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House yet remain, although the present front, and great part of the house, were added, in 1799, by Mr. Jupp.

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The façade of the existing building is 200 feet in length, and is of stone. The portico is composed of six large Ionic fluted columns on a raised basement, and it gives an air of much magnificence to the whole, although the closeness of the street makes it somewhat gloomy. The pediment is an emblematic sculpture by Bacon, representing the Commerce of the East protected by the King of Great Britain, who stands in the centre of a number of figures, holding a shield stretched over them. On the apex of the pediment stands a statue of Britannia: Asia, seated upon a dromedary, is at the left corner; and Europe, on horseback, at the right.

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The ground-floor is chiefly occupied by court and committee rooms, and by the Directors' private rooms. The Court of Directors occupy what is usually termed the Court Room,' while that in which the Court of Proprietors assemble is called the General Court Room.' The Court Room is said to be an exact cube of 30 feet: it is splendidly ornamented by gilding and by large looking-glasses; and the effect of its too great height is much diminished by the position of the windows near the ceiling. Six pictures hang from the cornice, representing the three Presidencies, the Cape, St. Helena, and Tellichery. A fine piece of sculpture, in white marble, is fixed over the chimney: Britannia is seated on a globe by the seashore, receiving homage from three female figures, intended for Asia, Africa, and India. Asia offers spices with her right hand, and with her left leads a camel; India presents a large box of jewels, which she holds half open; and Africa rests her hand upon the head of a lion. The Thames, as a river-god,

stands upon the shore; a labourer appears cording a large bale of merchandise, and ships are sailing in the distance. The whole is supported by two caryatid figures, intended for brahmins, but really fine old European-looking philosophers.

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The General Court Room, which until the abolition of the trade was the Old Sale Room, is close to the Court Room. Its east side is occupied by rows of scats which rise from the floor near the middle of the room towards the ceiling, backed by a gallery where the public are admitted on the floor are the seats for the chairman, secretary, and clerks. Against the west wall, in niches, are six statues of persons who have distinguished themselves in the Company's service : Lord Clive, Warren Hastings, and the Marquis Cornwallis occupy those on the left, and Sir Eyre Coote, General Lawrance, and Sir George Pococke those on the right. It is understood that the statue of the Marquis Wellesley will be placed in the vacant space in the middle. The Finance and Home Committee Room is the best room in the house, with the exception of the Court Rooms, and is decorated with some good pictures. One wall is entirely occupied by a representation of the grant of the Dewannee to the Company in 1765, the foundation of all the British power in India; portraits of Warren Hastings and of the Marquis Cornwallis stand beside the fireplace; and the remaining walls are occupied by other pictures, among which may be noticed the portrait of Mirza Abul Hassan, the Persian Envoy, who excited a good deal of attention in London in the year 1809.

The upper part of the house contains the principal offices and the Library and Museum. In the former is perhaps the most splendid collection of Oriental MSS. in Europe, and, in addition, a copy of almost every printed work relating to Asia: to this, of course, the public is not admitted; but any student, properly recommended, is allowed the most liberal access to all parts of it. We may instance, as worthy of all imitation, where buildings contain articles of value, that large tanks, always full of water, stand upon the roof of the building, and that pipes, with stop-cocks, extend from them to all parts of the house, so arranged that, in case of fire, any of the watchmen connected with the establishment can at once deluge that part with water enough to repel any apprehension of its spreading beyond the spot.

The opening of the Museum at the India House to the public once a-week, on Saturdays, from eleven to three, is a creditable act of liberality on the part of the Directors. The rooms appropriated to this purpose are not a continuous suite, but a passage leading from one suite to another contains paintings, prints, and drawings, illustrative of Indian scenery and buildings; also models of a Chinese war-junk, a Sumatran proa, together with a few objects of natural history, as remarkable specimens of bamboo, &c. This passage leads to three small side-rooms, the first of which contains a Burmese musical instrument, shaped somewhat like a boat, and having a vertical range of nearly horizontal strings, which were probably played by means of a plectrum, or wooden peg. Opposite is a case illustrative of the state of the useful arts in India, containing models of looms, ploughs, mills, smiths' bellows, coaches and other vehicles, windlass, pestle and mortar, &c. This room also contains specimens illustrating

