fore a Committee of the House of Con

mons.

It may be said, indeed, without any disrespect to old Montague House, whose massive chimney-pieces, inlaid floors, roomy staircases, and painted ceilings, give it an air of substantial magnificence, which some of its more modern competitors aspire at in vain; it may justly be said that the most successful parts of the new edifice are those in which it recedes the furthest from the character of the old. A nobleman's residence and a public Museum are, or ought to be, two very different buildings. The architect has in the latter an opportunity of ample and magnificent display, which the former could never consistently with its purposes afford, and if he sacrifice a particle of this opportunity, he commits an architectural sin. It is said by the officers of the Museum, that there is but one part of it which foreigners invariably admire the splendid King's Library, with its noble length of three hundred feet. There seems no good reason why the whole Museum might not consist of a succession of apartments of almost equally magnificent dimensions, forming an unique and appropriate whole of a character perfectly distinct from any more ordinary edifice. A glance at the accompanying plan will, however, inform the examiner that the Hall of Antiquities, not yet completed, in the western wing, will be when all is finished the only apartment to rival in size the King's Library of the eastern, with the exception of the Mineralogical Gallery which stands immediately over the latter. The space above this Hall of Antiquities, which it might be expected would, like that in the corresponding wing, be kept undivided, is, on the contrary, split into a number of rooms larger, indeed, than any in old Montague House, but still not large enough to convey the impression that they belong to a great public building, and can belong to nothing else. The upper space of the remainder of the edifice is frittered away in the same manner, and the principal floor of the northern wing exhibits nothing except the Library beyond the dimensions of about sixty feet in length, by half as much in breadth.

The northern wing, however, though its size might have been turned to more account, is not of sufficient length to

afford a room of the dimensions of the King's Library. From its being the furthest wing of the great quadrangle from the entrance hall, it might naturally be expected to prove the most important portion of the whole range of building; but the stranger who, from its position, forms this very natural expectation of superior size and grandeur, is doomed to be disappointed. Its length to the quadrangle is only 238 feet, while that of the eastern and western sides is 317; and this deficiency in length is not compensated by superiority in its other dimensions. Had the nature of the groundbelonging to the Museum been such that this arrangement was unavoidable, the architect might have been pitied, but an examination of his plans shows that the defect was entirely of choice. The grounds of the Museum extend so far to the west of the northern wing, that the Elgin Gallery has already been erected in its rear, and still a large unoccupied space. remains. Why the quadrangle should not have been built square, if built at all,-why the present lop-sided disposi tion of the premises should have been adopted, are questions likely, perhaps, to be oftener asked than answered. The only plausible reason that formerly appeared to present itself, that it was intended to preserve the Gallery of 1808, where the Townley marbles were and are deposited, and to unite it with the western wing, has vanished since the avowal of the intention not to leave one stone of the old building on another.

Another subject of regret may be found in the want of a continuous passage round the whole Museum. Built in the form of a hollow square, it might naturally be expected that the visitor would in one walk round the building survey the whole range of apartments on one floor, and so be brought again to the entrance. In the northern wing the double range of rooms will destroy this simplicity of plan, which, it is singular enough, is preserved in the cellars underneath, thus superior in one point to the magnificent rooms above.

The great fault of the plan of the building (or that which to the writer of these remarks appears to be so) is, however, still to be mentioned. Why was the great quadrangle made at all? To what purpose is that enormous space of

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238 feet by 317 torn away from an edifice for which space is so much wanted. It hardly have been done to afford a free circulation of air, for, in fact, the square, large as it is, being walled in on all four sides, bids fair to become a mere well of malaria, a pestilent congregation of vapours." If, on the other hand,' its sole purpose was to afford an occasion of architectural display (an idea which does not seem likely to have been enter tained, at so great an expense of room, by any one but the architect himself), it must be acknowledged that the attempt has turned out a deplorable failure. No part of the whole Museum is so generally condemned as the fronts to the great quadrangle they are universally censured as, like another production of Sir Robert Smirke's, the Bow-street front of Covent-garden Theatre, exhibiting a character of sternness and severity unsuited to the nature of the building; and the alterations made by order of the Trustees in the northern wing, which has been deprived of its intended portico, have spoilt the whole effect of the square, not only as Sir Robert informs us in the opinion of Earl Grey and Lord Cottenham, but in his, the architect's, own. Not a word is said of any intention to make use of the ground for botanical purposes-if, indeed, it be adapted for them-and it mustaltogether be considered as a dead loss.

