Scripta Palatinus quacunque recepit Apollo.--Horace.

The difference of the appearance of Montagu House from that of the [extra_illustrations.4.502.1]  of the present day is very striking, not only with regard to the building in itself, but also as to its situation, relatively to the country and the town. The old house, as we have shown, remained down almost to the close of the last century quite open on the north side, and commanded views of the surrounding fields; whilst the present edifice, although occupying the same site, and indeed covering a much larger space of ground, is almost completely shut in on sides by streets and squares which are built up close to its walls, so that the only view of the edifice that can be obtained is that of the principal, or southern, front in .

The new buildings, which were commenced by Sir Robert Smirke, were continued in by his brother, [extra_illustrations.4.502.2] ; the walls of old Montagu House being removed piecemeal as the new edifice progressed; the last portion of it disappeared in . In place of the dull brick wall which separated the old house from , there was erected a handsome iron railing, partly gilt. Through this the magnificently enriched front of the new building can be surveyed by the passer-by in all its entire length; it presents a recessed portico and projecting wings; and as the edifice fronts the south, the play of light and shade caused by the forest of Ionic columns with which the whole is faced, is such as no other portico in London possesses. At either extremity of the court-yard is a range of houses for the resident officials of the Museum. In the centre of the iron railing-which is raised upon a granite curb, and is formed of spears painted of a dark copper-colour, with the heads gilt, and an ornamental band--is the principal carriage-gate and foot entrance, strengthened by fluted columns with composite capitals, richly gilt, and surmounted by vases.

The style of architecture adopted throughout the exterior of the new building is the Grecian-Ionic. The southern facade consists of the great entrance portico, columns in width, and intercolumniations in projection. This is approached by a broad flight of steps. On either side is an advancing wing, giving to the entire front an extent of feet; the whole surrounded by a colonnade of columns, raised upon a stylobate feet and a half high. The columns are feet at their lower diameter, and feet high; the height from the pavement of the front court-yard to the top of the entablature of the colonnade, upwards of feet. Professor Cockerell, in a lecture delivered in , remarked that

since the days of Trajan or Hadrian, no such stones have been used as those recently employed at the

British Museum

, the front of which is formed by

800

stones, each from

five

to

nine

tons weight. Even

St. Paul's

contains no approach to these magnitudes.

Progress of Civilisation,

Commencing at the western end or angle of the pediment, man is represented as emerging from a rude savage state through the influence of religion. He is next personified as a hunter and tiller of the earth, and labouring for his subsistence. Patriarchal simplicity then becomes invaded, and the worship of the true God defiled. Next, Paganism prevails, and becomes diffused by means of the Arts. The worship of the heavenly bodies, and their supposed influence, led the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, and other nations to study astronomy, typified by the central statue, the key-stone to the composition. Civilisation is now presumed to have made considerable progress. Descending towards the eastern angle of the pediment is the genius of Mathematics, in allusion to science being now pursued on known sound principles. The Drama, Poetry, and Music balance the group of Fine Arts on the western side; the whole composition terminating with Natural History, in which such objects or specimens only are represented as could be made most effective in sculpture.

The building erected by Sir Robert Smirke consists of ranges of apartments-east, west, north, and south; and these formerly enclosed a hollow square, forming a large open quadrangle. The eastern range, which was completed in , was in use some years previous to the gradual erection of the others. It contains the apartments

Observations on the Reading-room,

The space thus unfortunately wasted,

would have provided accommodation for the whole library. A reading-room of ample dimensions might have stood in the centre, and have been surrounded on all

four

sides by galleries for the books, communicating with each other, and lighted from the top.

On crossing the threshold of the reading-room, the visitor finds himself in a large circular apartment crowned with a dome of the most magnificent dimensions, feet in diameter, and feet high. It is the largest dome in the world, with exception, the Pantheon at Rome. The cylinder or drum which sustains the dome, presents a continuous circular wall of books, which are accessible from the floor, or from low galleries running round the apartment; it comprises in the part open to the

readers

In the decoration of the interior dome

Guide to the Museum

light colours and the purest gilding have been used. The great room, therefore, has an illuminated and elegant aspect. The decorative work may be shortly described. The inner surface of the dome is divided into

twenty

compartments by moulded ribs, which are gilded with leaf prepared from unalloyed gold, the soffites being in ornamental patterns, and the edges touching the adjoining margins fringed with a leaf-pattern scalloped edge. Each compartment contains a large circular-headed window, with

