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will; tliose of a few others, involuntary. The former are calledanimal, the other natural, motions. Finally, the motions of someof the muscles are of a mixed kind, partly animal, and partly na-tural. Th'ose muscles which perform the voluntary motions, re-ceive nerves from the brain or spinal marrow: those which performtheir motions involuntarily, have their nerves from the cerebellum ;and those whose motion is partly voluntary and partly involuntary,have theirs in part from the brain, and in part from the cerebellum.And as a muscle can no longer act when its nerves is cither cutasunder or tied up, so the same absolute dependence it has on itsartery: for from the experiments of Steno and others on livinganimals, it appears, that on cutting or tying up the artery, themuscle in the same manner loses its whole power of action, as ifthe nerve had been cut or tied up.

MUSCOVY. Sue Russia.

Muscovy Gi.ass. See Mica.

MUSCULAR FIBRES. See Anatomy .

Muscular Motion’. See Anatomy , Muscle, and Gal-

" VAN ISM.

MUSCULUS, a militarymachine, made use of by the Romansto cover and protect the soldiers while they approached and un-dermined the walls of besieged places, or idled the ditches. Itseems to have resembled the tcstudo in form, but was smaller insize. See Tkstudo.

Museums, Wolfgang, a learned Protestant divine, born atDieuze in Lorrain, in 1407. He joined the Benedictines , buthaving embraced Luther’s doctrines, lie was obliged to ily toStrasburg, where be married. After this be suffered great hard-ships, but at length was made minister-deacon of the chief churchin Strasburgh ; whence he removed, in 1527, to Augsburg, wherelie prevailed on the magistrates to abolish the popish worship. liedied at Berne in 1563. He was a man of deep erudition, andtranslated several works of the Greek fathers into Latin , lie alsopublished comments on the Scriptures.

Musculus, in zoology. See Mus.

MUSFTA, Grecian festivals in honour of the Muses , celebratedwith games every fifth year, particularly by the Thespians .

MUSES, deities among the pagans, supposed to preside overthe arts and sciences. Hence it was usual for the poets, at the lie-ginning of a poem, to invoke the aid of these goddesses. TheMuses are said to have been originally only singers and musiciansin the service of Osiris, or the great Egyptian Bacchus, under hisson Orus; but in succeeding times they were deified, and calledthe daughters of Jupiter and Mnemosyne , or Memory. Thoseare the only pagan divinities whose worship may be said to havecontinued through all changes in the religion and sentiments ofmankind. Even Christian poets seldom undertake the slightestwork without invoking their aid? Milton begins the seventhbook of his Paradise Lost, (from which, on account of the sacred-ness of the subject, all such nonsense should have been excluded,)with an invocation to Urania. Diodorus Siculus says that Alemanof Messene , a lyric poet, who flourished in the 27th Olympiad,070 years B. C. makes them the daughters of Uranus and Terra.It has been asserted by some ancient writers, that at first they wereonly three in number, and that their names were Melete, (medita-tion,) Mneme, (memory,) and Aoede; (song, or mush: ;) butHomer, Hesiod, and other mythologisls, admit of nine; and He-siod , in his theogony, names them all. Each of them presidesover some art or science, as music, poetry, dancing, astronomy,&c. By some they are called virgins, because the virtues of edu-cation appear unalterable: they are called Muses , Mw«u, from /.taw,to inquire or explain mysteries, because they taught things themost curious and important. An epigram of Callimachus givesthe attributes of the nine Muses in as many lines:

Calliope the deeds of heroes sings;

Great Clio sweeps to history the strings;

Euterpe teaches mimes their silent show;

Melpomene presides o’er scenes of woe ;

Terpsichore the flute’s soft pow’r displays ;

And Erato gives hymns the gods to praise;