The space thus unfortunately wasted would have provided accommodation for the whole library, much superior to what is now proposed to afford it. A readingroom, of ample dimensions, might have stood in the centre, and been surrounded on all four sides by galleries for the books, communicating with each other and lighted from the top. Two of these would have been of the length of the present King's Library; the others (supposing the present outer galleries to remain as they are) would have been 238 feet in length, and might have been of very great breadth-the whole would have formed a library unquestionably superior in splendour to any thing else of the same kind in Europe. The readingroom being in, the centre of the library, the attendants would never have had to perform a longer journey to fetch any one book than about 200 feet, while under the present arrangements with the temporary reading-rooms, they have fre

quently to go from 300 to 400, and when the permanent ones are completed and ot open, they will (so excellently have theyor been cared for) have sometimes to travell from 500 to 600-from the north-easternen angle of the building to the manuscripts rooms near the entrance. This necessity for a walk of 1000 feet or more for there?

is the return journey with the book to be w taken into account will produce a ne-log cessity for no trifling expense in additional só attendants (unless, indeed, some simples mechanical contrivance, such as an ende less book-cradle reaching from the further end of the library to the reading-room be adopted, as it seems strange that its has not been long since, to save the end-s less running to and fro).

How urgently the space thus thrown away is wanted, is a fact which glares upon the reader of the Evidence before! the Commons' Committee in a hundredpassages. The defectiveness of the col lection of stuffed quadrupeds is stated to arise from the want of room for their proper exhibition; the five-fold increase of the collection of birds within the last few years is immediately attributed to room having been recently provided stoo show them in. The librarian of printed books complains, that if a library of fires or six thousand volumes were left to the Museum, he should be at a loss where to place it. "At the time," says Sir Robert Smirke (question 5513, p. 437), ** when these buildings were first under consi deration, it was stated to me by one of the principal officers of the Museum, that the average number of readers daily at tending the reading-rooms was thirty He stated, at the same time, that he thought it probable if more convenient arrangements were made for their recep tion, they might be increased to 80 or even, perhaps, 100. There are now fre quently 200, and yet more accommodation is wanted." Additional room is, in fact, required both for the visitors and the collections, and the demand keeps increasing with the supply. alo yalila

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One way in which Sir Robert proposes to provide for this requisite extension of the premises, appears a most unworthy one. He takes it for granted, that no part of the exterior of the Museum, with the exception of the front, is visible from the streets surrounding it-that the view is entirely confined to the houses which

stand in those streets and back upon it. If he will take the trouble of an attentive walk up Great Russell-street and Montague-place, he will perceive that his own buildings come more into the view of the public eye than he is inclined to believe. Under the impression, however, that they do not, he proposes to append a series of rooms to the outer side of the King's Library, no matter how unsightly, for the purpose of receiving books. No more appropriate name can possibly be given to such a proposal as this, than that it is one for cobbling the Museum.

A preferable way of obtaining additional room would be that of transferring one part of the collections of the Museum to another national establishment-the Gallery in Trafalgar-square. When the Museum was first set on foot, it was intended to be, and it long continued, the sole receptacle for the public treasures in literature, science, (including the study of Nature) and art,-the three great departments into which it has for some time been divided, with much more show of reason than if Mr. Millard's classifica tion had been adopted, and sixteen departments created, of which literature was to form but one. But a new establishment has recently been founded by Government, expressly for the reception of works of art, the National Gallery-the pictures of the British Museum have al ready been transferred to it—and why should not the statues follow? The collection at the Museum would then remain of an entirely homogeneous character-it would be exclusively devoted to convey literary information, while that at the Gallery would have for its object to refine and cultivate the taste. The various curiosities accumulated at the Museum might be considered as a vast assemblage of "book-plates," serving to illustrate and elucidate the literature of the library.