three

panels above, the central

one

being medallion-shaped, the whole bordered with gilt mouldings and lines, and the field of the panels finished in encaustic azure blue, the surrounding margins being of a warm creamcolour. The details of the windows are treated in like manner--the spandril panels being blue; the enriched column and pilaster caps, the central flowers, the border moulding and lines being all gilded; the margins cream-colour throughout. The moulded rim of the lantern light, which is painted and gilded to correspond, is

forty

feet diameter. The sash is formed of gilt moulded ribs radiating from a central medallion, in which the royal monogram is alternated with the imperial crown. The cornice, from which the dome springs, is massive and almost wholly gilded, the frieze being formed into panels bounded by lines terminating at the ends with a gilt fret ornament.

The floor of the room is occupied with

readers

quarter-deck

names that

The Reading-Room Of The British Museum.

are familiar now,

English Encyclopaedia,

to all the readers of Europe and America, and will be familiar, in all probability, centuries hence, from the very labours in which they are aided by the

Museum reading-room

. . . From the nature of the library around them, not only such men as Carlyle and Thackeray, Kossuth and Montalembert, but the humblest labourer in the literary vineyard, from the most distant corners of the world, may be certain that on the walls around them there exists some record of his labours, or the copy of some lines traced by his hand.

What a difference exists between the readingroom of to-day and that of a century ago! Not only is its whole aspect changed with regard to the building, the accommodation provided, and the regulations respecting its management and rules for admission, but the increase in the number of its

readers

I often pass

four

hours in the day in the stillness and solitude of the reading-room;

Curiosities of Literature,

The reading-room of the Museum is open every day, except Sundays, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, Christmas Day, and any Fast or Thanksgiving days appointed by authority; except also from the 1st to the 7th of January, the 1st to the 7th of May, and the 1st to the 7th of September, inclusive.

The hours are from nine till four in the months of November, December, January, and February; from nine till five in the months of September, October, March, and April; and from nine till six in the months of May, June, July, and August.

Any person desiring to be admitted into the reading-room is to apply in writing,--addressed To the Principal Librarian --specifying his (or her) profession or business, and place of abode, and accompanying his letter with a written recommendation, satisfactory to an officer of the Museum; and thereupon the principal librarian may grant him or her admission for a term not exceeding six months, or refer the application to the trustees at their next meeting. Any reader, once admitted, may apply at the close of his term for the renewal of his ticket, without a fresh recommendation, but producing his last ticket of admission.

The tickets of admission given. to readers are not transferable, and each person must, if required, produce his ticket.

Persons under twenty-one years of age are not admissible, except under a special order from the trustees.

Readers, before leaving the room, are to return the books, manuscripts, or maps which they have received to an attendant, and are to obtain the corresponding ticket; the reader being responsible for such books, manuscripts, or maps so long as the ticket remains uncancelled.

It may be sufficient merely to suggest, that silence is absolutely requisite in a place dedicated to the purposes of study.

There are various printed catalogues of portions of the collection, such as the King's Library, the Grenville Library, &c., and subsidiary catalogues to the magazines, newspapers, and serial publications, as well as to the Bibles and works illustrative of the Holy Scriptures. But the is the General Catalogue, to which reference has been already made. The entries are all made in manuscript by an army of scribes, whose daily work it is to add to it the names of all the new books which reach the Museum. These are entered under their author's name, or, where published anonymously, according to the subjects of which they treat. To the title of each book is affixed a

press-mark,

press-mark,

The New General Catalogue, having the Old Catalogue and the Supplemental Catalogue embodied in it, was begun in , and is completed to the end of letter R, the number of volumes thus far amounting to , each containing about pages. After letter R, at the present time () we have only the Old and the Supplemental Catalogues to guide us; but, in course of time, this portion will be swallowed up by the Leviathan, which is of such slow growth. The following curious and interesting information on this subject we quote from the

English Encyclopaedia:

