BOOK III, OF THE MUSEUM II. ELLIS. MANU SCRIPTS ADDED IN 1819, 1850. grants, of postponing additions to the other collections under their charge, which, however desirable in themselves, are of subordinate importance to that of completing the Library.' In 1843, an important series of modern Historical MSS., relating more especially to the South of Europe, was purchased from the RANUZZI family of Bologna. The papers of the Brothers Laurence HYDE, Earl of Rochester, and Henry HYDE, Earl of Clarendon, were also secured. Additions, too, of considerable interest, were made to the theological and classical sections of the MS. Department, by the purchase of many vellum MSS., ranging from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries. In 1849, the most important acquisitions related to our British History. About three hundred documents illustrative of the English Wars in France (1418 to 1450), nearly a hundred autograph letters of WILLIAM III, and an extensive series of transcripts from the archives at the Hague, were thus gathered for the future historian. In 1850, a curious series of Stammbücker, three hundred and twenty in number, and in date extending from 1554 to 1785, was obtained by purchase. These Albums, collectively, contained more than twentyseven thousand autographs of persons more or less eminent in the various departments of human activity. Amongst them is the signature of MILTON. The acquisitions of 1851 included some Biblical MSS. of great curiosity; an extensive series of autograph letters (chiefly from the Donnadieu Collection), and a large number of papers relating to the affairs of the English Mint. In the year last named Sir Frederick MADDEN thus summed up the accessions to his Department since the year 1836. ACCESSIONS DEPART- And he adds: If money had been forthcoming, the number TO THE MSS. of manuscripts acquired during the last fifteen years might have been more than doubled. The collections that have 1836-1851. passed into other hands, namely, Sir Robert CHAMBERS' Sanscrit MSS.; Sir William OUSELEY'S Persian; BRUCE's Ethiopic and Arabic; MICHAEL'S Hebrew; LIBRI's Italian, French, Latin, and Miscellaneous; BARROIS' French and Latin; as well as the Stowe Collection of Anglo-Saxon, Irish, and English manuscripts, might all have been so united. The liberality of the Treasury becomes very small when compared with the expenditure of individuals. Lord ASHBURNHAM, during the last ten years, has paid nearly as large a sum for MSS. as has been expended on the National Collection since the Museum was first founded.' THE PRINTED 1851. The causes which at this period again tended somewhat to GROWTH OF slacken the growth of the Printed Collection have been DEPARTglanced at already. But during the fifteen years from MENT UP TO 1836 to 1851, it had increased at the rate of sixteen thousand volumes a year, on the average. When the estimates of 1852 were under discussion, Mr. PANIZZI stated, that till room is provided, the deficiency must in a great measure continue, and new [foreign] books only to a limited extent be purchased.' The grant for such purchases was therefore, in that year, limited to four thousand pounds. In a subsequent report, Mr. PANIZZI added, that he could not but deeply regret the ill-consequences which must accrue by allowing old deficiencies to con BOOK III, OF THE MUSEUM UNDER SIR Chap. V. GROWTH OF THE PRINTED SECTION OF THE LIBRARY SINCE 1852. tinue, and new ones to accumulate.' From the same report may be gathered a precise view of the actual additions, from all sources, during the quinquennium of 18461850. The increase in the printed books, therefore, although it had not quite kept pace with Mr. PANIZZI's hopeful anticipations in 1852, had actually reached a larger yearly average, during that last quinquennium, than was attained in the like period from 1846 to 1850. The report from which these figures are taken was made in furtherance of the good and fruitful suggestion that a great Reading Room should be built within the inner quadrangle. Judging from the past, argued Mr. Panizzi, in June, 1852, and supposing that for the next ten years from seven thousand to seven thousand five hundred pounds will be spent in the purchase of printed books, the increase .. would be at the average of about twenty-seven thousand volumes a year, without taking into consideration the chance of an extraordinary increase, owing to the purchase or donation of any large collection. It was owing to the splendid bequest of Mr. GRENVILLE that the additions to the Collection in 1847 reached the enormous amount of more than fifty-five thousand volumes. After the steady and regular addition of about twenty-seven thousand volumes for ten years together, here reckoned upon, the Collection of Printed Books in the British Museum might defy comparison, and would approach, as near as seems practicable in such matters, to a state of completeness. The increase for the ten years next following might be fairly reduced to two thirds of the above sum. At this rate, the collection of books, which has been more than doubled during the last fifteen years, would be double of what it now is in twenty years from the present time [1852]. At the date of this report the number of volumes Chap. II. HISTORY OF THE H. ELLIS. was already upwards of four hundred and seventy thousand. Book III, At the date at which I now write (January, 1870), the number of volumes, as nearly as it can be calculated, has become one million and six thousand. On the average, therefore, of the whole period, the increase has been not less than thirty-one thousand five hundred volumes in every year. The Collection was somewhat more than doubled during the first fifteen years of Mr. PANIZZI's Keepership. During the next like term of years, when the department was partly under the administration of Mr. PANIZZı, and partly under that of Mr. Winter JONES, it was nearly doubled again. It follows that the anticipation expressed in the Report of 1852 has been much more than fulfilled. Less than seventeen years of labour have achieved what was then expected to be the work of twenty years. If the other departments of the British Museum cannot show an equal ratio of growth during the term now under review, it has not been from lack of zeal, either in their heads or in the Trustees. Their progress, too, was very great, although it is not capable of being so strikingly and compendiously illustrated. It has also to be borne in mind that the arrears, so to speak, of the Library, were relatively greater than those of some other divisions of the Museum. OF THE HISTORY At the commencement of Sir Henry ELLIS's term of PROGRESS Principal-Librarianship, the Natural-History Collections were NATURAL partly under the charge of Dr. LEACH, partly under that COLLEC of Mr. Charles KÖNIG. Both were officers of considerable TIONS. scientific attainments. In the instance of Dr. LEACH, certain peculiar eccentricities and crotchets were mixed up in close union with undoubted learning and skill. In not a few eminent naturalists a tendency to undervalue the achievements of past days, and to exaggerate those of BOOK III, OF THE MUSEUM UNDER SIR GEORGE IN NATURAL HISTORY AND HIS ZOOLOGICAL MUSEUM. 1802-13. 1803-9. LEACH But a the day that is passing, has often been noted. LEACH was the friend and correspondent of that eminent HIS LABOURS cultivator of the classificatory sciences, Colonel George MONTAGU, of Lackham. Both of them rank among the early members of the Linnean Society, and it was under LEACH's editorship that MONTAGU's latest contributions to the Society's Transactions were published. MONTAGU'S Synopsis of British Birds marks an epoch in the annals of our local ornithology, as does his treatise entitled Testacea Britannica in those of conchology. His contributions to the National Collections were very liberal. But he did not care much for any books save those that treated of natural history. In addition to a good estate and a fine mansion, he had inherited from his brother a choice old Library at Lackham, and a large cabinet of coins. These, I believe, he turned to account as means of barter for books and specimens in his favourite department of study. His love of the beauties of nature led him to prefer an unpretending abode in Devon to his fine Wiltshire house, and it was at Knowle that he died in August, 1815. His Collections in Zoology were purchased by the Trustees, and were removed |