But if this should not be thought advisable, it would certainly be still less soto adopt the cobbling plans of Sir Robert Smirke. As it seems unavoidable that the Museum must be extended, let a grand design be formed for extending it, to be executed as occasion shall arise. So much has been expended on the great quadrangle, that it might seem barbarous to propose filling up the square, as ought to have been originally done. Perhaps the best plan would be to design an

other range of building entirely, enclosing the present on the eastern and northern sides, as the Elgin Gallery, &c. do on the west. To do this it would be necessary to purchase and pull down one side of two streets-Montague-street and Montague-place. Let it be supposed, for illustration sake, that Montague-street is begun with. The same plan could then be executed, with trifling alterations, as might have been originally effected with the quadrangle. The Li brary-one side of it being formed by the present King's-could be carried round four sides of a grand reading-room-a front opening fully on the street would be obtained for architectural display, and an entrance distinct from the general one might be made in it for the readers.

With the space afforded by the houses in Montague-place another scheme might be carried into effect, which has been already proposed in the Asiatic Journal. It has for some time been a practice with Government to borrow apartments in Somerset House for the use of the most distinguished scientific Societies. To a recent application of the Asiatic Society to be assigned the rooms vacated by the Royal Academy on its removal to Trafalgar-square, a reply has been given that the request should be taken into consideration, but, in all probability, those apartments would be required for the use of some Government offices. Would it not be better for the future to locate these grants of house accommodation at Montague rather than at Somerset House; and as a return for the accommodation afforded, might not Government stipulate that the public should be admitted to view the collections belonging to these Societies. A range of handsome rooms might be erected in Montague-place for the meetings of such Societies as should be thus favoured, devoted exclusively to their use, but communicating in the rear with a line of apartments likewise accessible from the Museum to contain the Society's collections, to which the public should in Museum days be admitted. There would thus at once be added to the national treasures already accumulated a mass of additions of no mean value. The mu seum of the Asiatic Society, for instance, would partly supply a deficiency which is much felt in the stores of its prouder rival, the British. Since the days of the

earlier voyages to the Pacific Ocean, which furnished it with Otaheitan dresses, South Sea islanders' idols, and other interesting articles of the same kind, there has been a singular inattention shown to he augmentation of its stock of ethnographical curiosities, tending to illustrate the manners and customs of nations. There has, indeed, of late been a sufficiently liberal expenditure in acquiring a number of ancient Egyptian relics; but of articles less costly, and yet quite as interesting, of curiosities throwing light on the modern life of the Mahometan and Indo-Chinese nations, there is a plentiful lack," which must, indeed, surprise the stranger who comes with his imagination excited by the thought of the almost boundless regions which England holds dominion over in the East and West.

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It may be thought that these plans are too visionary and too expensive. So would those which are actually carrying into execution have been thought twenty years ago. At that time the visitors to the Museum were, compared with their numbers now, but "few and far between." The Institution should assume an additional dignity proportioned to its increased importance in the public eye. It is true, that this view does not seem as yet to have been sufficiently impressed on the Government. Lavish in every other article of expenditure, our rulers appear to have exhibited a singular spirit of cautious cunning in every thing relating to an establishment, on which even lavish expenditure would be approved of by the vast majority of the public.*

It remains to be seen what effect the recent recommendation by the Committee of the House of Commons for a more liberal scale of grants will produce. Part of the expenditure, however, here recommended has already been decided

* We learn from the evidence of Sir Robert Smirke, that that delay in the building which has been so often attributed to his inaction and inattention proceeds, in reality, from the parsimony of Government, who have seldom granted more to the annual building-fund of the Museum than half what was applied for. It is due to Sir Robert likewise to state, that in various other respects-in the declination of the continuous corridor to the northern wing, and the portico which was to adorn its front-in the cutting up of the space over the Gallery of Antiquities, &c., the fault is not to be laid on his shoulders, but on that of the Trustees and officers of the Museum.