The catalogue of the British Museum has been a subject of frequent discussion in the public press, since the committee of the House of Commons in 1835. Before that time, in 1824, the Rev. Thomas Hartwell Home had been appointed to superintend the preparation of a classed catalogue; but in 1834, his labours, and those of his colleagues, had been suspended, and the Rev. Mr. Baber had been directed to draw up plans for an alphabetical catalogue. A long correspondence on the subject will be found in the Appendices to the Reports of the Commons' Committee, and of the Royal Commission. When, after Mr. Panizzi's appointment to the keepership, the library had been removed from the old to the new building, the question of cataloguing and of printing the catalogue again came up, and a small committee of the Printed Book Department, presided over by Mr. Panizzi, drew up, in 1839, a series of rules for that purpose, which amounted, when they finally received the sanction of the trustees, who re-discussed them, to the number of ninety-one. Objection has been made to their number; but it must be remembered that it was requisite to provide beforehand for all the contingencies to be foreseen in operating on a large library for several hands; and experience shows that the variety in the notions of catalogues is wonderful. In the King's Library Catalogue, for instance, though it is professedly alphabetical, all the novels and tales by anonymous authors, from Amadis de Gaul to Waverley, are entered in a mass, under the singular heading of Fabulae Romanenses. In such a title as the Second Report of the Auxiliary Trinitarian Bible Society, of St. James's, Clerkenwell, there is hardly a word, except the particles, which has not been selected by some cataloguers as a heading, many taking even the word Second ; though it is evident that, on that principle, a set of twenty of these reports would figure in twenty different parts of the same list. It is evident that difficulties of this kind do not diminish when foreign languages are to be treated, which, in the case of the Museum Library, are not few in number. A commencement was made of printing the catalogue compiled on the new principles, and in 1841 the first volume, containing the letter A, appeared under the superintendence of Mr. Panizzi; but immediately afterwards the printing was suspended, and one of the objects of the Royal Commission of 1847 was to inquire into the cause of this suspension. The commission approved of the step which had been taken, for the reasons assigned by Mr. Panizzi, that it was evidently unadvisable to print any portion of an alphabetical catalogue before the whole was ready for the press. Since this decision has been arrived at, the revision of the old catalogues has continued in manuscript, while all the fresh books added have been dealt with on the same principles; but, as has already been stated, the number of volumes in the Museum before the year 1839 was about 235,000, while the number since added exceeds 335,000, so that the bulk of the supplements, had the catalogue been printed, would in 1859 have already exceeded that of the principal. The immense labour expended on this gigantic work would, perhaps, have been more highly appreciated by the public, had some of its results been embodied in print. The knowledge and care required in settling the items of an extensive catalogue might often win a reputation if exerted in some other direction, but apparently will never in England win a reputation in this.

