Chapter VII: Reconstructors and Projectors (4)

The mansion for which the Trustees of the British Museum had been
asked to give £30,000 was sold, five years afterwards, to the King for
£20,000. It was purchased for the Queen as a jointure-house in lieu of
her proper mansion, Somerset House, then devoted to public purposes.
All the royal princes and princesses were born in Buckingham House,
except George IV, and one, perhaps, of the younger children.

Footnote 14:

The story, I observe, has been endorsed in Mr. Blades’ excellent _Life
of Caxton_ (see part 2, p. 268), but it is undoubtedly a distortion or
exaggeration of some chance occurrence. No such series could have been
formed otherwise than, in the main, by systematic research.

Footnote 15:

_Edinburgh Weekly Journal_, Feb. 1820. The article is reprinted in
_Miscellaneous Prose Works_, Edition of 1841, vol. ii, p. 184.

Footnote 16:

‘Ralph Robinson’ is the name signed to the communications to the
_Annals of Agriculture_, but they are dated from Windsor. (See
_Annals_, vol. vii, 1787.)

Footnote 17:

Curiously enough, three volumes of the Georgian MSS. had belonged to
Sir Hans Sloane, and had, in some unexplained way, come to be
separated from the bulk of his Collection. They now rejoined their old
companions in Great Russell Street.

Footnote 18:

See, before, p. 339.

Footnote 19:

John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich (1729–1792).

Footnote 20:

Solander, who was afterwards to be so intimately connected with the
Banksian Collections, had been for some years in this country when he
was selected by Banks to be one of his companions in the voyage of
_The Endeavour_. He was born in Sweden, in the year 1736. He came to
England in July, 1760. He succeeded Dr. Maty, as Under-Librarian of
the British Museum, in 1773, when Maty was made Principal-Librarian.
At that date he had already served the Trustees for many years as one
of their Assistant-Librarians.

Footnote 21:

See Book I, c. 6.

Footnote 22:

Bishop Horsley certainly forgot the ever-memorable words which he had
so often read—Matt. v, 44—when he, a prelate, signed himself
‘Misogallus.’

Footnote 23:

Morton died at eighty-three; Planta, at eighty-four; Ellis, at
ninety-two. Morton, as we have seen, was known to Sir Hans Sloane.
Sloane was already a noted man in the days of Charles the Second; and
he also lived to be ninety-two. The joint lives of Sloane, Morton, and
Ellis extended over nearly two hundred and ten years.

Footnote 24:

I do not make this statement without ample warrant. When preparing,
under Lord Romilly’s direction, my humble contribution of the lost
_Liber de Hyda_ to the series of _Chronicles and Memorials_, I had
competent occasion to test the _Monasticon_ of 1813–1824, and found it
to teem with errors and oversights in that part of it which I had then
to do with. I had had other occasions to study it somewhat closely
twenty years before, and with like result. At the interval of twenty
years, one could hardly stumble twice upon exceptionally ill-edited
portions of such a book. For the new ‘Dugdale,’ thus truthfully
characterised, subscribers paid a hundred and thirty pounds for small
paper, two hundred and sixty pounds for large paper, copies; and the
number of subscribers was considerable. So much for the ‘We must
retrench’ of the publishers.

Footnote 25:

After stating that Mr. Ellis had made needless proclamation at Paris
of the object of his journey, Sir Harris Nicolas proceeds thus:—‘Not
contented with this injudicious and useless development of the objects
in view, the learned gentleman himself pompously announced wherever he
went that he was the “Chief Librarian of the British Museum,” sent
specially to treat for these manuscripts, thus making a public affair
of what should have been kept private. The effect of this folly may
easily be imagined. Long before the “Chief Librarian” reached Pomard,
the French newspapers expressed their indignation that historical
muniments should be sold to the British Government, inferring that
England must be anxious to possess the records in question, when the
purchase of them was made an official business.

