passages of the Courts of Justice, in Paris-I have seen the walls much disfigured by writing in charcoal instead of chalk; the French hand in which they were written, and the names, at once showing it was the work of the natives.

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In other parts of the Continent, as in Switzerland, where the inhabitants are not under the surveillance of the police, the walls are as much disfigured by writing as in England; and I need only instance the chapel of William Tell. This remnant of barbarism, therefore, which has been called by some English taste,' is not peculiar to our country, and I am inclined to believe that a great improvement in this respect is taking place amongst the English; indeed, there is no doubt, as the education of the people advances, it will rapidly disappear. I feel assured that the best and most speedy way to eradicate the evil, will be to adopt, in the various local institutions, the liberal example of the Natural History Society of Newcastle, as the means best calculated to impart a taste for the beauties of the creation among the people; and if the picture galleries, churches, cathedrals, and other buildings containing works of art in the country, were freely opened to their inspection, it would have the effect of giving them a taste for the fine arts. I think the exemplary behaviour of the visitors in the British Museum, and in the Museum of the Newcastle Society, fully justifies a similar trial in other places.'

-Penny Magazine, vol. vi. p. 47.

We are happy to hear of these signs of improvement in the English public, nor have we any doubt that there are mischievous people abroad as well as in England; but we cannot think that this species of folly has been equally prevalent on the conti

nent.

The following cautions cited from an old number of the Penny Magazine, though intended primarily for visitors to the British Museum, may be read with profit by the visitors to any other public exhibition.

1st. Touch nothing. The statues and other curious things which are in the Museum, are to be seen, not to be handled. If visitors were to be allowed to touch them, to try whether they were hard or soft, to scratch them, to write upon them with their pencils, they would be soon worth very little. You will see some mutilated remains of two or three of the finest figures that ever were executed in the world; they form part of the collection called the Elgin Marbles, and were brought from the Temple of Minerva, at Athens, which city at the time of the sculptures of these statues, about two thousand three hundred years ago, was one of the cities of Greece most renowned for art and learning. Time has, of course, greatly worn these statues but it is said, that the Turkish soldiers, who kept the modern Greeks under subjection, used to take a brutal pleasure in the injury of these remains of ancient art; as if they were glad to destroy what

:

their ignorance made them incapable of valuing. Is it not as great ignorance for a stupid fellow of our own day slily to write his own paltry name upon one of these glorious monuments? Is not such an act the most severe reproach upon the writer? Is it not, as if the scribbler should say, ' Here am I, in the presence of some of the great masterpieces of art, whose antiquity ought to produce reverence, if I cannot comprehend their beauty; and I derive a pleasure from putting my own obscure perishable name upon works whose fame will endure for ever.' What a satire upon such vanity. Doubtless, these fellows, who are so pleased with their own weak selves as to poke their names into every face, are nothing but grown babies, and want a fool's cap most exceedingly.

2ndly. Dont talk loud. Talk, of course you must; or you would lose much of the enjoyment we wish you to have-for pleasure is only half pleasure, unless it be shared with those we love. But do not disturb others with your talk. Do not call loudly from one end of a long gallery to the other, or you will distract the attention of those who derive great enjoyment from an undisturbed contemplation of the wonders in these rooms. You will excuse this hint.

3rdly. Be not obtrusive. You will see many things in the Museum that you do not understand. It will be well to make a memorandum of these, to be inquired into at your leisure; and in these inquiries we shall endeavour to assist you from time to time. But do not trouble other visitors with your questions; and above all, do not trouble the young artists, some of whom you see making drawings for their improvement. Their time is precious to them; and it is a real inconvenience to be be obliged to give their attention to any thing but their work, or to have their attention disturbed by an over-curious person peeping at what they are doing. If you want to make any inquiry go to one of the attendants, who walks about in each room. He will answer you as far as he knows. You must not expect to understand what you see all at once: you must go again and again if you wish to obtain real knowledge, beyond the gratification of passing curiosity.'

Another circumstance in connexion with this subject, and which we think augurs well, is worth mentioning. There appears to us far more of a spirit of mutual accommodation than there was some years ago: less of that indecent selfishness-that jealousy of invasion that resolute appropriation of every possible advantage, with a total insensibility as to whether our neighbour is accommodated at all-less of that fierce assertion of right-less of that 'I've as much right here as you' sort of feeling, which was so strong some years ago, and which would make the wellbehaved beasts in the Zoological Gardens quite shine by contrast. There is more of cheerful gaiety-less of silence and moroseness-more suavity in pressing a prior right-less obstinacy in contesting it; more in fact of the spirit which induces us not merely to seek a selfish pleasure, but to feel a pleasure in seeing

others pleased. Nor have we any doubt that the more the people frequent places of innocent amusement, the better behaved they will become, till their alleged rudeness as well as love of mischief shall cease to be any thing better than libel.

We remarked at the commencement of this article, that the vast increase which has taken place in the body of sight-seers, and the prodigious efforts which have recently been made for their gratification, augur well for the physical, intellectual, social, and moral improvement of the people.

Of the wonderful impulse which in this respect has been recently given to the public mind, those only can form any thing like an adequate conception who have paid attention to the statistical accounts of the number of visitors which, during the last few years, have been at the British Museum, the Tower, and other places. We subjoin the following statements.

1. THE BRITISH MUSEUM. From the year 1807, we find a steady progressive increase in the interest taken in the Museum by the public, as evinced by the number of visitors. The parliamentary return for that year gives the visitors at 13,046; in 1814 we find it stated at 33,074; in 1818 it was 63,253; it fell below that number till 1821, when it is stated at 91,151; and 1825 and 1826 the numbers are 127,643 and 123,302; but the commercial distress of that period appears to have reduced the numbers in 1827 to 79,131. In 1830, the numbers were 71,336; 1832 it rose to 147,896; and the numbers each year since are 1833; 200,495; 1834, 237,366; 1835, 289,104.

