d on the banks of the Tigris. Here is a monstrous
human head, having bull's horns and ears, many fragments of horses'
heads, bulls, &c., &c. The colossal figure of the king is very grand,
and discovers great art. There is also a fine colossal priest, and the
war sculptures are of the deepest interest. Then we went to the Lycian
Room. The sculptures here were found at Xanthus, in Lycia. These ruins
claim a date of five hundred years before Christ. Here are some
exquisite fragments of frieze, describing processions, entertainments,
sacrifices, and female figures of great beauty.

In the Grand Saloon are numerous Roman remains of sculpture. In the
Phigalian Saloon are marbles found at a temple of Apollo, near Phigalia,
in Arcadia, in 1814. The Elgin Saloon is devoted to the magnificent
marbles taken in 1804, from temples at Athens, by the Earl of Elgin, and
were purchased by Parliament for thirty-five thousand pounds. They are
chiefly ornaments from the Parthenon, a Doric temple built in the time
of Pericles, B.C. 450, by Phidias. No one can fail to be impressed with
the great beauty of these conceptions. The famous Sigean inscription is
written in the most ancient of Greek letters, boustrophedon-wise; that
is, the lines follow each other as oxen turn from one furrow to another
in ploughing.

There are five galleries devoted to natural history, and are named thus:
the Botanical Museum, Mammalia Gallery, Eastern Zooelogical Gallery,
Northern Zooelogical Gallery, and the Mineral Gallery. The specimens in
all these are very fine. Nothing can be finer than the mammalia. The
preservation has been perfect, and far surpasses what I have been
accustomed to see in museums, where decay seems to be often rioting upon
the remains of nature. The department of ornithology is wonderful, and I
could have enjoyed a whole day in examining the birds of all climates.
In conchology the collection is very rich. I do not often get such a
gratification as I had among the portraits which are hanging on the
walls of these galleries. The very men I had heard so much of, and read
about, were here lifelike, painted by the best artists of their day. I
was much pleased with the picture of Mary, Queen of Scots, by Jansen; of
Cromwell, by Walker; of Queen Elizabeth, by Zucchero; of Charles II., by
Lely; of Sir Isaac Newton; of Lord Bacon; of Voltaire; of John
Guttenburg; and of Archbishop Cranmer. As to the library and the MSS.,
what shall I say? The col