30 



Annual Address. 



lections so as to open them to ourselves and to the public, 

 commence the formation of historical and art collections. 

 It would he within our proper work as an historical society 

 to form a museum of antiquities in which should be ga- 

 thered everything we could obtain of special historic interest 

 or importance, or which would illustrate the productions, 

 usages and modes of life in any age or country, and par- 

 ticularly those of our own early settlers, and of the Indian 

 races now so rapidly fading away. The fact that all these 

 things are now comparatively familiar to us, may make us 

 undervalue the importance of their collection and preserva- 

 tion, but every year they will acquire higher interest and 

 value, and it will become more difficult to secure them. 



The formation of a gallery of art, would, I know, be a 

 work of time and of far greater difficulty ; but something 

 of value in this way is not beyond our reach. We might 

 with great advantage give our attention to obtaining por- 

 traits and busts of eminent persons, and especially of such 

 as have had some connection with the Institute. The cele- 

 brated Bodleian gallery of portraits in Oxford has grown 

 in this manner, picture by picture, till it has become one 

 of the largest and most interesting in the world. To the 

 student, the artist, the man of letters, or the traveler from 

 distant lands, there is no more interesting and suggestive 

 walk, than that along these stately galleries from whose 

 walls look down the long line of England's monarchs, states- 

 men, warriors, poets, philosophers, and scholars, for the last 

 three hundred years. 



The New York Historical Society has in this way already 

 collected a very valuable portrait gallery, interesting both in 

 the subjects of the portraits, and as specimens of the works 

 of the artists who painted them ; and to this has more recently 

 been added by gift from an individual collector, what was 

 on co known as the Bryan gallery of old pictures, con- 

 taining many of great excellence. There are now in this 



