32 



of Ratnsgatc ; and a singularly curious Harp, used by the 

 native Indians, from the Right Hon, S. R. Lushington. 



In conclusion the Directors and Curators call the attention 

 of the Society, to the valued present of E. S. Curling, Esq., 

 which is of a character that few persons however desirous 

 could have supplied, it being an entire Window of Painted 

 Glass, of the same character as that recorded in the previous 

 report as a donation from the same gentleman, to whom the 

 Society would be wanting in gratitude did they not acknowledge 

 his kindness. This besides its intrinsic value, which is great, is 

 estimable on account of the perfect seclusion it affords to the 

 Museum : the eye of the spectator being now wholly confined 



to the room not the least attractive part of which are the 



windows, replete with pictoral subjects from Sacred Writ, as 

 well as from domestic life. It is impossible in the space af- 

 forded to a Report to enumerate all the subjects, yet the pecu- 

 liar merit of a few cannot pass unrecorded. Daniel in the 

 Den, as a picture has fine breadth and contrast of light and 

 shadow ; the lions are remarkably well drawn, and the por- 

 tions of human skeletons that lie scattered about attest the 

 carnage they have committed, although now represented in 

 quiet and harmless attitudes ; their manes appear scratched 

 out in the same manner as the sharp lights are effected in 

 modern Lithography. The contiguity of life and death is 

 admirably depicted by a head, one half of which is represented 

 fleshy and of becoming countenance, while the other exhibits 

 but the dry and bony skeleton, the hollow where an eye had 

 been, and teeth without a lip to cover them. The study of 

 monumental marbles affords many similar ideas, but surely 

 none can be more terse and expressive. 



After such an enumeration, added to the particulars that 

 will follow, the Directors and Curators feel, that the past 

 season must be considered as one of the most brilliant : it 

 affords proof, that the anticipations of tlie past have been 

 more than realised— that the Society has had a large increase 



