By the way, a livery-servant complained, in The Times of the 1st instant, that he had been refused admission to the Museum on an open and public day, in consequence of his wearing a livery, notwithstanding he saw “soldiers and sailors go in without the least objection.” The Times remarks, “We believe livery-servants are not excluded from the sight at Windsor on an open day.  We suspect that the regulation is not so much owing to any aristocratical notions on the part of the Directors of the Museum, as to that fastidious feeling which prevails in this country more than any other, and most of all among the lower ranks of the middle classes.”  The cause is reasonable enough; but we believe that livery-servants are not admitted at Windsor:  the exclusion seems to be a caprice of Royalty, for servants are excluded from our palace-gardens, as Kensington.  Surely this is unjust.  If servants consent to wear liveries to gratify the vanity of their wealthy employers, it is hard to shut them out from common enjoyments on that account.  This is in the true spirit of vassalage, of which the liveries are comparatively a harmless relic.  In Paris we remember seeing a round-frocked peasant, apparently just from the plough, pacing the polished floor of the Louvre gallery with rough nailed shoes, and then resting on the velvet topped settees; and he was admitted gratis.  Would such a person, tendering his shilling, be admitted to the Exhibition at Somerset House?

* * * * *

DOMESTIC CHEMISTRY.

Elements of Chemistry familiarly explained and practically illustrated.

This is an excellent little work by Mr. Brande:  it is not avowedly so, although everyone familiar with his valuable Manual of Chemistry will soon identify the authorship.  The present is only the first Part of this petite system, containing Attraction, Heat, Light, and Electricity.  It is, as the author intended it to be, “less learned and elaborate than the usual systematic works, and at the same time more detailed, connected, and explicit than the ‘Conversations’ or ‘Catechisms.’” It avoids “all prolixity of language and the use of less intelligible terms;” and, to speak plainly, the illustrative applications throughout the work are familiar as household words.  Witness the following extract from the effects of Heat: 

Ventilation—­Heating Rooms.

“In consequence of the lightness of heated air, it always rises to the upper parts of rooms and buildings, when it either escapes, or, becoming cooled and heavier, again descends.  If, in cold weather, we sit under a skylight in a warm room, a current of cold air is felt descending upon the head, whilst warmer currents, rising from our bodies and coming into contact with the cold glass, impart to it their excess of heat.  Being thus contracted in bulk, and rendered specifically heavier, they in their turn descend, and thus a perpetual motion is kept up in the mass of air.  This effect is attended with much inconvenience to those who inhabit the room, and is in great measure prevented by the use of double windows, which prevent the rapid cooling and production of troublesome currents in the air of the apartment.