Bethnal Green Museum.—This is really a branch of the South Kensington Museum, and is situated not far from Shoreditch Church. It is accessible by omnibus from most parts of the City and the West End, and is not far distant from Victoria Park. It was formally opened, in 1872, by the Prince and Princess of Wales. At the present, its great attraction is the picture gallery; but it promises to become as popular as any museum in London, especially as technical information will become an essential feature of its future existence. It is open under the same regulations as are observed at the South Kensington Museum.
Museum of Economic Geology.—This small but interesting establishment, having an entrance in Jermyn Street, is a national museum for the exhibition of all such articles as belong to the mineral kingdom. It was built from the designs of Mr. Pennethorne, and was opened in 1851. Though less extensive than the British and South Kensington Museums, it is of a very instructive character. Besides the mineral specimens, raw and manufactured, it contains models, sections, and diagrams, illustrative of mining, metallurgy, and various manufactures. It is open, free, every day, except Friday.
Museum of the College of Surgeons.—This building, on the south side of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, can be visited by strangers only through the introduction of members of the College. The Government, about seventy years ago, bought John Hunter’s Anatomical Museum, and presented it to the College. The contents of the museum are illustrative of the structure and functions of the human body, both in the healthy and the diseased state; they have been classified and arranged with great skill by Professor Owen.
United Service Museum.—This is situated in Whitehall Yard. Admission is obtained through the members of the United Service Institution. The contents of the museum consist of models, weapons, and implements interesting to military men. Here see the robe worn by Tippoo Sahib, when killed at Seringapatam, in 1799. Also observe Siborne’s extraordinary model of the battle of Waterloo; and notice the skeleton of the horse which Napoleon rode at that battle.
East India Museum.—Near the building last noticed, in Fife House, Whitehall, is deposited the collection known as the East India Museum, formerly deposited at the India House, in Leadenhall Street, and now belonging to the nation. It comprises a very curious assemblage of Oriental dresses, jewels, ornaments, furniture, musical instruments, models, paintings, tools, implements, idols, trinkets, &c. Among the rest is the barbaric toy known as Tippoo’s Tiger. It consists of a figure of a tiger trampling on a prostrate man, whom he is just about to seize with his teeth; the interior contains pipes and other mechanism, which, when wound up by a key, cause the figure of the man to utter cries of distress, and the tiger to roar. Such was one of the amusements of Tippoo Sahib! The museum is open free on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, from 10 till 4.
Royal Institution.—This building, in Albemarle Street, is devoted to the prosecution of science, by means of lectures, experiments, discussions, and a scientific library. It has been rendered famous by the brilliant labours of Davy and Faraday. Admission is only obtainable by membership, or by fees for courses of lectures.
Society of Arts.—This institution has existed in John Street, Adelphi, for a long series of years. Its object is the encouragement of arts, manufactures, agriculture, and commerce. Under the auspices of the late Prince Consort, it was mainly instrumental in bringing about the two great International Exhibitions of 1851 and 1862. The lecture-room contains six remarkable pictures by Barry, illustrative of ‘Human Culture.’ Every year there are free exhibitions of manufactures and new mechanical inventions.
Scientific Societies.—There are many other Scientific Societies which hold their meetings in London; but only a few of them possess buildings worthy of much attention, or contain collections that would interest a mere casual visitor. The Royal, the Astronomical, the Geological, the Chemical, and the Linnæan Societies, the College of Physicians, the Institution of Civil Engineers, and others of like kind, are those to which we here refer. Many of these societies are at present accommodated with the use of apartments at the public expense, in Burlington House, Piccadilly.
NATIONAL GALLERY; ROYAL ACADEMY; ART EXHIBITIONS.
National Gallery.—This building, in Trafalgar Square, is the chief depository of the pictures belonging to the nation. In 1824, the Government purchased the Angerstein collection of 38 pictures, for £57,000, and exhibited it for a time at a house in Pall Mall. The present structure was finished in 1838, at a cost of about £100,000, from the designs of Mr. Wilkins. Since that year till 1869, the Royal Academy occupied the eastern half, and the National Gallery the western. In the last-named year, the Royal Academy was removed to Burlington House; and the whole of the building is now what its name denotes. This National Gallery now comprises the Angerstein collection, together with numerous pictures presented to the nation by Lord Farnborough, Sir George Beaumont, the Rev. Holwell Carr, Mr. Vernon, and other persons; and, most recent of all, the Turner collection, bequeathed to the nation by that greatest of our landscape painters. Every year, likewise, witnesses the purchase of choice old pictures out of funds provided by Parliament. The grant annually is about £10,000. To accommodate the constantly increasing collection, the centre of the building was re-constructed in 1861, and a very handsome new saloon built, in which are deposited the choicest examples of the Italian Schools of Painting: forming, with its contents, one of the noblest rooms of the kind in Europe. To name the pictures in this collection would be to name some of the finest works of the Italian, Spanish, Flemish, and French schools of painters. Some of the most costly of the pictures are the following:—Murillo’s ‘Holy Family,’ £3000; Rubens’s ‘Rape of the Sabines,’ £3000; Francia’s ‘Virgin and Child,’ £3500; Sebastian del Piombo’s ‘Raising of Lazarus,’ 3500 guineas; Coreggio’s ‘Holy Family,’ £3800; Perugino’s ‘Virgin and Child,’ £4000; Claude’s ‘Seaport,’ £4000; Rubens’s ‘Judgment of Paris,’ £4200; Raffaelle’s ‘St. Catherine,’ £5000; Rembrandt’s ‘Woman taken in Adultery,’ £5250; Correggio’s ‘Ecce Homo,’ and ‘Mercury instructing Cupid,’ 10,000 guineas; and Paul Veronese’s ‘Family of Darius,’ £14,000.