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the manufacturing processes of Oriental nations, with some objects of natural history. The next room is wholly devoted to natural history. In the third room there is another curious Burmese musical instrument, consisting of twenty-three flattish pieces of wood, from ten to fifteen inches in length, and about an inch and a half in width: these bars are strung together so as to yield dull and subdued musical notes when struck with a cork hammer; and their sizes are so adjusted as to furnish tones forming about three octaves in the diatonic scale. At the end of the corridor is a tolerably large room, containing a number of glass cases filled with specimens of Asiatic natural history. There are Indian, Siamese, and Javanese birds, Sumatran and Indian mammalia, besides butterflies, moths, beetles, and shells. In another room are sabres, daggers, hunting-knives, pipes, bowls, models of musical instruments, serving to illustrate some of the usages of the inhabitants of Java and Sumatra. The Library, in another part of the building, is also partly appropriated as a Museum. The Oriental curiosities in this department comprise, among other things, specimens of painted tiles, such as are used in the East for walls, floors, ceilings, &c., Bhuddist idols, some of white marble, others of dark stones, and some of wood. There are many other objects connected with the religion of Bhudda, as parts of shrines and thrones, on which processions and inscriptions are sculptured, and a large dark-coloured idol represents one of the Bhuddic divinities. In the centre of this room are three cases containing very elaborate models of Chinese villas, made of ivory, mother-ofpearl, and other costly materials; and from the ceiling is suspended a large and highly-decorated Chinese lantern, made of thin sheets of horn.

There are a few glass cases, which contain various objects worthy of notice. There is an abacus, or Chinese counting-machine, Chinese implements and ma

terials for writing, for drawing, for engraving on wood, and for printing; also Chinese weighing and measuring machines, a Chinese mariner's compass, Sycee silver, the shoe of a Chinese lady, and various Chinese trinkets. There are specimens of tea, in the form in which it is used in various parts of the East-that is, in compressed cakes. On a stand, on the floor, is placed a childish piece of musical mechanism, which once belonged to Tippoo Sultan: it consists of a tiger trampling on a prostrate man, and about to seize him with his teeth. The interior contains pipes and other mechanism, which, when wound up by a key, cause the figure of the man to utter sounds of distress, and the tiger to imitate the roar of the living beast.* In passing to another apartment, which forms also a part of the Library, we enter a small ante-room, which is occupied by a splendid howdah, or throne, part of it of solid silver, adapted for the back of an elephant, in which Oriental princes travel: it was taken by Lord Combermere at Bhurtpore. The walls of this room are covered with weapons and arms used by different Oriental nations. The next room, filled chiefly with books, contains, however, several curious objects: here are Tippoo Sultan's Register of Dreams,' with the interpretation of them in his own hand; and the Korán which he was in the habit of using. A visit to this Museum is certainly calculated to render impressions concerning the East more vivid and striking.

* See the cut in preceding page.—The construction of the whole machine is very rude, and it is probably much older than the age of Tippoo. The machinery, though not of neat workmanship, is simple and ingenious in contrivance. There is a handle on the animal's shoulder which turns a spindle and crank within the body, and is made to appear as one of the black stripes of the skin. To this crank is fastened a wire, which rises and falls by turning the crank: the wire passes down from the tiger between his fore-paws into the man's chest, where it works a pair of bellows, which forces the air through a pipe with a sort of whistle, terminating in the man's mouth. The pipe is covered by the man's hand; but at the moment when, by the action of the crank, the air is forced through the pipe, a string leading from the bellows pulls a small lever connected with the arm, which works on a hinge at the elbow; the arm rises in a manner which the artist intended to show supplication; the hand is lifted from the mouth, and a cry is heard: the cry is repeated as often as the handle is turned; and while this process is going on, an endless screw on the shaft turns a worm-wheel slowly round, which is furnished with four levers or wipers; each of these levers alternately lifts up another and larger pair of bellows in the head of the tiger. When by the action of one of these four levers the bellows are lifted up to their full height, the lever, in continuing to turn, passes by the bellows, and the upper board being loaded with a large piece of lead, falls down on a sudden and forces the air violently through two loud-toned pipes terminating in the animal's mouth, and differing by the interval of a fifth. This produces a harsh growl. The man in the meantime continues his screaming or whistling ; and, after a dozen cries, the growl is repeated.

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It may appear at first glance a curious circumstance that the greatest events of which the edifice above-named has been the scene should be those which have had the least direct connection with its general objects or character. Instead of the election and banqueting of a Mayor, the repression of some new system of swindling; or-what to some would seem to be almost synonymous-of some new proposition of municipal reform, each alike, figuratively speaking, stirring the very hair of civic heads with horror; or, lastly, instead of an inquiry into some delectable police case, the principal matters that now agitate Guildhall, or draw public attention towards it, we find here, in former times, sceptres changing hands, new religions proscribed, and their disciples sent to martyrdom, trials of men who would have revolutionised the state, and who might, by the least turn of Fortune's wheel in a different direction, have changed places in the court with those who sat there to decide upon their lives, or rather to destroy them in accordance with a previous decision-the more common state of things in our old crown prosecutions. But the connection of such events with Guildhall was not so remote, still less so accidental, as it seems. Without trenching upon the proper history of the latter, which belongs to another paper, we may here observe that when Guildhall was the concentrating point towards which, in all matters affecting the independence, prosperity, and government of London, the intellect, wealth,

VOL. V.

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