Book I, Chap. I. INTRODUCTION. SITY OF THE MUSEUM COLLEC TIONS. pages) must be told clumsily, indeed, if it be found to lack a very wide and general interest for all classes of readers—one class only excepted. Even the least thoughtful among those visitors who can THE DIVER be said to frequent the Museum-as distinguished from the mere holiday guests, who come only in crowds, little favourable to vision; to say nothing of thought—will occasionally have had some faint impression or other of the great diversity and wonderful combination of effort which must have been employed in bringing together the Collections they look upon. Every part and almost every age of the world has contributed something; and that something includes the most characteristic productions and choicest possessions of every part. Almost every man of British birth who,-during many centuries,-has won conspicuous fame as a traveller, as an archæologist, or as a discoverer, has helped, in one way or other, to enrich those collections. They bear their own peculiar testimony to nearly every step which has been taken either in the maritime and colonial enterprise, or in the political growth, of the British empire. Nor is their testimony a whit less cogent to the power of that feeling of international brotherhood, in matters of learning and science, which grows with their growth, and waxes stronger with their strength. To the remarkable career of the first of those four primary Collectors, whose lifelong pursuits converged, eventually, in the foundation of an institution, of the full scope of which only one of the four had even a mental glimpse and SLOANE'S glimpse was obviously but a very dim one—the attention of the reader has now to be turned. Sir Robert COTTON's employments in political Chap. I. INTRODUCTION. life (unofficial as they were), and the powerful influence Book I which he exerted upon statesmen much abler than himself, will be found, it is hoped, to give not a little of historical interest to his biography, quite additional to that which belongs to his pursuits as a studious Collector, and as the most famous of all the literary antiquaries who occur throughout our English story. To the conspicuous merits which belong to Sir Robert COTTON as a politician of no mean acumen, and as,—in the event, the real Founder of the British Museum, are added the still higher distinctions of an eminently generous spirit and a faithful heart. His openhandedness in giving was constant and princely. His firmness in friendship is testified by the fact that although (in a certain point of view) he was the courtier both of JAMES THE FIRST and of CHARLES THE FIRST, he nevertheless stood persistently and unflinchingly by the side of ELIOT, and of the men who worked with ELIOT, in the period of their deepest court disgrace. By the best of the Parliamentarian leaders he was both reverenced and loved. And he reciprocated their feeling. My personal pleasure in the task of writing the life of such a man as he was is much enhanced by a strong conviction that certain recent attacks upon his memory COTTON'S are based upon fallacious evidence, shallow presumptions, and hasty judgments. It is my hope to be able to shew to the Reader, conclusively, that COTTON was worthy of the cordial regard and the high esteem in which he was uniformly held by men who stood free of all bias from political and party connexion-such, for example, as William CAMDEN, who spoke of him, almost with dying lips, as 'the dearest of all my friends,' great Parliamentarian leaders whose estimate of him may, —as well as by those perhaps, be thought-by hasty readers-to rest partly, if RECENT ATTACKS ON MEMORY. BOOK I, Chap. I. INTRODUC TION. not mainly, on the eminent political service which he was able to render them. When these pages shall come from the Press just three hundred years will have elapsed since Sir Robert COTTON'S birth. Our English proto-collector was born in the year 1570. The year 1870 will, in all probability, witness the definite solution of a knotty problem as to the future of the great institution of which he was the primary and central founder. COTTON may be regarded as the English 'proto-collector,' in a point of view other than that which concerns the British Museum. No Library in the United Kingdom can, I think, shew an integral Collection,' still extant, the formation of which -as a Collection-can be traced to an earlier date than that of the collection of the Cottonian Manuscripts. Whether the BRITISH MUSEUM shall continue to be the great national repository for Science, as well as for Literature and Antiquities, is a question which is fast ripening for decision; and it is one which ought to be interesting to all Britons. It is also, and very eminently, one of those questions of which it is literally—and not sarcastically—to be affirmed that there is much to be said on both sides.' Personally I have a very strong conviction on that subject. But in treating of it-in the 'Postscript' which closes the present volume-it has been my single and earnest aim to state, with the utmost impartiality I am able to attain, the leading arguments for maintaining the Museum in its full integrity; and also the leading arguments for severing the great Natural History Collections Chap. I. from the rapidly growing Libraries and from the vast Gal- BOOK I, ment. The main epochs in the History of the British Museum Book I, EPOCHS OF BRIT. GROWTH AND INCREASE. CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE DATES, FOUNDERS, AND OF WHICH THE BRITISH MUSEUM, I. COTTONIAN MANUSCRIPTS, COINS, MEDALS, II. OLD ROYAL LI- III. ARUNDELIAN IV. THOMASON TRACTS (Printed and Manuscript). V. HARLEIAN VI. SLOANE MUSEUM' OF NATURAL HISTORY AND OF OF MANUSCRIPTS AND PRINTED 'be of most use.' |