320 
MUSEUMS. 
Amidst all these extraordinary movements and 
inventions, our museums alone seem to have stood 
stock still, with the most invincible pertinacity. I 
allude not to the mere buildings themselves : they, 
indeed, are ever on the change. Scarcely a year 
passes over our heads, but some new structure is 
raised by the votaries of natural history, with an 
outside of beautiful architecture, but with inner 
apartments destined to receive articles of old and 
execrable workmanship. 
When I visit these magnificent buildings, in the 
different countries through which I pass, I can 
scarcely refrain from quoting the old verses : — 
" The walls are thick, the servants thin, 
The gods without, the devils within." 
In every apartment dedicated to the arts and 
sciences, saving that of natural history, we find the 
materials in the inner places quite upon a par, and 
often vastly superior, to the outer workmanship of 
the building itself. Thus, he who dedicates a gallery 
to painting always takes care to have a show of 
pictures which will adorn the v/alls; and he who 
builds an ornamental library seldom fails to fill it 
with books far more costly and important than any 
thing in the composition of the structure which he 
has raised for their reception. But, when a com- 
mittee of gentlemen is chosen to form a museum, 
their attention to the outer parts of the building 
seems to know no bounds ; whilst the ornamenting 
of the interior (which, by the .way, ought to be con- 
sidered as tlie very marrrow and essence of the 
