1856-81 
CARLYLE’S OPINION 
55 
^ight and a consequent adaptation of the walls as 
■'Veil as the floor to the needs of exhibition.’ 
In concluding this sketch of Owen’s great 
scheme, it will be interesting to quote some of the 
betters he received while awaiting its realisation. 
Thomas Carlyle writes from Chelsea ; — 
‘Dear Owen,— I hope you will get your 
Museum. I am, for my own share, no great 
judge of such matters, and have never myself 
been able to do much good in museums ; but it 
Seems to me that a nation ready to spend any 
U-mount of millions on any foolery that turns up, 
really might as well take counsel of its chief 
naturalist, and build such a museum as will satisfy 
bim, while its hand is in ! 
‘ I read from your little book, with intelligence 
ntore or less complete, and always with pleasure in 
proportion to my clearness. But what interested 
nie more than the museum question was certain 
characteristics, brief, incidental, which started up 
here and there — characteristics of the now pleader 
^or such a museum. For instance, that of the 
ringed gentlewoman’ (in New Holland, I think), 
'Who gathers rotten leaves and fermenting sub- 
stances to do her hatching for her, and how she 
fared in the Zoological Gardens here. Or still 
better, that of the cane-billed Passeres, who have 
" a marriage-bower ” (better luck to them), and 
bow the British jackdaw is still a Passer of that 
’ Megapodius. 
