MUSEUMS^ 



821 



establishment) is left to pure chance. Thus, the 

 members tell the public that they will be thankful 

 for private donations. They often deposit speci- 

 mens of their own in the mus^eum ; and authorise 

 their curator to pick up what he can, at different 

 public sales. The lavish expenditure on the outside 

 of the temple, and parsimony with regard to the 

 internal decorations, is giving, as it were, too much 

 to the body, and too little to the soul. 



Still, the directors do not see the thing in this 

 light. They go jogging on in the old beaten path ; 

 and I don't know whether it be very prudent in me 

 to hint that it is high time for them both to 

 digress, and to mend their pace. I am much more 

 cautious now, than I used formerly to be, in giving 

 my opinion, when I enter a museum. The burnt 

 child generally dreads the fire. 



Some years ago, curiosity led me to stray into a 

 very spacious museum. As I passed through a 

 kind of antechamber, I observed a huge mass of out- 

 stretched skin, which once had evidently been an 

 elephant. I turned round to gaze at the " monstrum 

 horrendum informe," when a person came up, and 

 asked me what I thought of their elephant. " If," 

 said I, " you will give me two cow-skins, with that 

 of a calf in addition to them, I will engage to make 

 you a better elephant." This unlucky and off-hand 

 proposal was within an ace of getting me into 

 trouble. The sages of the establishment took cogni- 

 sance of it at one of their meetings ; and somebody 

 proposed that a written reprimand should be sent 

 to me. However, a prudent voice in the assembly 



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