless also in use for study among the savants in the Alexandrian 

 museums. Aristotle, in the fourth cent nrj he fori' Christ, had. il is said, 

 an enormous grant of money for use in his scientific researches, aud 