‘The effect of all this parade upon the owner of the manuscripts was a
natural one; he fancied he had erred in his estimate of their value,
and that, as they seemed to be objects of national importance to
another Government, he resolved to make that Government pay at a much
higher rate, for what they manifested such extraordinary anxiety to
obtain, than a private individual. On the “Chief Librarian’s” arrival
at Pomard, he discovered that the Baron could speak little English;
and the Baron, as he has since asserted, discovered that the “Chief
Librarian” could speak less French; hence it was with great difficulty
that the latter could understand that the Baron had become so
enlightened about his treasures as to expect, not merely double the
price he originally asked for them, but as our Government had
interfered on the subject, he wished it to advance one step further,
by inducing his Most Christian Majesty to raise his Barony into a
Comté. Such terms were out of the question; and after spending two or
three hours only in examining the Collection, but which required at
least as many weeks, the “Chief Librarian” returned to England _re
infecta_, and made his report to the Trustees, who refused to purchase
the Collection, but offered to buy a few documents, which the owner,
of course, declined. Thus, highly valuable documents are lost to the
Museum and to the country, in consequence, solely and entirely, of the
absurd measures adopted for their acquisition.’—NICOLAS, _Observations
on the State of Historical Literature in England_, pp. 78–80. My long
and observant acquaintance with Sir H. Nicolas justifies me in adding
to this extract—in which there are such obvious exaggerations of
statement—that I am convinced he was writing from insufficient and
inaccurate information. He was incapable of wilful misstatement.

Footnote 26:

I was myself present at an interview (in Lambeth), when the most
urgent influence was used with Mr. Hawes to induce him to attack Mr.
Panizzi’s original appointment as an ‘Assistant-Librarian’; and I
heard him express a strong approval of it, on the ground of the
obvious qualifications and abilities of the individual officer—though
himself sharing the opinion that in such appointments Englishmen
should have the preference.

Footnote 27:

It was in the old rooms in the Court-yard of Montagu House that
Charles Lamb enjoyed the last, I think, of his ‘dinings-out.’ A few
days after his final visit (November, 1834) the hand of Death was
already upon him. Cary, before writing the well-known epitaph, wrote
some other graceful and touching lines on his old friend. They were
occasioned by finding, in a volume lent to Lamb by Cary, Lamb’s
bookmark, against a page which told of the death of Sydney. They begin
thus:—

‘So should it be, my gentle friend,
Thy leaf last closed at Sydney’s end;
Thou too, like Sydney, wouldst have given
The water, thirsting, and near Heaven.’

Footnote 28:

It is necessary that I should state, with precision, the sources of
the information conveyed in the text. I rely, chiefly, on three
several sources, one of which is publicly accessible. My main
knowledge of the matter rests (first) upon the _Minutes of Evidence_
taken by Lord Ellesmere’s Commission of 1848–1850; (secondly) upon
conversations with the late Mr. Edward Hawkins, held in July and
August, 1837, not long after the appearance of Mr. Cary’s letter in
_The Times_; (thirdly) upon a conversation, on the same subject, with
which I was honoured by Sir Henry Ellis in 1839.

Footnote 29:

I believe that his earliest contribution consisted of some articles
entitled ‘Notes of a Reader,’ published in 1830, in a periodical (long
since defunct) called _The Spirit of Literature_. These were written
and printed long before Mr. Watts became a correspondent of the
_Mechanics’ Magazine_, as mentioned in the text.

Footnote 30:

In _Minutes of Evidence_ (page 596) printed erroneously
‘_reasonable_.’ To the brief extract, for which alone I can here
afford space, were appended, in the original Report, many pertinent
amplifications and illustrations. Some of these are given in the
_Minutes of Evidence_ above referred to.

Footnote 31:

The ‘successor’ referred to is Mr. Winter Jones, then Keeper of
Printed Books, now Principal-Librarian of the British Museum.

Footnote 32:

Birch, _Ancient Pottery_, vol. i, pp. 209, 210.

Footnote 33:

If the question of mere hints and analogies in construction were to be
followed out to its issues, the result, I feel assured, would in no
degree tend to strengthen the contention of Mr. Hosking’s pamphlet.
Something like a first germ of the mere ground-plan of the new
Reading-Room may, perhaps, be found in M. Benjamin Delessert’s _Projet
d’une Bibliothèque circulaire_, printed, at Paris, as far back as the
year 1835, when the question of reconstructing the then ‘Royal,’ now
‘Imperial Library,’ was under discussion in the French Chambers. ‘I
propose,’ says Delessert, ‘to place the officers and the readers in
the centre of a vast rotunda, whence branch off eight principal
galleries, the walls of which form diverging radii ... and _have
book-cases on both sides_,’ &c. His plan may be thus shown, in small.
The differences, it will be seen, between this sketch and Mr.
Panizzi’s sketch of 1854, are greater than are the resemblances.

Footnote 34:

Namely, two millions five hundred and twenty-seven thousand two
hundred and sixteen visits, which _included_ seventy-eight thousand
two hundred and eleven visits to the Reading-Room for study.

Footnote 35:

In—unless a memory more than thirty years old deceive me—that noble
masterpiece of English prose, the ‘_Citation of Shakespeare for
Deer-stealing_’ (1835).

Footnote 36:

The Oriental Translation Fund.