When a new book has been catalogued, the next step to be taken with it is to place it on one of the shelves in a press, or book-case, that it may receive its appropriate press-mark, that is, the indication of its locality. At the Museum each press or book-case has a certain number, and the different shelves are indicated by the letters of the alphabet. Thus the press-mark 1,340 a indicates that the book is placed on the a, or topmost shelf of press or book-case 1,340. Nothing can be more simple, yet this simplicity is rare. In another library in London, for instance, the system is exactly reversed: the presses are marked with the letters of the alphabet, and the shelves with numbers; the consequence is, that as the letters of the alphabet are soon exhausted, the librarians have to commence a second series by repeating them thus, AA, BB, &c.; then a third and a fourth on some other principle, and long before they have arrived at as high a number as 1,340, the system will be found involved in inextricable entanglement. As the shelves in any book-case never amount to the number of the letters of the alphabet, no difficulty of the kind can occur with them. Yet the system of numbering the presses appears to have been slow in suggesting itself to librarians in general. Sir Robert Cotton named his book-cases after the Twelve Caesars, and in order to find a book it was necessary to remember the succession of Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian. When his bookcases outgrew the number of twelve, he abandoned even this system for a worse, and instead of proceed, ing in succession with the five good Emperors, arbitrarily introduced Cleopatra and Faustina. At the Advocates' Library in Scotland, the presses were patriotically named after the succession of the Scottish kings, then the additional presses after the signs of the zodiac, &c., till necessity drove them to the adoption of numbers, lest they should be compelled to make every new attendant go through a course of the sciences before he could find a book. The great problem in the arrangement of a library, which is increasing, is so to place every book as it comes in, that it may receive a press-mark which will never have to be altered, and yet to provide that the classes of books shall be kept together; that a new book of travels in Australia, for instance, shall stand with other books of travels in Australia, and not with Spanish plays or Acts of Parliament. A system of this kind would seem to be peculiarly difficult to establish in a library which is increasing at the rate of 20,000 volumes a year, and yet at the Museum a plan of extreme simplicity has been adopted, which is found to answer its purpose. Let us suppose that a room has been built which contains 100 bookcases, each capable of containing 150 volumes, and therefore that the room will contain 15,000 volumes in all, but that the possessor has 1,000 volumes only to place in it at the outset, intending to purchase for the next fourteen years 1,000 volumes a year. It is evident that if he numbers his presses from i to 100, and proceeds to place his several books, the very first few volumes that he marks with a press-mark hamper him in a certain degree as to the places of all the others. If he assumes that his purchases of books in English history will finally occupy a single press, and therefore places an edition of Hume in press 77, and occupies press 76 on one side of it with ancient history, and press 78 with the history of France; he may find a year after that his purchases in English history have filled press 77, and in French history press 78, and that he requires more room for both, but that the only space he has left is in press 2, among the Bibles, or in press 99, which is entirely vacant, but stands next to the works of Shakespeare. The order which he has endeavoured to preserve is therefore spoiled: he must either fill up the vacant spaces with incongruous books, or shift the position of a number of them and alter the press-marks. The problem will be certain to recur over and over again before the room is filled, and each time the remedy will be more hard to effect and more wearisome. One simple change of feature in the arrangements adopted at the outset will obviate all the difficulty. We have supposed that he has marked his presses with fixed consecutive numbers from 1 to 100; let us suppose that he marks them instead with movable numbers not consecutive, leaving gaps between, and the whole trouble is got over. Assume, for instance, that he places his Hume just in the same position, but marks the press 283, and places the French history still in the next press, but marks that press 315. When, in the course of a year or two, he finds that he wants additional room for English history, and that the last press but one in the room is vacant, he removes the contents of the last press but two into the last press but one, removing the number with it, and by repeating the process obtains a vacant press immediately after his press of English history, which is exactly what is required. Each new press between 283 and 315 he marks with some intermediate number. The process can be repeated as often as requisite, and the gain is obvious; the press-marks remain the same, and, though not consecutive, they stand in sequence, and serve as a ready and easy guide. The books are movable, and yet the press-marks are permanent. The processes we have supposed are precisely those which have actually occurred at the British Museum. When, in 1838, the old library was moved from Montagu House to the new apartments in the northern range, the press-mark of every book, and of every tract in a book (and there are sometimes more than a hundred tracts in a volume), was altered. The task of arranging the library in its new position was entrusted to Mr. Watts, who, in the course of that and the eighteen following years, during which every book that entered the Museum passed through his hands, must have examined and classed upwards of 400,000 volumes. The rapid augmentation of the collection, and the system of marking the presses with consecutive numbers, made it necessary that the accumulations should be arranged in three successive sets or series. The idea of the plan of inconsecutive numbers occurred to Mr. Watts long before it could be carried into effect, as, in order to carry it out practically, it was required that all, or nearly all, the presses should be of similar height and size, and the presses in the new building often varied considerably. The new scheme, on receiving the sanction of Mr. Panizzi, was finally commenced in the long room by the side of the King's Library. The presses in that room amounted to about 600, but in the numbering a range of numbers was assumed from 3,000 to 12,000. The numbers from the beginning of 3,000 to the end of 4,000 were assigned to Theology; from 5,000 to 6,000, to Jurisprudence; from 7,000 to 8,000, to Philosophy, Science, and Art; from 9,000 to 10,000, to History; from 11,000 to 12,000, to Literature. A particular sub-division was assigned to each century of numbers; it was assumed, for instance, that dramatic literature would occupy a hundred presses, from 11,700 to 11,799, and thus every drama which has been placed on the new system bears in its press-mark 117 for the first three figures of the five. This system, which is known by the name of the elastic system, appears to promise several advantages besides those which have been already derived from it. It is evident, for instance, that if one copy of the title-slips of the books thus placed and marked were arranged in the order of the press-marks instead of that of the author's names, it would ipso facto produce a rough classed catalogue; and thus a problem, which has been thought insoluble, would be solved in the simplest manner.

