îJ'-!
ai-e eiisiived only by tlie undeviatiiig-
is sanctuaries for tlic arts—the
anotlier, and the lesson of lessons—tliat the true interests of
love of wisdom and virtue—is insensibly acquired.
Let us haste then to found sumptuous museums, which shall
divine arts—until ignorance, driven to herd with bats and owls and every imcleau thing, ceases to
pei-sccutc them;—and let us raise noble galleries to receive the spoils of invincible science. Be temple
and tower too devoted to their legitimate use, tlic Majesty on High sliould be worsliipped of liis creatures
in the face of that spotless lieaven which he made to bo a figure of his iiicoraprehcnsible glory and endicss
perfection.
111. The British Mm - to our confusion be it acknowledged—tlie sole national repository for
the arts and sciences, has been a disgrace to the empire. I speak not invidiously but of the place as a
national object, deserving of praise or censure either as ivortiiy or unwortliy tlic nation itself.
Designed (professedly) for the improvement of the many, it has been tlie mischievous instrument of
retardation—“ the tulj thrown to satisfy the wlialc.” The last gcnoratioii of men went thither, admired
tho painted ceilings and solaced themselves because somelhing had been done. They were content to
submit to tho exclusion of tlicir children; to have the light barred from tlieir eyes was of little present
moracnt^tliey would grow up and tlicn they could gaze upou the nothings there as their fathers liad.
As '■ coming events cast their- sliadows before," so past systems—like tlie mammotlis of the old
world—leave gigantic images beliind them; spectra understood by few, terrible to all. Tlius tiie sprite
of the eighteenth century—the doting age of a philosophy of very much precious material but like
Nebuchadnezzar’s imago of clay feet—scared the vigorous spirit that animated the nineteenth. Born
in the year II, I just remember the iron aspect of that defunct but unburied era, for I lived in an out-of-
thc-way hamlet in a remote province witli an octogenarian grandfather, where nothing but roast-bcef
and plum-pudding, ghost and guns were ever dreamed of at Christmas. As to tho rest of the year,
what was that? Ah, the ghosts!!
And when I came to London—like Whittington expecting to liiid the streets paved with gold—that
forbidding phantom still pursued me and drove me even from the British Museum; I was ascending the
grand stair-casc when a surly Cerberus grasped my a™ and ordered me out instaiiier— l was too young:
—twelve, reader, and as inquisitive as a boy in his first “ teen” could possibly be.
But mattei’S are being mended—uiiwasiien artisans with th e ir spouses and iialf-grown children
saunter about there now.
That superb library of the last George how nobly entertained!
And did not the Elgin marbles cost us £20 or £30,000.
I shall not conceal my gratification at tiie improvements which have been recently made in the
administration of the Museum, nor trouble myself to enquire what influence the example of the
institutions found in almost every large town may have had on that “ Sleeping Beauty." But claim not
meed which is alone due to the British Augustus, nor boast of the works of Praxiteles for which the
Acropolis was desecrated and Greece shorn of the few remaining glories that made her lovely even in
. captivity and disgrace.
This great nation—the' El Dorado of modem times—grudges nothing for the maintenance of its
dignity and wills that the public good be the leading principle of its legislation;—yet every petty Power
on the Continent prides himself upon his regard for the arts of civilization when he talks about England.
And shall England—Queen of Nations—endure the name of barbarian stili. Does tlie Mistress
of the Seas wield a more powerful sceptre than the Cmsars and own a dominion mightier than the Roman
that the kingdoms crouching at her feet may laugh her to scorn.
Make haste to re-institute tiie licentious Saturnalia—if we ai-e to be loss than the least let us wear
the silver chains «-ith a grace becoming Britons,—Englishmen may bear to be mocked by tlicir hirelings
for a season but the badges of slavery they will not suffer for ever.
IV. The British Museum—the misnomer which my sense of public duty would not permit me to
dismiss without comment—has a fragment more descriptive of the Chirostrongulostinus than any one of
that species in my Collection; it comprehends the superior and inferior jaws, some thirty vcrtebrm,
pieces of ribs and two much mutilated and imperfect paddles.
The Bristol Philosophical Institution—wcll-ordercd and most deserving—has also a fragment which
claims the upper and lower jaws, the spinal column and ribs and an apology for the anterior paddles.
Both were procured at Lyme and owe their preservation to Miss Anning.
These and the specimens we figure arc the wlitary relics of this circumscribed family of this
most ciicumscribed race. Our readers will be content tlierefore witli the scant outline that we present
them of the Chirostrongulostinus—a sketch fashioned into something like a whole from the exuvim of
five individuals.
Perhaps these five round-bonc-paddle Ichthyosauri number the alpha and omega of raillinean ages—
the first that dived the deep sea where we now find the village of Street—the last whose bones tliat
restless waste of waters foi-sook lo the imperishable shroud it liad moodily spread over them.
THE HEAD.
Turn, reader to the thirteenth plate; I am surcyou will understand how my heart fluttered when
that gem of price was placed before my flashing eyes. Vowles of Street found in it Mogs quarry there.
That head—with the much elongated intermaxillaries—so like the head and bill of a snipe—
possesses two hundred and sixty long sharp teeth: one hundred and forty in the upper jaw. a hundred
and twenty in the inferior. The immense orbits arc partly formed by tlie median frontals, wifich liave
no foramen. Tlie sclerotic plates are too dislocated to allow their being numbered—some of them we
destroyed to sliow the articular region of the lower jaw whicli is much shorter than the superior. Tiie
temporal foramina are produced in all their anterior and upper region by the parietals, below by the
posterior frontals and behind by the temporal bones whicli have a largo mastoidean process.
Plate fourteen represents a head from Street and a snout from Walton; their teeth—rather than the
intermaxillaries—attach tliem to the species, of which I shall be inclined to call them a sub-division in a
future work that I am contemplating.
Tiic hyoides is a solid globe.
THE TRUNK.
We know not the number of bones of the spinal column, of which plate fifteen affords the best idea
that we have obtained. The continuous chain there reckons fifty-five yoi tebræ—not half of the real
number probably—sunk and so firmly embedded in tbc matrix tliat we found their better development
in alto relievo impossible. Some few scattered on the ground exiiibit tlie real primary, divergent character
to be thin and round. Those vertebræ in the sixteenth plate, belonging lo tlie sacral region arc
particularly strong though the spinous processes attached to them arc not so large as those of the other
species.
The ribs shown upon the former plate—which represents a specimen from Kington—are remarkably
long and thin ; their articulation was by a ball-and-socket joint as in the Chiropolyostinus.
Tlie bones of the pelvis, found upon tliat plate, are large and thick.
THE EXTREMITIES.
The humerus in the fifteenth plate is marked by its neck and inferior expanded portion. Tlie ulna
has a semi-lunar edge like that of the Chiroligostinus, Six round bones compose the carpus which is
succeeded by tliree rows of plialangcs.
Tlic posterior extremity seen in plate sixteen, has a femur mucli like the humerus just mentioned, a
tibia and fibula perfectly round, a tarsus of six bones find three digital rows containing twelve bones.
They are all exceedingly thick.
A singular deviation from tho general rule is seen in tiie fifteenth jilate. Three bones occupy the
place of tibia and fibula, two of whicii remain undisturbed in their natural order.