MUSEUMS. 
333 
order. I am always lost in admiration when I cast 
my eyes on the vast collection of treasure which 
this lover of the arts has brought into the spacious 
and well-proportioned apartment, built at his own 
expense, and arranged after his own plan. In con- 
versing with him on the habits of those animals 
which have come under his own immediate notice, 
I perceive something so true, so pertinent, and so 
straightforward in his observations, that I always 
feel regret when I see by my watch it is time for me 
to depart. 
It has been remarked by some, who have conversed 
with me on this new process of preparing specimens 
for museums, that it would take up too much time. 
I am not aware that this would be the case ; for he 
who is solely obcupied in preparing specimens 
would always contrive to have several on hand at 
one and the same time. But, even granting that a 
great portion of his time were spent upon a single 
animal ; is not one good specimen worth twenty bad 
ones ? Jl Who would fill his gallery full of Holland 
toys, when he has it in his power to place there 
statues of the first workmanship ? 
Indifferent specimens are admitted into museums 
only because better cannot be procured ; and better 
will never be procured, until a radical change be 
made in that mode of preparation which is now in 
universal use. 
I often think that the directors of public museums 
commit an error in not giving more encouragement, 
in a pecuniary point of view, to those whom they 
engage to prepare the specimens. The very mode- 
