34 



The Museum Gazette 



vertically from roof to the table-shelf below. This table- 

 shelf is 1 8 inches wide, and runs the whole length of the 

 room. It is upon it that the busts shown in our frontispiece 

 are standing. Each bust is supposed to be in its appropriate 

 century, and with it are placed any other illustrative objects 

 belonging to the period — medals, coins, small architectural 

 models (when we have them), and the like. For instance, a 

 model of Stonehenge stands in the century in which it seems 

 probable that that most remarkable structure was built, and 

 portions of Roman pavement and other relics mark the period 

 of the Italian occupation of Britain. Upon the wall itself are 

 placed engravings, photographs, and the like, illustrative of the 

 century, and representing either human personality or some 

 results of human effort. In order to aid the memory each 

 century is designated by the name of some prominent person 

 of the time, to whom other associations may conveniently 

 cling. These names, painted in bold characters, head the 

 columns which represent the centuries. Beneath these 

 prominent names we have (in the case of a considerable 

 number of the most recent centuries) put up schedules of the 

 principal events, and lists of some of the principal persons. 

 The appended schedule is one of them and will illustrate what 

 is meant : — 



FOURTEENTH A.D. 

 Chaucer. 

 The Three Edwards. 

 Bannockburn. 

 Famine in England. 

 The Hundred Years' War begins. 

 Battue of Crecy. 

 The Black Death (Plague). 

 Battle of Poictiers. 

 Bolingbroke dethrones Richard II. 

 Froissart's Chronicle. 

 Wallace and Bruce. Dante. John of Gaunt. Rienzi. Van Artevelde. 

 Wickliffe. Huss. Boccacio. Petrarch. William Tell. 



It will, if what we have tried to describe has conveyed its 

 intended meaning, be seen that an observer passing slowly 