2. THE ARMOURIES AT THE TOWER. Before the reduction of the admission fee from two shillings to one, the number of visitors who paid entrance was about 10,000 annually, but during the year which succeeded the change, it increased to nearly fourfold, or 40,000. Since the farther reduction to sixpence, the number of visitors is again greatly beyond the average. In the month of May alone, 1838, the average number of visitors was 4,528; but in May 1839, it was 9,454, producing a much larger profit than when the charge was four times the present fee.

The Gardens,' says

3. ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS, Regents' Park. the Report of the Society for 1836, during the past year have proved unusually attractive to the members and the public.' The visitors to that establishment have amounted to 263,392; of which number

We cannot in justice refrain from stating our conviction, that the great interest taken by the public of late years in the British Museum, as well as in exhibitions generally, is to be attributed very mainly to cheap literature; more especially to the innumerable woodcuts and the descriptive letter press of the various publications of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.' The Society have in this respect been eminently successful in one of their main objects, that of quickening and rousing the public mind, as well as in imparting useful information.

64,102 consisted of members and their companions; 10,028 were admitted by means of named ivory tickets; and 189,262 on the orders of fellows on the payment of one shilling each: these last receipts amount to £9463 2s., being a sum of £2119 16s. beyond that received in the previous year.

4. ZOOLOGICAL MUSEUM. The number of visitors to the Museum of the Zoological Society in 1836, (exclusive of the months of April, May, and June, during which the removal from Bruton Street to Leicester Square took place,) was 3660, and the sum received for admission was £38 17s.

5. NATIONAL GALLERY.

By a return recently laid upon the table of the House of Commons, it appears that the number of visitors in each of the last four years, was as follows: 1835, 14,827; 1836, 125,747; 1837, 113,937; 1838, 397,649.

Now we say, that all this is matter of congratulation. An hour of rational amusement, the gratification of an intelligent curiosity is itself a good, since, for the time at least, it is happiness. Secondly, it is favourable to health, by securing at all events in some degree, change of object and cheerful relaxation, and by suspending for a while the pressure of business and the cares of life; the consuming toils of the workshop, the counting-house, and the study.

Thirdly, it improves the mind by enlarging and multiplying its conceptions, and in some degree by refining and elevating it. Nor is it possible, we think, for even a stupid and uninquisitive mind to gaze at the wonders opened to it at the Polytechnic institution or the Adelaide Gallery without feeling itself in some measure roused out of its habitual apathy, and disposed to ask the reason of many things it sees. Fourthly, such amusements are favourable to morals, not only inasmuch as all intellectual culture and every degree of refinement is in some measure so, but far more, by diminishing the opportunities of temptation, by occupying the spare hours of the young and the thoughtless, and by filling up that vacancy of thought which is itself the most dangerous and frequent incentive to vicious pleasure. It is pleasant to see public exhibitions crowded and prosperous, while the theatres and other like places are complaining of comparative desertion. In this last respect we hail with heartfelt delight the efforts which are being made to supply the people with rational amusement, and the disposition on their part to take advantage of it. As rational gratifications become cheap and abundant, they will be accessible, and are even now becoming accessible to the masses,-to those whose severe toils especially require hours of relaxation, and who if they cannot readily find relaxation that is innocent, will not hesitate to avail themselves of that which is vicious. There is not a more pleasing sight than to see amongst the crowds who throng the British Museum on a

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Monday, large classes of artisans and mechanics intermixed with the other visitors; and who, if that place were not opened to them, might be dedicating the day to St. Monday-to the alehouse or gin-shop-to low gambling or sensual riot. This multiplication of the sources of rational entertainment is of equal promise to those vast numbers of country visitors, more especially of youth, who come to spend an occasional month or two in the metropolis. The sight of whatever is novel, wonderful, and curious tends to enlarge and liberalize their minds, and to diminish the solicitations to vicious indulgence.

Nor even in a mercantile point of view, is this increasing taste for sight-seeing any other than a subject of congratulation. Much enterprise and much capital are invested in providing the public with these amusements, and thousands upon thousands get an honest livelihood by ministering to the public taste for them. Upon the whole, we question whether a shilling or sixpence is ever more profitably or more agreeably spent, than in going to see any one of the principal London Exhibitions.'

Art. IV. The African Slave Trade. By THOMAS FOWEL BUXTON, Esq. London: Murray. 1839.

THERE

HERE was a time when the whole realm of England rang with the horrors of the Slave Trade, and with the voices of the benevolent and noble-minded men who summoned forth the energies of a just and indignant people for its overthrow. The popular enthusiasm of that day was not unlike that which has lately been awakened, with such happy and complete results— we say complete, because the 31st of March in the present year, witnessed the termination of the apprenticeship in the last of the British colonies in which it had existed, and that in which it threatened to linger longest, the Mauritius-for the extinction of slavery itself; and it seemed to have a like success. The men who led on that conflict with avarice and murder laid down their weapons, for they thought the victory won; and the public mind, under the same soothing assurance, lulled itself into repose. The suppression of the Slave Trade has thus come to be set down in the mind of every one as an achievement made; and the chronicles of the times had already recorded it as an event of English history. A generation has nearly passed away-the average duration of one has quite passed away-in this happy persuasion; when the public ear is hailed-and not only hailed but startledby another blast of the trumpet to which the friends of humanity