had their glorious days, when London was distributed, untouched by
human hands, in clayey strata, and remote stone quarries; and
hereabouts, to the minds of the Greeks, lay the islands of the
blessed.

The visitor should now proceed southward into the room called The
Bronze Room. Here are collected the ancient bronzes of which the
Museum trustees are in possession; including specimens of the fine
castings of ancient Greece, which, with all our modern contrivances,
we cannot surpass in the present day. The cases to the left are filled
with a supplementary collection of the remains of ancient Egyptian
art, for which space could not be found in the Egyptian room. These
occupy no less than twenty-six cases. The first eleven cases (1-11)
are filled with various sepulchral fragments in various substances,
and porcelain and terra-cotta figures, which the visitor who has just
emerged from the Egyptian room will again recognise. Here the strange
figures of the Egyptian deities occur again and again; but the visitor
should pause before the case 10, 11, in which are deposited models of
the Egyptian funeral boats, in stone and wood, from Thebes, and on the
fourth shelf a Roman caricature on papyrus, representing lions and
goats playing at dice, and foxes driving geese. In the Egyptian cases
are more specimens of cynocephali, jackal, and hawks' heads, models of
the four sepulchral vases, in pottery and wood; more mummy coffins,
fragments of inscribed pottery, large Egyptian terra-cotta vases, and
in cases 24, 25, are deposited some fragments in terra-cotta, and
bronze excavated by Mr. Layard, in ancient Assyria. Having glanced at
these Egyptian cases the visitor should turn at once to the collection
of

GREEK AND ROMAN BRONZES,