Eolijmnia’ s skill inspires melodious strains; V

Urania wise, the starry course explains; V

And gay Thalia ’s glass points out where folly reigns. )MUSEUM , [ ( xou<7iiiv, Gr.] a repository of rare "and interestingobjects, selected from the whole circle of natural history and thearts, and deposited in apartments or buildings, either by the com-

mendable generosity of rich individuals, general governments, ormonarchs, for the inspection of the learned, and the great mass otthe public. Museum originally signified a part of the palace ofAlexandria, which look up at least one-fourth of the city. Thisquarter was so called on account of its being set apart for theMuses , and the study of the sciences. Here were lodged and en-tertained the men of learning; who were divided into companiesor colleges, according to the sciences of which they were the pro-fessors; and to each of these houses or colleges was allotted ahandsome revenue. The foundation of this establishment is attri-buted to Ptolemy Philadelphus, who here placed his library.Hence museum is now applied to any place set apart as a reposi-tory for things that have an immediate relation to the sciences.

Museum, Ashmolkan, a noble pile of building, at Oxford,erected at the expenee of the university, at the VV. end of thetheatre, at which side it has a magnificent portal, sustained by pil-lars of the Corinthian order. 'Flu: front, which is to the street,extends about sixty feet, where there is this inscription over theentrance in gilt characters, “ Museum Ashmoleamim, schola natu-ralis hisforhe, otiicina chymicha.” It was begun in i67i), andfinished in 1033, when a valuable collection of curiosities was pre-sented to the university by Elias Ashmole , Esq. which wine thesame day reposited there: several accessions have been sincemade to it; among which are hieroglyphics, and other Egyptian antiquities, an entire mummy, Roman antiquities, altars, medals,lamps, &c. and a variety of natural curiosities.

Museum, British , a large, beautiful, and magnificent buildingin London , the noblest cabinet of curiosities in the world, ft isunder the immediate care of government, and itself governed byfifteen trustees, selected from the highest and most honourableoffices of the state. Sir Robert Colton may be said to have laidthe foundation of the British Museum , by his presenting his excel-lent collection of manuscripts to the public ; those, and the offerof Sir Hans Sloane’s books, MSS. and curious articles in antiquityand natural history, for 20,000/. suggested the propriety of accept-ing the latfer, and providing a place for the reception of both ;from this lime government proceeded rapidly in forming the plan,and at length every interior regulation for officers, trustees, &c.being made, Montague-House, situated in Russel-street, Blooms-bury, was purchased for 10,250/. and fitted for the reception oftiie articles then possessed, and to be bought, at the further ex-pense of 14,484/. 6s. 4d. after which Lord Oxford's manuscriptswere procured for 10,000/. to which the King added others, andsince the above period vast: numbers of interesting things havebeen placed there, particularly Sir William Hamilton’s disco-veries, a vast variety of valuable medals, fossils, minerals, manu-scripts, and printed books, together with several Egyptian anti-quities, and the kite Mr. Townley’s marbles and has "reliefs fromItaly . The latter were given to the public under the expresscondition that a proper place should be built for their reception,which has been complied with, and they are now exhibited withthe rest of the museum to an admiring multitude, amountingdaily to upwards of ninety persons. Various alterations havetaken place in the regulations adopted for the convenience oftho-c who read at the museum, and the visitors, since 1757, whenit was first opened for inspection and study, and it is but justice tosay, each was intended well, though till lately it was generallythought that too many impediments existed in the way of visitingthat which was solely intended for the use of the community ; atpresent, however, no such complaint can he made with truth, asany decently dressed persons, presenting themselves at certainhours, are conducted, free of every kind of expence, through thesuite of rooms by civil and welt-informed officers, who explain theuses and nature of each object. Admission to the reading-roomis, besides, attended with no oilier difficulty than necessarily fol-lows ascertaining whether the applicant is deserving of indulgence,or likely to injure the interests of the institution ; when there,every facility is afforded him by commodious tables, with pensand ink for writing, and a messenger waits to bring him any book 3he may think proper to select from the vast stores of literaturesubmitted in this generous way to his use.

MUSHROOM, in botany. See Agaricus , and Doi.etus.To try the quality of mushrooms: Take an onion, strip the oilin'skin, and boil it with your mushrooms : if tlu: onion became bl ul‘or black, there are certainly dangerous ones among them ; if it re-main white, they are good.

MUSICV

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