on, since it is stated that it has long been the determination of the Trustees to apply to Government for funds to purchase some of the property of the Duke of Bed ford in Great Russell-street and at the corner of Montague-street, for the pur pose of the enlargement of the premises of the Museum towards the south. The amount required to effect the rest would hardly surpass that which would be indispensably requisite to execute the recommendation of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests in 1826, for pulling down the houses in front of the Museum as far back as Bloomsbury Church, for the mere purpose of adding a new square to a neighbourhood already so rich in them, and showing off the front of the Museum more to advantage. This scheme was part of a plan projected by the late Mr. Nash, which has long remained in abeyance, but which has not, it is to be hoped, been altogether abandoned since; though objectionable in many of its details, it bore in its main features an air of grandeur which stamped it worthy of a great metropolis. His proposal was to lead a new street from south to north in the direction of St. Martin's-lane, and as he had already by one broad and magnificent avenue, now famous throughout Europe and America, connected the Regent's and St. James's Parks, unite by another of equal splendour the NATIONAL GALLERY and the BRITISH MUSEUM.

MR. UTTING'S ASTRONOMICAL TABLES.

Sir,-Your correspondent, Mr. J. Utting, C.E., has, in your 677th Number, made a most severe and, as I imagine, a most unwarrantable attack upon that able and assiduous astronomer, Professor Struve, of the Dorpat Observatory, in consequence of two sets of observations made by the Professor on Saturn and his ring, and on Jupiter and his satellites. Mr. Utting, in plain English asserts, that what is styled the second set of corrected observations, were manufactured from the first set, by a mere reduction of the th part of the first set of observations. Mr. Utting adds, "it is millions of times more probable, that if fifteen dice were thrown out of a box that they should all of them come up aces, than that the above results should obtain from observations only."

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Now I certainly think, Mr. Editor, that it would have been far more charitable in Mr. Utting, to have supposed, that the first set of observations might have been taken with the instruments (the telescope and micrometer), which from some cause, or combination of causes, might have been faulty, and consequently the results of the observations, although taken with the most scrupulous accuracy, would of course have been false; but that the second set of observations had been taken with more perfect instruments. I cannot, therefore, help agreeing with the remarks of the Edinburgh Journal of Science, "that their accuracy may be inferred from the slight difference between the old and new results." Besides, what earth ly motive could the Professor have had

for committing such a contemptible fraud? He has always borne the character of being one of the ablest, assiduous, and most faithful astronomical observers of the present age. If such a sweeping charge were to be brought against our Sir John Herschel, or Sir James South, who would believe it?..

But, Mr. Editor, who could have imagined that Mr. Utting, after having brought such a serious charge against the Professor, should in his next come munication to the Mechanics' Magazine, (No. 705) have been guilty of a similar kind of simulation as that which he im putes to the Professor? In the said com.. munication he states, "On examining (not astronomically observing, be it known) the motions of the planets and their satellites for different periods of time, I find that a conjunction of all the planetary bodies takes place (or does not take place, he should have added) after a period of 250,904 solar years, in which are contained 91,640,740 mean solar days, supposing them to have been in conjunction at the commencement of the above period."

Mr. Utting in his first table gives us the number of revolutions the planets describe round the centre of gravity of the solar system, and also the periodical times in mean solar days, &c.; and this he has given to the hair-splitting accuracy of the ten thousandth part of a single second of time!! That is, if all the planets were exactly in conjunction, at the end of 250,904 solar years, they would all be again in conjunction, having each finished a complete number of revolutions, and consequently all arrived at the same points in their orbits that they were in at the commencement of the above period. If the first seven mentioned planets would be kind enough to adjust their periodical times to that calculated by Mr. Utting, the conjunctions would no doubt happen in the way and time he has mentioned. But I will ask Mr. Utting from what authority has he deduced the periodical times of the planets given in his first table? For I find that none of them agree with the best modern discoveries. The periodical time of the earth is very nearly true, but of the others some are minutes wrong, some hours, some days, yea, even months wrong. The truth is,