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 depa