rshipped by an ancient bardic race (resembling our
own sweet-singing Welsh folk), the Thracians. At first the number of
the Muses was indefinite, and they had no names. Then three were
named--one of Meditation (Melete), one of Memory (Mneme), and one of
Song (Aoeide)--a much prettier embodiment of the impression made on a
poetical mind by rock-pools and cascades and leafy gorges than the
formal and redundant nine of later times. One can associate the
primitive three with a museum of natural history; but the later
official goddesses, each insisting on her own department of poetry,
are too clearly representative of the all-appropriating pretensions of
literature in modern seats of learning. They remind me of the
enumeration of studies which a dear old head of an Oxford college
innocently regarded as complete and reasonable when he assured me that
all branches of knowledge were fairly and equally represented on the
college staff. "We have," he said, "a lecturer on Greek literature,
one on Latin literature, one on Greek history, one on Roman history,
one on classical philology, one on modern history, one on mathematics
and one on the natural sciences." What more, he asked, could you wish
for?

It appears that, without any special reference to the attributes of
the Muses, the word "museum" has been adopted in recent times for a
building in which collections of works of art and specimens of natural
history are housed, and even for the collections themselves--in
consequence of the foundation by the Ptolemaic Kings of Egypt of a
splendid institution at Alexandria to which the name museum (mouseion)
was given. It included the great library, apparatus for the study of
astronomy, anatomy, and other sciences, and collections of all kinds.
The most learned men were employed in its management and were lodged
there and provided with the means of study and teaching. It was a
combination of university, learned academy, and temple, and was the
pride of the ancient world. It survived many changes of lordship, but
at last the library and collections were deliberately destroyed by
Moslem invaders in 640 A.D. The precious manuscripts were served out
as fuel for the public baths, and were so numerous that it took some
months to consume them! The destruction of the museum of Alexandria
marks the commencement of the "Dark Ages"; the ancient culture was
dead. Eight centuries of submergence with strange mysterious
upfloatings were its fate until