When the title-slip of a new book has received the press-mark of its locality, it is ready to be entered in the manuscript catalogue, and passes therefore into the hands of the Transcribers. The present catalogues of the Museum are as novel as many other of its arrangements. Formerly, the titles were simply written into an interleaved copy of the printed catalogue, a copy of which was kept in the reading-room. As it could not be calculated beforehand what the insertions were to be, the same difficulty was perpetually recurring with the alphabetical order of the entries as with the classified arrangement of the books, and the only remedy in use was to cancel a sheet whenever required, and re-write the entries over a larger space. The system was not found adequate to the requirements of the Museum, when the augmentations rose to the rate of 20,000 volumes a year. The present system is that of using prepared paper and a kind of stylus, so that four copies of each entry are produced at once. These copies, which are necessarily on thin paper, are mounted on thicker paper by the bookbinder, so as to be equal to considerable wear and tear, and are then fastened on the pages in the volumes of the catalogue, in such a way that, if required, they can be readily taken up again and removed to another page. By this means the exact alphabetical arrangement of the catalogue is continally kept up, to the great advantage of the readers who consult it.

The chief books of reference in the readingroom, as we have already shown, are arranged on shelves round the floor of the building, and are available for readers without the necessity of writing an order for them. They are divided into Theology;

ground-plan

Of the scene to be daily witnessed in the readingroom, a classic picture is presented to us by a writer in the

Comprehensive History of England,

So immense an accumulation in every language, of every period, and upon every department of human study, is adequately furnished for the purpose it was designed to serve, and the accommodation of those who use it. An ample readingroom, properly lighted and heated, well served by a numerous staff of attendants, and provided with all the apparatus for reading and writing, leaves the student no cause to regret that by the rules of the institution he can only use the books within the premises, instead of carrying them to his own home. Equally liberal, also, are :the terms of admission, so that with a simple recommendation from some literary person or even known respectable householder, an applicant is at once admitted to the full use and range of the collection, let his rank, station, or country be what it may. Here, then, the chief amount of British authorship is daily, weekly, and yearly to be found collected, the veritable living men and women whose names only are known in the provinces, and regarded with veneration and wonderment; and here those works are elaborated which swarm from the press with an abundance and facility at which our ancestors would have been astonished. As intellect also is of no sex, here may be found among the hundreds who regularly assemble within that crystal dome, ladies mingled with gentlemen, but each pursuing his or her separate task apparently unconscious of the presence of another.

One

is extracting notes from a pile of volumes, or carrying on a hunt of hours or days after a stray fact, date, or name. Another is transcribing from an old smoke-dried or half-burned MS., which none can read but himself. Another is dashing on with pen in full career, and against time, in the lighter departments of literature, where imagination is half the game, and where the work of research is confined to an occasional glance at

two

or

three

volumes lying before him. What strange varieties of country, of station, of physiognomy, of intellectual occupation meet daily within these walls; and what results are there produced, from the, ponderous folio to the fugitive essay or tale! No conversation the while--no whispering-nothing is heard but the slight rustle of the pen upon paper, or the occasional roll of the truck-wheels along the oaken floor, conveying volumes too heavy to be carried, while foreigners, astonished at such silence among so great a multitude, cannot comprehend how mind can possibly live in such an atmosphere. But it is a true British characteristic; and, like the awful silence of a British battle-charge, it is the expression of confirmed and concentrated resolve.

It may be as well to add here a list of a few of the offences against the code of rules and regulations for which

readers

reader

Passing from the reading-room to the

printed book department,

Engleterre

bluff King Hal

Assertion of the

Seven

Sacraments,

Defender of the Faith,

Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury,

Advancement of Learning,

Harmony of the Evangelists;

Life of Ferrar.

Pilgrim's Progress.

For the

twenty

years following,

Encyclopaedia

though we are told it was a heavy burden to himself and his servants, and though at

one

time it was thought advisable to effect a colourable sale of the collection to the University of Oxford to save it from the Commonwealth, the design appears to have been never relinquished for a day. On

one

occasion, the king himself sent to borrow a pamphlet, and chancing to drop it in the dirt, sent :a courteous apology to Mr. Thomason, who made a memorandum of the circumstance in the volume (

one

which contains Shawe's

Broken Heart

) on which the dirt remains to this day to attest the fact. The whole collection at last amounted to about

30,000

pamphlets, bound up in chronological order, in

2,220

volumes. Ill, indeed, was the collector requited. In a statement bound up with his catalogue, and written apparently by his son, we are told that in his lifetime, which lasted till

1666

, he refused

£ 4,000

for the collection, supposing that sum not sufficient to reimburse him. His heirs offered it to Charles II. for purchase, and he appears to have directed the royal stationer, Mearne, to buy it on his account, it is not known for what sum, and afterwards to have granted as a favour permission to re-sell it, which the heirs of the Mearne family did not succeed in doing till they disposed of it in

1762

to George III., for

£ 300

. The collection, when presented to the Museum, was known there by the name of the

King's Pamphlets,

the name and merits of the collector who had displayed such sagacity, energy, and perseverance, having sunk into total oblivion.

