New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1905-05-07


| Noah the first man to organize a rnu-
scum The Ark. packed with it's strange freight.
foreshadOwed the collectors Of odd or otherwise
| interesting objects with which the race has
ever since been amusing edifying itself As
Mr.. Murray clearly shows the development OF
| the museum idea has So kept pace with the de-
velopment of human curiosity that its history
may fairly be said to supply some OF the salient
| landmarks in the growth OF human knowledge
The subject Of these volumes is nOminany a
dry one. hut. a matter Of fact. it is full Of
piquant suggestion. Within his limits Mr.. Muir
ray has done ample justice to his theme. We
regret that he has not seen fit to include gal
leries OF painting and sculpture in his survey.
for information about them such he is OBJ
viOusly we'll qualified to accumulate is much
needed. But he has written to good purpose
on the museum in its more miscellaneous as
pect and he has filed his second and third
volumes with an invaluable bibliogra ply His
book is a labor Of love. Throughout the first
volume, which contains his text, the prevailing
tone is that of man who has found infinite
pleasure in porting over old books and manu-
scripts, in hunting down the quaint and the
curious.
How quaint and how curious the earlier facts
in the history of museum making are, the reader
is scarcely prepared TO learn. Perhaps he has
been in the Church Of San AnbrogiO, at Milan.
and has been shown one of the columns in
the nave the brazen serpent which was raised
by Moses in the wilderness" but it is doubtful
if in the presence of that relic it to him
to think that he is looking at one manifestation
of the museum idea. The truth is, that while
that idea means to a modern mind, such things
as learning. science and so on, it has its roots
in precisely the human emotion in which the
late ?. T. Barnum the potentiaHtles OF
wealth. The of antiquity had no science,
but if he was living at Rome when the bones Of
the monster to which Andromeda had been ex-
posed were brought from JOppa, he went TO see
them, and gazed his FILL like any man Of the
present day gazing at a newly excavated fossil
Human nature being the same in all ages, the
medieval citizen did much the same thing Mr.
Murray quotes from the learned Durandus this
significant note: In some churches two eggs OF
ostriches and other things of the like kind which
cause admiration and which are rarely seen
are accustomed to be suspended, that by their
means the people may be drawn to church and
have their minds the more affected" This IN
genious ecclesiastical resource has always been
more common in the East than anywhere else,
but it has not been altogether neglected in the
West. AS late as 1I17 there were suspended IN
the SchIoss- Kirche of Wittenberg, the church
forever associated with the memory of Luther.
two whale ribs which were said to have been
brought from the Holy Land" and numerous
other instances of the superstitous veneration
of natural and other curiosities are cited in this
book They all go to show that from the very
dawn of civilization men were in the mood 70
create museums.
Fifteenth century Italy was the scene Of an
extraordinary efIorescence in the history Of mu-
seums We think of that period to-day as one
in which books and works of art were especially
the objects of the collectors zeal and, indeed, al
over Europe the connoisseur and the historical
student were peculiarly active in the bringing
together of such treasures The formation OF
cabinets of coins and medals grew apace," says
Mr.. Murray "and by the middle of the sixteenth
century there were POO in the Low Countries. 1I5
in Germany, more than $50 in Italy, and about
200 in France" But our author soon leaves
these familiar paths of research for the wider
field which was for centuries cultivated by men
of learning and shows US the old museum in It's
most Characteristic phase. Take. for example.
the exhibits figured in the seventeenth century
catalogue "of all the Cheifest Rarities In the
Publick Theater and AnatOmie-HaIl Of the Uni
versity of Leyden." Mr.. Murray makes these
| selections:
A Norway house. built OF beams without mortar
or stone; shoes and sandals from Russia. sam and
Egypt; the skin of a man dressed as parchment:
drinking cup Of the skull OF Moor killed IN me
beIeaguering of Haerlem; Warlke arms used IN
China: Chinese songs. Chinese paper ChneSe BOOKS
tian mummies and Egyptian idols several Roman
I a Roman lamp when BURNS Always Ul'IeI