BOOK II, M. K contained the minerals and fossils of Sir Hans SLOANE'S collection; L, the shells; M, the plants and insects. HISTORY OF Thence he passed into N, which was devoted to the bulk of the SLOANE Zoological Collection, and into O, containing artificial and miscellaneous curiosities. THE BRITISH MUSEUM. Descending to the floor beneath, by the secondary staircase between N and O, the visitor then entered the small room P, which contained the magnetic apparatus given by Dr. Gowin KNIGHT, and the rooms, Q and R, devoted to the reception of the greater part of the Royal Library, restored by HENRY, Prince of Wales, and augmentedbut with extreme parsimony-by several of the Stuart monarchs, whose additions to the shelves were, indeed, much oftener made of books given, than of books bought. He then passed into SLOANE'S Printed Library, which occupied the whole of the spacious and handsome suite of rooms S, T, V, W, X, and Y, and (passing through the Trustees' Room Z,) entered the room A A, containing the EDWARDS Library; ending his tour of inspection in the room B B, in which was arranged the remainder of the old Royal Library, the main portion whereof had been seen already in Q and R. ugh Diagram, showing Ground Plan of the original British Museum of 1759. BOOK II, THE BRITISH MUSEUM. The Trustees' n the combined Museum and Libraries, thus arranged, rst opened to the inspection of the curious Public Fore Court. Book II, HISTORY OF MUSEUM. in 1759, the collections enumerated in the Foundation Act of 1753 had, it is seen, already received some notable THE BRITISH increase by gifts. The first donor was the House of Lords, by whose order the historical collections of Thomas RYMER, HELPERS IN royal historiographer, and editor of the Fœdera, were given to the Trustees, immediately after their incorporation. Then followed, in 1757, the gift of the Royal Library and that of the Lethieullier Antiquities from Egypt. [See Chapter II.] EARLY THEFOUNDA TION AND GROWTH OF 1755-57. 1759.. DA COSTA'S HEBREW COLLECTION. -HISTORY OF THE COLLECTOR. Correspondence of Thomas Hollis. The next donor, in order of time, was a Jewish merchant, and stock-broker, of humble origin, but of princely disposition. Solomon da COSTA was one of the many men who have done honour to commerce not merely by its successful prosecution, but by the conspicuous union of mercantile astuteness with noble tastes and true beneficence. His talents for business enabled him to make a hundred thousand pounds-which in his day was more, perhaps, than the equivalent of four hundred thousand in ours. He had made it, says a keen observer, who knew the man well, 'without scandal or meanness.' When wealth made him independent, he spent his new leisure, not in luxury but in hard labour for the poor. DA COSTA had come, from Amsterdam, into England, in the year 1704. His struggling Hebrew compatriots were among the earliest sharers in his bounty. But his heart was too large to suffer that bounty to be limited by considerations either of race or of local neighbourhood. To him, as to the Samaritan of old, distress made kinship. He was wont to journey, from time to time, through thirty or forty parishes of Surrey and of Kent, with the punctual diligence of a commercial traveller, simply to succour the distressed by that best of all succour, the provision of means through which, in time, self-help would be developed and ensured. Provident loans, clothing-funds, the educa and apprenticeship of necessitous children, were the hin a few years of DA COSTA's arrival in England, ly about the year 1720, and when, with youthful , he was seeking to acquire knowledge as well as to money, he met, at a bookseller's, with a remarkable on of Hebrew books, of choice editions and in rich iform bindings. The collection had that sumptuof aspect which invited inquiry into its origin. All could learn on that score was the probability that atesman or other of the Commonwealth period, had d them for a public but unfulfilled purpose, and ey had fallen-with so much other spoil-into the of CHARLES THE SECOND. By that King's order d received, if not their rich binding, at least his and cypher as marks of the royal appropriation, and a truly Carolinian fashion) were left in the hands King's stationer for lack of payment of the charge —whether binding or mere decoration—had been > the books by the royal command. DA COSTA hem as among his chief treasures, but directly he f the foundation of a great repository of learning, BOOK II, Chap. I. HISTORY OF MUSEUM. the emotions of the Jewish broker were such as might have been hit by broad-browed VERULAM,' could he I have ived to see that day: save only that Bacon would irst have scanned the evidence accut the origin of the institation, and vould have discriminated the praise. THE BRITISHE MUSEUM Da Costa wrote a letter to the Trustees. The generous heart is facile in ascribing generosity. A most stately mcnument,' said Da Costa, hath been lately erected and endowed, by the wisdom and munificence of the British Legislature, and he accompanied his eulogy with a prayer that the Almighty would render unto them a recompense, according to the work of their hands. He brought his mite of contribution, he added, not only as proof of sympathy with the work in progress, but as a thanksgiving of the Bet. offering, in part, for the generous protection and numberthir, less blessings which I have enjoyed under the British 19 Government.” Da Costa the Trustees Museum. GIFT OF THE OF ENGLISH BOOKS OF The gift embraced several Biblical Manuscripts of value, and a still choicer series of early printed books, one hundred and eighty in number. The giver has a merited place in the roll of our public benefactors; and his devout prayer for the new Museum, May it increase and multiply ....... to the benefit of the people of these nations and of the whole earth,' has had a more conspicuous fulfilment than could, in 1759, have been imagined by the most sanguine of bystanders. Three years afterwards, and soon after his accession to COLLECTION the throne, King GEORGE THE THIRD gave to the Nation that most curious assemblage of nearly the whole English literature of two and twenty eventful years of Civil War, -open or furtive,-which is known to the Public as the Thomason Collection,' though its technical name within 1641-1662, #T GEORGE IIL |