That portion of the library which passed to the national repository from George III. was originally collected in Buckingham House. There, as we have shown in a previous chapter, Dr. Johnson frequently consulted its books.

It is curious,

Autobiography,

that the royal collector (George III.) and his venerable librarian (Mr. Barnard) should have survived almost

sixty

years after commencing the formation of this, the most complete private library in Europe, steadily appropriating

£ 2,000

per annum towards this object, and adhering with scrupulous attention to the instructions of Dr. Johnson, contained in the admirable letter (see

Quarterly Review

,

June, 1826

), printed by order of the

House of Commons

.

As to the formation of the King's Library, Sir Henry Ellis informs us in his

evidence

eminent character

Of smaller collections which have found their way, either by bequest or by purchase, on to the shelves of the Museum, may be mentioned a large and choice collection of Bibles belonging to Dr. Charles Combe, bought in as a nucleus; a large group of books on the topography of Italy, presented by Sir Richard Colt Hoare, in , and distinct batches of tracts on the French Revolution, acquired by purchase, and amounting to about articles, which form a sort of pendant to the Thomason collection spoken of above. In a most valuable addition was made to the library by a bequest of the Right Hon. Thomas Grenville. Mr. Grenville, who had signed the treaty of American Independence in , died in the full possession of his faculties in the last named year, upwards of years of age. In a codicil to his will, dated in , he thus expresses himself:--

A great part of my library has been purchased from the profits of a sinecure office given me by the public, and I feel it to be a debt and a duty that I should acknowledge this obligation by giving that library, so acquired, to the

British Museum

, for the use of the public.

Mazarine Bible,

Of the specimens of the earliest productions of the printing-press in England, which are here preserved, are, of course, several from the press set up by Caxton in , towards the close of the century. These include

The Game and Playe of the Chesse

all time.

Essays

Volpone

Original and Royal Letters.

documents, which form part and parcel of the history of England, will be found among the historical treasures of the Museum. of these is superscribed-

Bull of Pope Innocent III., whereby he receives in fee the Kingdom of

England, given to the Roman Church by virtue of a Charter confirmed by the Golden Seal of King John, and takes it into his apostolical protection. Given at

St. Peter's

,

11

Kalends of May, A.D.

1214

, and of the Pontificate of Pope Innocent the

17th

year.

resigned England and Ireland to God, to St. Peter and St. Paul, and to Pope Innocent and his successors in the apostolical chair, agreeing to hold his dominions as feudatory of the Roman Church, by paying a

thousand marks

yearly

The other historical deed is a time-worn and highly-valued piece of parchment, bearing the signatures (or copy of the signature) of King John and several of the Barons--the famous Magna Charta. This is enclosed within a glass frame, and has a fragment of the [extra_illustrations.4.514.1]  totally defaced, depending from it. After the injury sustained by this unfortunate document, when the library in which it was formerly kept (the Cottonian) was nearly all destroyed by an accidental fire, at Ashburnham House, in , it was carefully extended upon coarse canvas; but through the effects of time and other circumstances, the ink has become very pale, and the writing is now nearly illegible. Many years ago, however, an admirable fac-simile of the deed, in its original state, was made by permission of the trustees; this is surrounded by the arms of the barons who witnessed the [extra_illustrations.4.514.2] , and is placed side by side with the original.

Mr. John Timbs, in his

Curiosities of London,

traditionally stated to have been bought for fourpence, by Sir Robert Cotton, of a tailor, who was about to cut up the parchment into measures! But this anecdote, if true, may refer to another copy of the charter, also preserved at the

British Museum

in a portfolio of royal and ecclesiastical instruments, marked

Augustus II., art. 106;

for the original charter is believed to have been presented to Sir Robert Cotton by Sir Edward Dering, Lieutenant-Governor of Dover Castle; and to be that referred to in a letter dated as far back as

May 10, 1630

, still extant in the Museum Library, in a volume of correspondence. But it would appear that the original Magna Charta is still a matter of dispute.

