many sentimental couples always to be
found in the Museum, its vasty solitudes
making it a charming meeting-place to
those wishing to be alone; some children
who gaze awestruck at the baboons; and
two women who pace slowly on, absorbed
in talk, and look neither to the right
nor left. Tho attendants answer all
questions politely, but seldom volunteer
information, and the general impression
conveyed here, as down- stairs, is that both
officials and visitors are weary, and that
the first are longing for the hour of closing,
and the second to accomplish the task of
inspection they have set themselves. The
overcrowding is painfully efficient in
weakening interest and in confusing the mind.
Go where you will you see incongruity and
close packing; and through the Zoological
collections and the long cases filled with
birds, Joe and his friends wander open-
mouthed and unhappy, though with a vague
conviction that their enjoyment should be
of the most rapturous kind. Even the
portraits give them no pleasure, for they hang
above the cases, and are too far from the
line of sight for such merits as they have
to be discerned.

But it is when the North Gallery,
devoted to minerals and fossils, is reached,
that the general dissatisfaction
culminates. The guide-book is full of
instructive information, but unfortunately it
needs more education than our friends
possess to understand it. Its style is rather
close than popular, and " fossil plants with
small whirls of leaves (Asterophyllites),
from the coal-shale," or " Stigmaria in this
case, and on the top of case four are the roots
of the Sigillaria, which occur in the fire-clay
beneath seams of coal," are extracts which
convey nothing when read aloud by Joe to
his friends. This is plainly felt, and so
the book is shut up, and they march silently
through the galleries. That the department
of minerals with " Components of the
Arsenoid and Thionid elements," and
thousands of other specimens, as well as the
botanical rooms with their excellent
classification, should be shirked, was not
surprising. The visitors who linger here are
students; and Joe and his friends need
more stimulating mental food during their
rare holidays. It was vexing, though, to
see them in the Assyrian room, and the
Vase room, either of which would have
been rendered replete with interest by the
briefest oral explanation, for they evidently
regarded one as a collection of stupid
effigies and old stones, and the other as an
exhibition of crockery on a large scale. Yet
not one of the party but would have
enjoyed the bas-reliefs had they known that
they actually represented the life of a
people which flourished nearly three
thousand years ago; if, in a word, what they
saw could have been explained.

At St. Petersburg and Moscow popular
explanatory lectures are given gratuitously
at the national museums on certain days in
the week, which the people flock to hear.
Without advocating any such revolutionary
change as this, may we not ask our
legislators to consider whether the British
Museum may not be made to perform its
mission better; whether the illiterate tax-
payer and sight-seer has not some claim to
consideration; whether the noble galleries
and the priceless curiosities stored in them
should continue a sealed book to the vast
majority of those visiting them? Some
such query may have suggested itself to
some of those who silently voted the one
hundred and thirteen thousand two hundred
and three pounds asked for by Mr. Walpole;
but as it found no expression in Parliament,
we venture to give it shape now.

"HAD" AND "WOULD."

CAN any learned lexicographer, grammarian,
or philologist inform the world at what time
the words " had " and " would " became
synonymous in English speech, when joined with
the words better, sooner, and rather?
Ordinarily these words are by no means synonymous.
"I had a dinner" and "I would have
a dinner" are two sentences between which an
hungry man, whether a grammarian or not,
would speedily detect the difference. Hamlet,
in his address to the players, says, "If you
mouth it, as some of your players do, I'd as
lief the town crier spoke my lines." Most of
the editions of Shakespeare print, " I had as
lief." Why not " would as lief?" It is a pity
that Shakespeare did not correct his proof-
sheets; for if such had been his practice, we
should have known to which of the two words
he lent his great example in this instance. The
fact that " I had" and " I would" are both
abbreviated colloquially into "I'd," explains
how the convertibility of the two words in
certain forms of expression became so common
among talkers, though it by no means justifies
the inaccuracy in writing. To use had where
would is the proper word is a solecism which it
would be better to avoid; or, as the offenders
against the true grammatical construction would
say, " had better be avoided."

No doubt there is great authority for the
use of " had" where " would" would be more
correct; but is any authority, however great,
to be allowed, without protest, to degrade,