among the men is that they were kidnapped
and forced into committing acts of piracy;
that they dared not refuse the orders of the
captain, and the quartermaster. "But," says
the President on one occasion, " you elected
these men; if you were well disposed, why
did you vote for such a captain, and such a
quarter-master?"

Here succeed a silence among the prisoners;
but at length Fernan very honestly owned
that he did not give his vote to Magnes, but
to David Sympson, ' For in truth,' says he, ' I
took Magnes for too honest a man, and unfit
for the business.'"

The next scene is the Execution, of which
we are not spectators. We are not, and we
could not be; for although we have let our
gossip sometimes run into the present tense,
these objects of it are completely portions of
the past. They are a fragment of those
institutions of our ancestors which now have
fallen into absolute neglect. England survives.
All change is evil; is, in fact, revolutionary;
and there is a sad tendency to be
utilitarian among us. We have changed the
aspect of affairs on the high seas, we have
trodden under the heels of trade those dear
romantic Corsairs and Red Rovers. The
world is getting altogether work-a-day. England
survives out of pure obstinacy, nothing
else. O, how she would have flourished had
she never changed!

CHIPS.

THE BRITISH MUSEUM A CENTURY AGO.

EXPERIENCE has long since proved the
injustice of closing national museums from the
great body of the people, under the plea that
the public is a most destructive and brutal
animal. Nervous gentlemen of the old school
threw up their hands in despair when they
learnt that Government intended to give the
public free and unlimited access to the
National Gallery; but the result of the experiment
has been here, as elsewhere, a strong
and unequivocal contradiction of the old
Toryism, that the labourer in corduroy would
make as lamentable a figure in a museum or
a picture-gallery, as the proverbial bull in the
china-shop. Crowds of artisans pace the
galleries of the National Gallery and Marlborough
House, and yet the glories of Rubens,
Claude, and Vandyke are not desecrated—
the line of beauty is untouched upon
Hogarth's palette. Any injury which the
national collection may have suffered, is
traceable, according to high critical authority,
rather to the appointed guardians of the
treasures, than to the rash fingering of artisan
visitors. To the minds of many enlightened
men, the picture-cleaner, with his scrubbing-
brush, is an animal more to be feared than
the poor holiday-maker, with his reverence
and his seemly bearing.

Curious persons who are anxious to obtain
a fair estimate of the progress made by men
in authority in their judgment on the moral
rectitude of the great industrial class of this
country, may form a vivid picture of the old
state of feeling which regulated the admission
of visitors to the British Museum a century
ago.

In the year 1759, the Trustees of this institution
published their "Statutes and Rules
relating to the Inspection and Use of the
British Museum." This instructive document
may now pertinently serve to illustrate the
darkness from which we are struggling.
Those visitors who now consider it rather an
affront to be required to give up their cane or
umbrella at the entrances to our Museums and
Galleries, will be astonished to learn, that in
the year 1757, those persons who wished to
inspect the national collection, known as the
British Museum, were required to make
previous application to the porter, in writing,
stating their names, condition, and places of
abode, as also the day and hour at which they
desired to be admitted. Their applications
were written down in a register, which was
submitted every evening to the librarian or
secretary in attendance. If this official,
judging from the condition and ostensible
character of an applicant, deemed him eligible
for admittance, he directed the porter to give
him a ticket on the following day. Thus the
candidate for admission was compelled to
make two visits before he could learn whether
or not it was the gracious will of a librarian
or secretary that he should be allowed the
inestimable privilege of inspecting the national
collection. If successful, his trouble did not
end with the issuing of the ticket; for it was
provided by the trustees that no more than
ten tickets should be given out for each hour
of admittance. Accordingly, every morning
on which the Museum was open, the porter
received a company of ten ticket-holders at
nine o'clock, ushered them into a waiting-room
"till the hour of seeing the Museum had
come"—to use the words of the Trustees.
This small party was divided into two of five;
one under the direction of the under-librarian,
and the other under that of the assistant in
each department.

Thus attended, the companies traversed the
galleries, and on a signal given by the tinkling
of a bell, passed from one department of the
collection into another—one hour being
the utmost time allowed for the inspection of
one department. This system calls to mind
the dragooning through Westminster Abbey,
under the command of the gallant vergers,
still in vogue, to the annoyance of leisurely
people, ardent but leisurely archaeologists.
Sometimes, when public curiosity was
particularly excited, the number of respectable
applicants exceeded the limit of the prescribed issue.
In these cases, tickets were given for remote
days; and thus, at times, when the lists were
heavy, it must have been as impossible for a
passing visitor to London to get within the