Mr. Richard Thomson, the author of

An Historical Essay on the Magna Charta of King John,

The Commissioners on the Public Records regarded the original of Magna Charta, preserved at Lincoln, to be of superior authority to either of those in the

British Museum

, on account of several words and sentences being inserted in the body of that charta, which in the latter are added at the foot, with reference-marks to the

four

places where they were to be added. These notes, however, possibly may prove that

one

of the Museum charters was really the

first

written, to which those important additions were made immediately previous to the sealing on Runnymede, and therefore the actual original whence the more perfect transcripts were taken.

We have space to notice only or other ancient charters in this part of the collection. of these is the Bull of Pope Leo X., conferring on Henry VIII. the title of

Defender of the Faith.

Another of the treasures of the Cottonian Collection is what antiquaries supposed to be the oldest royal letter in existence--a short note from King Henry V. to the Bishop of Durham, dated .

The history of the Manuscript Department, of which the Harleian, Sloanean, and Cottonian manuscripts formed the nucleus, is in its general outline similar to that of the Printed Book Department, but its development has, of course, not been so immense. It was formed at the outset by the union of great collections, the above mentioned, to which shortly afterwards were added the manuscripts of the ancient royal library of England. Old scholastic divinity abounds in this department; but

the great ornament of the collection,

is the

Codex Alexandrinus

an ancient Greek copy of the Scriptures, supposed to have been executed by

Thecla, a lady of Alexandria, in the

fourth

or

sixth

century, and presented by Cyril Lucar, the Patriarch of Constantinople, to King Charles I. It is generally acknowledged by critics to be

one

of the

two

most ancient copies of the Scriptures in existence, and an elaborate edition of the New Testament portion of it was executed by Dr. Woide, and of the Old Testament portion, at the public expense, by the Rev. H. H. Baber, from

1822

to

1837

keeper of the printed books.

Basilicon Doron

showing how much easier it is to speculate plausibly than to rule well.

These, however,

Curiosities of Literature,

were but extraordinary gazettes, and not published regularly. In this obscure origin they were skilfully directed by the policy of that great statesman, Burleigh, who, to inflame the national feeling, gives an extract from a letter from Madrid, which speaks of putting the queen to death, and of the instruments of torture on board of the Spanish fleet

The came into the possession of the Museum in , through a bequest of Dr. Birch; and from , when George Chalmers called attention to it, it had been looked on not merely as the English newspaper, but the in the world--

an honour,

which it was destined to lose in

1839

, when Mr. Thomas Watts, in his letter to Antonio Panizzi, on the reputed earliest newspaper, proved beyond dispute that it was a fabrication, which was subsequently shown to have originated, probably in a frolic, with

one

of the sons of Lord Hardwicke, the Chancellor, and with Dr. Birch, who was the friend of the family.

News out of Holland.

History of England,

None exceeded in size a single small leaf. The quantity of matter which

one

of them contained in a year was not more than is often found in

two

numbers of the

Times

.

the contents generally were a royal proclamation,

two

or

three

Tory addresses, notices of

two

or

three

promotions, an account of a skirmish between the Imperial troops and the Janissaries on the Danube, a description of a highwayman, an announcement of a grand cock-fight between

two

persons of honour, and an advertisement offering a reward for a stray dog. The whole made up

two

pages of moderate size. Whatever was communicated respecting matters of the highest moment, was communicated in the most meagre and formal style. The most important parliamentary debates, the most important state trials recorded in our history, were passed over in profound silence. In the capital the coffee-houses supplied in some measure the place of a journal: Thither the Londoners flocked, as the Athenians of old flocked to the market-place, to hear whether there was any news. There men might learn how brutally a Whig had been treated the day before in

Westminster

Hall, or what horrible accounts the letters from Edinburgh gave of the torturing of Covenanters.

From the Stamp Office was directed to supply to the Museum its copies of London newspapers after the lapse of years, a lapse which had previously converted them into a

perquisite,

For the augmentation of the collection of English books, reliance had been placed, in the earlier stages of the Museum, on its legal rights.

English Encyclopaedia

London Directory

Navy List,

As to whether this library or that of the Louvre in Paris has the most books, is a disputed point; probably we are below the Louvre in manuscripts, and about equal to it in the number of printed books. Owing, however, to the regulation already mentioned referring only to books published in the kingdoms, it is not every foreign work that will be found here. Books published in India and the colonies ought to be sent to the , but there seems to be some difficulty in the way of enforcing this right. Also with regard to foreign books, a few are sent in order to comply with the regulations for securing the rights of international copyright; but here, too, the rule is not carried out very strictly.

