Highways and Byways in London

by Emily Constance Baird Cook

Here, naïve as always, yet never quite without a certain faint meretriciousness of effect, the "girl-child" of Greuze looks down on the visitor in every costume and attitude.

In the long picture-gallery that forms one side of the great quadrangle, there are large canvases by Reynolds, Gainsborough, Romney, Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Hals, Murillo, and many others. Here is a charming picture of "Miss Bowles" by Reynolds,—the little girl with round eyes, cuddling a dog, so long familiar to us by engraving or print; and here, too, is Frans Hals's Laughing Cavalier, whose infectious laugh lingers so long in the memory.

Sir Richard Wallace offered his collection, with his house, to the nation before his death; the Government, however, after the usual manner of Governments in such matters, raised objections; and the affair subsided, till the surprise of the widow's legacy came, and showed the long and serious intention of the gift. One little picture, The Peace of Münster, by Terburg, a small historical panel of untold and unique value, was, indeed, given by Sir Richard to the National Gallery before his death; yet even this gift had a narrow escape of being rejected; for the would-be donor, unrecognized, and wearing shabby clothes, was ill received by Sir William Boxall, the then Director, and was all but sent away with contumely, with his picture, till he made it and himself known:

"My name is Wallace," said the stranger quietly, "Sir Richard Wallace; and I came to offer this picture to the National Gallery." "I nearly fainted," said Boxall when he told the story.... "I had nearly refused The Peace of Münster, one of the wonders of the world!"

Nevertheless, the little scene is in its way truly typical of the nation's treatment of its would-be benefactors!

The story of the foundation of the British Museum, the classic edifice in Bloomsbury that has arisen on the site of the old historic Montague House, is not unlike that of Hertford House. For, the first beginnings of the enormous museum collections originated very much in the same manner as the Hertford Bequest. Sir Hans Sloane, the Sir Richard Wallace of his day, Chelsea magnate, physician, naturalist, and philanthropist, determined his large library collections to the nation, offering them by his will, at a fourth of their estimated value; desiring, like Sir Richard, that, if possible, the collections should remain in his house,—Henry VIII.'s historic Chelsea manor-house. This wish, however, was not in his case carried out; the ancient building was demolished, and, in its stead, the British Museum was founded.

At the British Museum the lady-lecturer, with her tribe of earnest students, is occasionally also to be met with. Here she is often youthful and attractive, and is generally to be found,—strange contrast of associations!—either in the Mausoleum Room, or among the Elgin Marbles: her little band of eager pupils scribbling in their note-books at a respectful distance. Last March I saw a charming, Hypatia-like lady, tall and fair, gray-eyed and gray-robed, holding thus her little court, by the lovely figure of Demeter; I would fain have joined myself to the small gathering, and posed as a pupil, but that my courage failed.... I felt, however, glad to think that, in this case, the study of Art had not, as some declare, tended to make the young lady regardless either of her appearance or of neatly-fitting tailor-made clothes. But she went on with her following to the Nereid's Tomb, and I saw her no more.

In the long galleries of the British Museum is generally to be found a motley gathering of visitors, in which the poor, and the children of the poor, largely predominate. Rows of chattering little girls in pinafores, corresponding batches of little boys in knickerbockers, greet one at every turn. And the more ragged the children, the more astonishingly erudite and profound are sometimes their utterances. This is a surprising testimony to the efficacy of the Board Schools, as well as to the advance of learning generally. The visitor who "lies low" and listens, in any of the Greek Marble Rooms, will often find cause to marvel at youthful and ragged intelligence. Girls are more flippant, perhaps, than boys: "'Ere's the Wenus," one will say: "you can always tell 'er, 'cos she seems to be lookin' around and sayin': 'Ain't I pretty'?" Yet, though to hear unkempt and neglected waifs talking wisely about Greek marbles does, I must confess, puzzle me, I must, in fairness, own that there appears to be another side to the question, and that the officials on guard appear to entertain no very high views as to juvenile erudition. "So far as I've noticed," a kindly British Museum policeman once said to me, "the street children don't get much real good out of going to the Museum. They bring a lot of dirt out of the streets in with them, their fingers are generally sticky, and they look about 'em—oh, yes! but not usually with any object, just vacantly."

This was depressing. (Did the accompanying dirt, I wondered, at all affect this particular policeman's outlook?) "But I saw a small crowd of boys and girls looking hard at the King Alfred documents and missals," I murmured.

"Oh, and so you might have done; but didn't you notice," said the stern guardian of the law, "that a lot of ladies and gentlemen had been lookin' at 'em just before? They wouldn't have troubled about 'em without that.... And King Alfred's all the thing now.... Children always come, like bees, where other people are lookin'; and try and squeeze the older folks out just to see what they've been a-lookin' at.... Yes," he owned, in reply to my incredulous interjection, "the children might have heard the name of Alfred in their history books, but no more; that wouldn't be the cause of their crowding up. Their mothers often send 'em into the Museum when they want to go out themselves, or perhaps just to get rid of 'em for a time. Children are more indulged, and not half so well-behaved, as I was when I was a boy."