Footnote 37:

Comp. ‘Asshur builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and
_Calah_.’—_Gen._ x, 11. Mr. Layard quotes this passage, in _Nineveh
and its Remains_ (vol. i, p. 4, edit. 1849), and seems to identify
‘Kalah Sherghat’ as retaining its ancient name.

Footnote 38:

Nor was there any petty or unworthy jealousy in the distinguished
French explorer. ‘During the entire period of his excavations,’ writes
Mr. Layard, ‘M. Botta regularly sent me, not only his [own]
descriptions, but copies of the inscriptions, without exacting any
promise as to the use I might make of them. That there are few who
would have acted thus liberally, those who have been engaged in a
search after Antiquities in the East will not be inclined to
deny.’—_Nineveh and its Remains_, vol. i, p. 14.

Footnote 39:

It is a slight blemish in Mr. Layard’s otherwise admirable books that
they are loose in the handling of dates. It is sometimes necessary to
turn over hundreds of pages in order to be sure of the year in which a
particular excavation was made, or in which an interesting incident
occurred. Sometimes, again, there is an actual conflict of dates, _e.
g._ _Discoveries in the Ruins_, &c. (1853), p. 3, ‘After my departure
from Mósul in 1847,’ and again, p. 66, ‘On my return to Europe in
1847;’ but at p. 162, we read: ‘Having been carefully covered up with
earth, previous to my departure in 1848, they [the lions] had been
preserved,’ &c. I mention this simply because it is possible that
error may thus, once or twice, have crept into the marginal dates
given above, though pains has been taken about these.

Footnote 40:

The Berodach-Baladan of 2 Kings, xx, 12, who ‘sent letters and a
present unto Hezekiah, when he had heard that Hezekiah had been sick.’

Footnote 41:

And in which not a few readers will be sure to feel all the more
interest, because of its sacred associations, when they call to mind
those first-century travels of certain famous travellers who, ‘after
they had passed throughout Pisidia, came to Pamphylia, and ... when
they had gone through Phrygia, ... and were come to Mysia, assayed to
go into Bythinia, but the Spirit suffered them not;’—having work for
them to do in another quarter.

Footnote 42:

I shall not, I trust, be suspected of a want of gratitude for the
eminent and most praiseworthy efforts of Mr. Davis—one of the many
Americans who have returned, with liberal profuseness, the reciprocal
obligations which _all_ Americans owe to Britain (for their ancestry,
and also for the noble interchange of benefits between parent and
offspring, prior to 1776; if for nought else), if I venture to remark
that the above-written passage in the text has been inserted somewhat
hesitatingly, as far as it concerns the _date_ of the Carthaginian
explorations. No index; no summary; no marginal dates; conflicting and
obscure dates, when any dates appear anywhere; no introduction, which
introduces anything; scarcely any divarication of personal knowledge
and experiences, from borrowed knowledge and experiences; such are
some of the difficulties which await the student of _Carthage and her
Remains_. Yet the book is full of deep interest; its author is, none
the less, a benefactor to Britain, and to the world.

Footnote 43:

These were given to the Museum by Lord Russell, as Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs. Lord Russell was one of the earliest of the
Foreign Secretaries who began a new epoch, in this department of
public duty, by setting new official precedents of regard and
forethought for the augmentation of the national collections.

Footnote 44:

Meaning Lord Shelburne. See, heretofore, pp. 431–433.

Footnote 45:

‘_A Handy-Book of the British Museum, for Every-day Readers._’ 1870
(Cassell and Co.).

Footnote 46:

See the notice, hereafter, of the Christy Museum.

Footnote 47:

This, I think, has been clearly shown by the correspondence laid
before Parliament. The reader is referred to the papers of the session
of 1867, entitled _Correspondence as to the Woodhouse Collection of
Antiquities_, printed by order of Lord Derby, as Foreign Secretary.

Footnote 48:

In the accompanying Plan (of the Parliamentary Report, 1860),
pilasters of unnecessary size have been inadvertently introduced into
this gallery, reducing both the extent of the wall-cases, and the
breadth of the gangway, in a manner never intended.

Footnote 49:

Printed by oversight ‘general’ in the _Minutes of Evidence_.

Footnote 50:

Printed ‘object’ in _Minutes of Evidence_, as above.

Footnote 51:

It is to this Report of 1862 that the accompanying lithographic
fac-similes of the original illustrative plans belong. Two of them
show the then existing arrangements of the principal floors; the other
two show the then proposed alterations and re-arrangements.

Footnote 52:

Parliamentary Return, No. 456, of the Session 1858.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. The Table of Contents is in Part I. 2. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling. 3. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed. 4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.