The Leverian Museum.
The Leverian Museum.
On Friday the eighteenth of July, 1806, the sale of the magnificent collection of natural history and curiosities formed by sir Ashton Lever, was concluded by Messrs. King and Lochee, of King-street, Covent-garden.
It is impossible to give an adequate account of the “Leverian Museum,” but its celebrity throughout Europe seems to require some further notice than a bare mention: a few facts are subjoined to convey an idea of its extent, and of the gratification the lovers of natural history and antiquities must have derived from its contemplation.
The last place wherein the Leverian collection was exhibited, was in a handsome building on the Surrey side of the Thames, near Blackfriars-bridge, consisting of seventeen different apartments, occupying nearly one thousand square yards. In these rooms were assembled the rarest productions in the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, with inimitable works of art, and the various dresses, manufactures, implements of war, &c. of the Indian nations in North and South America, Otaheite, Botany-bay and other foreign parts, collected by the late captain Cook and other navigators.
The preceding [engraving] represents the rotunda of the museum, from a print published about twenty years before the sale took place. It is an accurate record of the appearance of that part of the edifice, until the auction, which was held on the premises, finally broke up the rare assemblage of objects exhibited. After the sale the premises were occupied for many years by the library, apparatus, and other uses of the Surrey Institution. They are now, in 1826, used for recreation of another kind. On the exterior of the building is inscribed “Rotunda Wine Rooms.” It is resorted to by lovers of “a good glass of wine” and “a cigar,” and there is professional singing and music in “the Rotunda” every Tuesday and Thursday evening.