: LETTER XXXVIII. TO A. J. KEMPE, ESQ., F.S.A. Anatomical At Leyden.— Church of St. Peter. My dear Brother, AMONGST objects of interest at Leyden may be named the Gothic church of St. Peter. The outside is fine, but the inside spoiled by being literally buried in whitewash. We visited, with a feeling of respect, the tomb of Boerhaave, which is in this church. Delighted as I was with the Anatomical Cabinet at Leyden, already mentioned by Mr. Bray, I must not attempt any detailed account of it—it would occupy too much space: I shall therefore only find fault; and my objection is to certain deformities in nature exposed to view in this collection, that ought to be hidden from the public gaze. I can truly say the sight of some of them so shocked me, that it disturbed the high intellectual enjoyment which such an admirable and well-arranged series of comparative anatomy was otherwise calculated to call forth and to sustain. For instance, only fancy the shock it gives one to see the model of a Chinese (a man still living), with the arms and legs of a child hanging from the front of his body; and just by, in pickle, in a glass case, the first child of this man an infant who died soon after the birth, and had the same unnatural additions as its father. The head of an Indian prince, preserved in spirits, after it had been cut off, is a dreadful and ghastly sight; I started on coming suddenly before it. Some objects there were worse even than these, but unfit to be named. These are all things that ought to be kept apart, in a room accessible only to surgeons and students. At the University were the portraits of all the dead and living doctors and professors of the establishment; among them that of Boerhaave a very striking head. The botanical garden is beautifully laid out, and, I am assured, possesses objects of the rarest interest to the botanist. A tree planted by Boerhaave is justly venerated, and preserved with great care. The Eastern plants and trees in this collection, I can say from personal observation, however celebrated they may be, will bear no comparison with the beautiful and most extensive series of the same class, to be seen at Loddiges's splendid garden in England. The Museum of Natural History presents a truly admirable assortment in its anatomical preparations. Nothing of this nature ever so much delighted me. Amongst other curiosities, all the different organs of the human body are arranged in series, and the same organs, in like manner, of animals. The veins and arteries in these preparations are filled with red wax in the most delicate style. Stuffed birds and ani mals, of every kind in existence, may here be seen preserved with the utmost care and beauty. Here are no less than 180 different classes of the monkey tribe. In this assortment there was only one wanting-an example of the Englishman when, bearded and whiskered, he endeavours to foreignise himself as much as he can. The bones of all animals, birds, and fishes; a collection of insects the most curious; minerals; fossils, of the finest and rarest kind; shells, jewels, all arranged with such a perfection of neatness and order, that, in the numerous successive rooms and galleries, and all the innumerable objects they contain, there is not the least confusion; you are always delighted, but never distracted. Amongst the Egyptian curiosities I saw a piece of stone carved in bas-relief, and in part coloured (I was informed it had been removed from the side of a wall in some ancient Egyptian building): it immediately arrested my attention. I gave it the most minute examination, and, indeed, sketched in my note-book, though very hastily and rudely, a couple of the figures from one of the principal groups. I ventured to form some conjectures on this piece of antiquity; and as these conjectures may be of some interest to you, I hasten to communicate them; but before I do so I must give you a brief account of the subject of the carving which induced me to form them. It is evidently an historical piece of sculpture. The principal figure in the group is no less evidently a great personage. I fancied that figure more resembled a woman than a man, yet it might be intended for a man; as the style of workmanship is so rude, it is not, in this instance, easy to decide the sex. Judging by the attitude and general expression, this great personage seems to be in the act of refusing the supplications of several figures, who are most evidently Jews: so perfectly is the Jewish character preserved in the countenance of each, that, to this day, you may meet Jews who very closely resemble them in the streets of London or Amsterdam. They had each hooked noses and beards. These Jews have on their necks a yoke, with their hands confined by being thrust through a hole in the front of it. The form of the yoke is oblong at each end. Our method of punishment by sitting with the feet in the |