Some idea of the magnitude of this great Museum may be formed when I state that the clerical and literary force connected with the institution is larger than that of any similar foundation in Europe but one—the Imperial Library at Paris.
There is first a Principal Librarian, a Secretary, fifteen keepers of departments, beside a little army of attendants, messengers, bookbinders, watchmen, and doorkeepers, numbering over one hundred persons. Beside there are fifty or sixty persons of literary eminence and celebrity connected with the Museum, and employed to perfect the collection, to collate and arrange the books and to classify subjects. In this way alone the expenses of the establishment amount to £40,000 yearly.
The average number of visitors to the Museum yearly is over one million, and the galleries are entirely free to the public.
NELSON'S MONUMENT.
Next to the British Museum, the most frequented place in London is the National Gallery of Art, in Trafalgar Square, facing Nelson's Monument. This lofty monument fills the eye of the spectator as it takes in the range of one of the finest squares in Europe. The column is a circular one, 145 feet high, and the figure of the great naval hero, Nelson, on the top, is 17 feet high. The monument was built in 1840-43, and is placed on an elevated pedestal of granite. The Emperor Nicholas of Russia gave £500 toward the erection of the monument, and the rest was raised by public subscription. The two immense lions of bronze who lie couchant at the base of the monument, were modeled in iron from visits made by Sir Edwin Landseer to the live lions at the Zoological Gardens.
THE NATIONAL GALLERY.
There are also statues of Sir Henry Havelock and of Sir Charles Napier, on each side of the inclosure which fronts the Nelson column, twelve feet high and of bronze, and just below in an angle of the square is a bronze statue of George IV, which cost £10,000. These three statues, which are all equestrian, were paid for by public subscription.
On one side of the square is the church of St. Martin, an imposing looking building, built by Wren, and on the lofty steps of this church the crossing sweepers and bootblacks of the Metropolis have their daily rendezvous, and here divide their earnings with each other.