The "Museum Minervae" is not named in Mr. Cunningham's excellent _Handbook_; but when we take into consideration the enormous amount of information required for a work of the kind, we ought not to blame the author for a few trifling omissions. Sir Balthazar Gerbier, an enterprising projector of the same century, by profession a painter and an architect, but now scarcely remembered as either, seems to have imitated the "Museum Minervae" in an academy opened at Bethnal Green in 1649. Here, in addition to the more common branches of education, he professed to teach astronomy, navigation, architecture, perspective, drawing, limning, engraving, fortification, fireworks, military discipline, the art of well speaking and civil conversation, history, constitutions and maxims of state, and particular dispositions of nations, "riding the great horse," &c. Once in each week, at three o'clock in the afternoon, Sir Balthazar gave a public lecture gratis on the various sciences. The lectures were {318} generally advertised in the _Perfect Diurnal_, and a few curious specimens of these advertisements may be seen in Lysons' _Environs of London_, ed. 1795, vol. ii. p. 30. Balthazar Gerbier was born at Antwerp about 1591, came young into England, and was a retainer of the Duke of Buckingham as early as 1613. Upon the accession of Charles the First, he was employed in Flanders to negociate privately a treaty with Spain. In 1628 he was knighted at Hampton Court; and, as he says himself in one of his books, was promised by the king the office of surveyor-general of the works, after the death of Inigo Jones. In 1637 he was employed in some private transactions of state; and on the 13th of July, 1641, he took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, having a bill of naturalisation. In 1648 he appears to have projected the above-named academy, the failure of which very soon happened. Sir Balthazar then went to America, where he seems to have been very ill treated by the Dutch, and narrowly escaped with his life. He afterwards returned to England, and designed the triumphal arch for the reception of Charles the Second. He died at Hempsted-marshal, in 1667, whilst engaged in superintending the mansion of Lord Craven, and was buried in the chancel of that church. In conclusion, it may be as well to mention, that, prior to the establishment of the "Museum Minervae," a committee had been appointed in the House of Lords, consisting of the Duke of Buckingham and others, for taking into consideration the state of the public schools, and method of education. What progress was made in this inquiry is not known, but in all probability the academies of Sir Francis Kynaston and Sir Balthazar Gerbier owed their origin to the meetings of this committee. EDWARD F. RIMBAULT. * * * * * SHAKSPEARE AND FLETCHER.