only manuscripts mentioned by HUNTINGTON, in recording his visits to three of the principal communities-St. Mary Deipara, St. Macarius, and El Baramous-are an Old Testament in the Estrangelo character; two volumes of Chrysostom in Coptic and Arabic; a Coptic Lectionary in four volumes; and a New Testament in Coptic and Arabic. Towards the close of the following century, these monasteries received the successive visits of SONNINI, of William George BROWNE, and of General Count ANDRÉOSSI. SONNINI says nothing of books. BROWNE saw but few-among them an Arabo-Coptic Lexicon, the works of St. Gregory, and the Old and New Testaments in Arabicalthough he was told by the superior that they had nearly eight hundred volumes, with none of which they would part. General ANDRÉOSSI, on the other hand, speaks slightingly of the books as merely ascetic works, some in Arabic, and some in Coptic, with an Arabic translation in the margin;' but adds, We brought away some of the latter class, which appear to have a date of six centuries.' This was in 1799. BROWNE died in 1814; SONNINI DE MANONCOURT, in 1812; Count ANDRÉOSSI survived until 1828. In the year 1827, the late Duke of NORTHUMBERLAND (then Lord PRUDHOE) made more elaborate researches. His immediate object was a philological one, his Lordship desiring to further Mr. TATTAM's labours on a Coptic and Arabic Dictionary. Hearing that 'Libraries were said to be preserved, both at the Baramous and Syrian convents,' hoe's Narra- he proceeded to El Baramous, accompanied by Mr. LINART, and encamped outside the walls. "The monks in this convent,' says the Duke, 'about twelve in number, appeared poor and ignorant. They looked on us with Lord Prud tive, &c., as abridged in Quarterly Review, vol. lxxvii, pp. 45, seq. Chap. IV. GROUP OF ARCHEOLO EXPLORERS. great jealousy, and denied having any books, except those BOOK III, in the church, which they showed us.' But having been ANOTHER judiciously mollified by some little seductive present, on the next day, 'in a moment of good humour, they agreed to GISTS AND show us their Library. From it I selected a certain number of Manuscripts, which, with the Lexicon (Selim) already mentioned, were carried into the monk's room. A long deliberation ensued, . . as to my offer to purchase them. Only one could write, and at last it it was agreed that he should copy the Selim, which copy and the MSS. I had collected were to be mine, in exchange for a fixed sum of dollars, to which I added a present of rice, coffee, tobacco, and such other articles as I had to offer.' After narrating the acquisition of a few other MSS. at the Syrian convent, or Convent of St. Mary Deipara, his Lordship proceeds: These manuscripts I presented to Mr. TATTAM, and gave him some account of the small room with its trap-door, through which I descended, candle in hand, to examine the manuscripts, where books, and parts of books, and scattered leaves, in Coptic, Ethiopic, Syriac, and Arabic, were lying in a mass, on which I stood. In appearance, it seemed as if, on some sudden emergency, the whole Library had been thrown down this trapdoor, and they had remained undisturbed, in their dust and neglect, for some centuries.' THE RESEARCHES IN THE MONASTE- Ten years later, Mr. TATTAM himself continued these researches. But in the interval they had been taken up by the energetic and accomplished traveller Mr. Robert LEVANTINE CURZON, to whose charming Visits to the Monasteries of the Levant it is mainly owing that a curious aspect of monastic CURZON. life, which theretofore had only interested a few scholars, has become familiar to thousands of readers of all classes. Mr. CURZON'S researches were much more thorough BOOK III, Chap. III. HISTORY OF THE MUSEUM A. PANIZZI. Of course, the improvements thus effected did but solve a portion of the difficulty felt, long before 1857, in accommodating the National Collections upon any adequate scale, UNDER SIR which should provide alike for present claims and for future extension. This more effectual provision became one of the most pressing questions with which both the Trustees and their officers had now to deal. During the whole term of Sir A. PANIZZI's Principal-Librarianship this building question increased in gravity and urgency, from year to year. Both the Trustees and the PrincipalLibrarian were intent upon its solution. But the latter was enforced, by failing health, to quit office, leaving the matter still unsolved. PARLIA MENTARY INTO PRO POSED EN- MUSEUM Most of the little information on this part of the subject which, within my present limits, it will be cticable for me to offer to the reader, belongs, properly OF BRITISH chapter. But some brief notice must h important inquiries, 'how far, and in desirable to find increased spac arrangement of the vari Museum, and the best for the promotion of between the mont er Chap. III. OF THE MUSEUM A. PANIZZI. THE SELECT OF THE tory Collections are viewed by the ordinary and most Book III, classes, employ their holidays in ology, or in the collection of inghbourhood of London; that they useum, in order to ascertain the the specimens thus obtained, and ne restrains the further increase of Your Committee, in order to confirm iar popularity of the Natural-History efer to a return from the Principalows the number of visitors in the s of the Museum, at the same hour of open days, from the fifteenth of June y, 1860. From this it appears that dred and fifty-seven persons were in nities at the given hour, and one thouhe King's Library and MSS. Rooms, hree hundred and seventy-eight were Galleries; showing an excess of two COMMONS, BOOK III, OF THE UNDER SIR A. PANIZZI. THE NEW OR PANIZZI ROOM. Mr. PANIZZI himself preferred, at first, the plan of extending the building on the eastern and northern sides. His suggestions had the approval of the Commissioners of 1850. But the Government was slow to give power to the Trustees to carry out the plan of their officer and the recommendation of the Commissioners of Inquiry, by proposing the needful vote in a Committee of Supply. Plan and Report alike lay dormant from the year 1850 to 1854. It was then that, as a last resort, and as a measure of economy, by avoiding all present necessity to buy more ground of the Duke of BEDFORD, Mr. PANIZZzı recommended the Trustees to build within the quadrangle, and drew a sketch-plan, on which their architect reported favourably. Sixty-one thousand pounds, by way of a first instalment, was voted on the third of July, 1854. The present noble structure was completed within three years from that day, and its total cost-including the extensive series of book-galleries and rooms of various kinds, subserving almost innumerable purposes amounted in round numbers to a hundred and fifty thousand pounds. It was thus only a little more than the cost of the King's Library, which accommodates eighty thousand volumes of books and a Collection of Birds. The new Reading-Room and its appendages can be made to accommodate, in addition to its three hundred and more of readers, some million, or near it, of volumes, without impediment to their fullest accessibility. To describe by words a room which, in 1870, has become more or less familiar, I suppose, to hundreds of thousands of Britons, and to a good many thousands of foreigners, would now be superfluous. But it will not be without advantage, perhaps, to show its character and appearance with the simple brevity of woodcuts. The following illustrative block-plan shows the general 1 |