The author of the

Cities and Principal Towns in the World,

Regarded as a source of reference, it is deficient in the selection of editions and also in extent, lamentably in arrear of foreign works, and most unmethodically arranged.

Although there is a very large number of prints, drawings, and photographs kept with the collection of printed books and manuscripts, and accessible to students in the reading-room and the apartment attached to the manuscript-room, the most extensive and valuable works of these descriptions are preserved in a separate division of the Museum, called the Department of Prints and Drawings, and are open to the inspection only of persons who hold cards of admission to that department. Members of the Royal Academy are admitted to this room without any recommendation or letter of introduction; they have merely to make a written application, addressed to the principal librarian of the Museum. Other persons are admitted upon applying by letter to the same individual-very much as in the case of readers-and forwarding a written recommendation from some person of standing, either as an artist or otherwise. , Drawing and sketching are very freely allowed in this department; and every facility is given for copying; but as the drawings are irreplaceable, and the whole collection intended for

all time,

For the most part, the Civil Service of the Crown is officered by natives of the United Kingdom; but to this rule the Museum appears to form an exception, as the names of several foreigners figure among its , and out of its chief librarians, half have been of foreign extraction. None of its earlier heads are men who have left any deep marks behind them, though Mr. Joseph Planta, of Swiss extraction, who held that post in the reign of George III. and George IV., became Secretary of the Treasury, a member of Parliament, and a Privy Councillor. His successor, Sir Henry Ellis, who died in , at the age of upwards of , was, however, a man of deep and varied learning, and is widely known as the editor of the best complete edition of Dugdale's

Monasticon.

Mr. Thomas Watts entered the Museum in , and very soon afterwards distinguished himself by the prominence he gave to this national collection among the libraries of the world for the thoroughness with which Sclavonic literature and the literature of Hungary were represented in it. During the interval between the years and the arrangement of the books in the library was under the management of Mr. Watts, and every volume in the library thus passed through his hands. When the new reading-room was opened in , it was placed under the direction of Mr. Watts, and he presided there until the retirement of Sir A. Panizzi, in , when he became keeper of the Department of Printed Books, an office which he held down to the time of his death, in .

of the former keepers of the Department of Prints and Drawings was Mr. John T. Smith, the author of the

Antiquities of London and

Westminster

,

Vagabondiana,

Book for a Rainy Day,

I can boast of

seven

events, some of which

great

men would be proud of. When a boy I received a kiss from the beautiful Mrs. Robinson, was patted on the head by Dr. Johnson, have frequently held Sir Joshua Reynolds's spectacles, partook of a pot of porter with an elephant (at Exeter Change), saved Lady Hamilton from falling when the melancholy news of Lord Nelson's death

arrived,

three

times conversed with George III., and was shut up in a room with Mr. Kean's lion.

It may interest the curious reader to learn the names of some, at least, of the more celebrated literary men of the last or generations who have made the library and reading-room the frequent scene of their researches. Among them have been Sir James Mackintosh, Sir Walter Scott, Charles Lamb, Washington Irving, William Godwin, Dean Milman, Leigh Hunt, Hallam, Macaulay, Grote, Tom Campbell, Sir E. Bulwer- Lytton, Edward Jesse, Charles Dickens, Douglas Jerrold, Thackeray, Shirley Brooks, Mark Lemon, and Count Stuart d'. Lord Macaulay, it may be added, when at work upon his

History,

Life

Her Majesty the Queen and the Prince Consort on occasion visited the library. The only object for which Her Majesty asked in the MS. department was the paper signed at the foot by the prince who afterwards became Charles II. This was the piece of paper which, when his father's life was in the balance, he sent to Cromwell with the message,

Fill it up in any way you like, but spare my father.

Among the foreigners of note who have frequented the library and reading-room, either as visitors or as

readers,

[extra_illustrations.4.502.1] Museum

[extra_illustrations.4.502.2] Mr. Sydney Smirke

[extra_illustrations.4.503.1] E. A. Bond, Librarian of British Museum

[] See ante, p. 64.

[extra_illustrations.4.513.1] signatures of W. Shakspere

[extra_illustrations.4.514.1] seal

[extra_illustrations.4.514.2] king's act