Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

THE FOUNDERS

OF THE

BRITISH MUSEUM;

WITH

NOTICES OF ITS CHIEF AUGMENTORS

AND OTHER BENEFACTORS.

1570-1870.

BY EDWARD EDWARDS.

PART II.

LONDON:

TRÜBNER AND CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW.

1870.

(All rights reserved.)

123872-B HSS.-S.

PRINTED BY J. E. ADLARD, BARTHOLOMEW CLOSE.

CHAPTER III.

A GROUP OF BOOK-LOVERS AND PUBLIC

BENEFACTORS.

'If we were to take away from the Museum Collection
[of Books] the King's Library, and the collection which
George the Third gave before that, and then the
magnificent collection of Mr. Cracherode, as well as
those of Sir William Musgrave, Sir Joseph Banks, Sir
Richard Colt Hoare, and many others, and also all the
books received under the Copyright Act,-if we were to
take away all the books so given, I am satisfied not one
half of the books [in 1836], nor one third of the value of
the Library, has been procured with money voted by the
Nation. The Nation has done almost nothing for the
Library.

Considering the British Museum to be a National
Library for research, its utility increases in proportion
with the very rare and costly books, in preference to
modern books.
I think that scholars have a right
to look, for these expensive works, to the Government of
the Country.

'I want a poor student to have the same means of in-
dulging his learned curiosity,-of following his rational
pursuits, of consulting the same authorities,-of fathom-
ing the most intricate inquiry,-as the richest man in the
kingdom, as far as books go. And I contend that Govern-
ment is bound to give him the most liberal and unlimited
assistance in this respect. I want the Library of the
British Museum to have books of both descriptions.

When you have given a hundred thousand pounds,-in ten or twelve years, you will begin to have a library worthy of the British Nation.'

ANTONIO PANIZZI-Evidence before Select Committee

on British Museum, 7th June, 1836. (Q. 4785-4795.)

Notices of some early Donors of Books.-The Life and Collections of Clayton Mordaunt CRACHERODE.-William PETTY, first Marquess of Lansdowne, and his Library of Manuscripts.-The Literary Life and Collections of Dr. Charles BURNEY.-Francis HARGRAVE and his Manuscripts.-The Life and Testamentary Foundations of Francis Henry EGERTON, Ninth Earl of Bridgewater.

Chap. III.

THE Reader has now seen that, within some twelve or BOOK II, fifteen years, a Collection of Antiquities, comparatively small BOOKand insignificant, was so enriched as to gain the aspect of a PUBLIC National Museum of which all English-speaking men might BENEFAC

LOVERS AND

TORS.

« ElőzőTovább »