A History of Science — Volume 5

by Henry Smith Williams; Edward Huntington Williams

In that memorable year the British defeated the French at Alexandria, and received as a part of the conqueror's spoils a collection of Egyptian antiquities which the savants of Napoleon's expedition had gathered and carefully packed, and even shipped preparatory to sending them to the Louvre. The feelings of these savants may readily be imagined when, through this sad prank of war, their invaluable treasures were envoyed, not to their beloved France, but to the land of their dearest enemies, there to be turned over to the trustees of the British Museum.

The museum authorities were not slow to appreciate the value of the treasures that had thus fallen into their hands, yet for the moment it proved to them something of a white elephant. Montague Mansion was already crowded; moreover, its floors had never been intended to hold such heavy objects, so it became imperatively necessary to provide new quarters for the collection. This was done in 1807 by the erection of a new building on the old site. But the trustees of that day failed to gauge properly the new impulse to growth that had come to the museum with the Egyptian antiquities, for the new building was neither in itself sufficient for the needs of the immediate future nor yet so planned as to be susceptible of enlargement with reasonable architectural effect. The mistakes were soon apparent, but, despite various tentatives and "meditatings," fourteen years elapsed before the present magnificent building was planned. The construction, wing by wing, began in 1823, but it was not until 1846 that the last vestige of the old museum buildings had vanished, and in their place, spreading clear across the spacious site, stood a structure really worthy of the splendid collection for which it was designed.

But no one who sees this building to-day would suspect its relative youth. Half a century of London air can rival a cycle of Greece or Italy in weathering effect, and the fine building of the British Museum frowns out at the beholder to-day as grimy and ancient-seeming as if its massive columns dated in fact from the old Grecian days which they recall. Regardless of age, however, it is one of the finest and most massive specimens of Ionic architecture in existence. Forty-four massive columns, in double tiers, form its frontal colonnade, jutting forward in a wing at either end. The flight of steps leading to the central entrance is in itself one hundred and twenty-five feet in extent; the front as a whole covers three hundred and seventy feet. Capping the portico is a sculptured tympanum by Sir Richard Westmacott, representing the "Progress of Civilization" not unworthily. As a whole, the building is one of the few in London that are worth visiting for an inspection of their exterior alone. It seems admirably designed to be, as it is, the repository of one of the finest collections of Oriental and classical antiquities in the world.

There is an air of repose about the ensemble that is in itself suggestive of the Orient; and the illusion is helped out by the pigeons that flock everywhere undisturbed about the approaches to the building, fluttering to be fed from the hand of some recognized friend, and scarcely evading the feet of the casual wayfarer. With this scene before him, if one will close his ears to the hum of the great city at his back he can readily imagine himself on classical soil, and, dreaming of Greece and Italy, he will enter the door quite prepared to find himself in the midst of antique marbles and the atmosphere of by-gone ages.

I have already pointed out that the turning-point in the history of the British Museum came just at the beginning of the century, with the acquisition of the Egyptian antiquities. With this the institution threw off its swaddling-clothes. Hitherto it had been largely a museum of natural history; in future, without neglecting this department, it was to become equally important as a museum of archaeology. The Elgin marbles, including the wonderful Parthenon frieze, confirmed this character, and it was given the final touch by the reception, about the middle of the century, of the magnificent Assyrian collection just exhumed at the seat of old Nineveh by Mr. (afterwards Sir Henry) Layard. Since then these collections, with additions of similar character, have formed by far the most important feature of the British Museum. But in the mean time archaeology has become a science.

Within recent years the natural history collection has been removed in toto from the old building to a new site far out in South Kensington, and the casual visitor is likely to think of it as a separate institution. The building which it occupies is very modern in appearance as in fact. It is a large and unquestionably striking structure, and one that gives opportunity for very radical difference of opinion as to its architectural beauty. By some it is much admired; by others it is almost equally scoffed at. Certain it is that it will hardly bear comparison with the parent building in Great Russell Street.

Interiorly, the building of the natural history museum is admirably adapted for its purpose. Its galleries are for the most part well lighted, and the main central hall is particularly well adapted for an exhibition of specimens, to which I shall refer more at length in a moment. For the rest there is no striking departure from the conventional. Perhaps it is not desired that there should be, since long experience seems to have settled fairly well the problem of greatest economy of space, combined with best lighting facilities, which always confronts the architect in founding a natural history museum.

There is, however, one striking novel feature in connection with the structure of the natural history museum at Kensington which must not be overlooked. This is the quite unprecedented use of terra-cotta ornamentation. Without there is a striking display of half-decorative and half-realistic forms; while within the walls and pillars everywhere are covered with terracotta bas-reliefs representing the various forms of life appropriate to the particular department of the museum which they ornament. This very excellent feature might well be copied elsewhere, and doubtless will be from time to time.

As to the exhibits proper within the museum, it may be stated in a word that they cover the entire range of the faunas and floras of the globe in a variety and abundance of specimens that are hardly excelled anywhere, and only duplicated by one or two other collections in Europe and two or three in America.

It would be but a reiteration of what the catalogues of all large collections exhibit were one to enumerate the various forms here shown, but there are two or three exhibits in this museum which are more novel and which deserve special mention. One of these is to be found in a set of cases in the main central hall. Here are exhibited, in a delightfully popular form, some of the lessons that the evolutionist has taught us during the last half-century. Appropriately enough, a fine marble statue of Darwin, whose work is the fountain-head of all these lessons, is placed on the stairway just beyond, as if to view with approval this beautiful exemplification of his work.