Plate Nº 2SUGGESTIONS, MADE IN 1847.FOR THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE LIBRARY OF THEBRITISH MUSEUM.BEING THE FAC-SIMILE OF A PLAN INSERTED IN A PAMPHLET (WRITTEN IN 1846.)ENTITLEDPUBLIC LIBRARIES IN LONDON AND PARIS.
Plate Nº 2SUGGESTIONS, MADE IN 1847.FOR THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE LIBRARY OF THEBRITISH MUSEUM.BEING THE FAC-SIMILE OF A PLAN INSERTED IN A PAMPHLET (WRITTEN IN 1846.)ENTITLEDPUBLIC LIBRARIES IN LONDON AND PARIS.
Plate Nº 2SUGGESTIONS, MADE IN 1847.FOR THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE LIBRARY OF THEBRITISH MUSEUM.BEING THE FAC-SIMILE OF A PLAN INSERTED IN A PAMPHLET (WRITTEN IN 1846.)ENTITLEDPUBLIC LIBRARIES IN LONDON AND PARIS.
Watts’ labours for the augmentation of the British Museum Library.
When ThomasWattsentered the Museum, the immediate task entrusted to him, onerous as it was, did not (for any long time) engross his attention. In common with Mr.Panizzi, his desire to increase the Library, and to make London surpass Paris—‘Paris must be surpassed,’ are the words which close the best of those articles, printed in 1837, to which I have just now referred—amounted to a positive passion. He did not talk very much about it; but I fancy it occupied, not only his waking thoughts, but his very dreams.
Mr.Panizzihad not been at the head of his Department many weeks before he began a Special Report to the Trustees, recommending a systematic increase of the Collection of Printed Books.
In the autumn of 1837 he could hardly foresee that one of the attacks to be made, in the after-years, upon those who had appointed him, or who had promoted his appointment, for the crime of preferring ‘a foreigner’ to a high post in our National Museum, would be based upon the foreigner’s neglect of English Literature. ‘An Italian Librarian,’ said those profound logicians, ‘must, naturally and necessarily, swamp the Library with Italian books. He can’t help doing it.’ But, strange as it may have seemed to objectors of that calibre, this particular Italian happened to be, not only a scholar—a ripe and good one—buta man of wide sympathies, and of catholic tastes in literature. He was able himself to enjoyShakespeare, not less thoroughly than he was able, by his critical acumen, to increase other men’s enjoyment ofAriostoand ofDante.
Sir A. Panizzi’s Report, in October, 1837, on the proper characteristics of a National Library for Great Britain.
In October, 1837, he wrote thus:—‘With respect to the purchase of books, Mr.Panizzibegs to lay before the Trustees the general principles by which he will be guided, if not otherwise directed, in endeavouring to answer the expectations and wishes of the Trustees and of the Public in this respect. First, the attention of the Keeper of this emphatically British Library ought to be directed, most particularly, to British works, and to works relating to the British Empire; its religious, political, and literary, as well as scientific history; its laws, institutions, description, commerce, arts, &c. The rarer and more expensive a work of this description is, the more indefatigable[30]efforts ought to be made to secure it for the Library. Secondly, the old and rare, as well as the critical, editions of ancient Classics, ought never to be sought for in vain in this Collection. Nor ought good comments, as also the best translations into modern languages, to be wanting. Thirdly, with respect to foreign literature, arts, and sciences, the Library ought to possess the best editions of standard works for critical purposes or for use. The Public have, moreover, a right to find, in their National Library, heavy as well as expensive foreign works, such asLiterary Journals;Transactions of Societies; large Collections, historical or otherwise; complete series of Newspapers; Collections of Laws, and their best interpreters.’ We have, in this brief passage, the germof the admirable Report on the National Library, written on a far more extended scale, which was afterwards laid before the Government, and, ultimately, before Parliament.
If this Report failed to lead, immediately (or, indeed, for a long time to come), to the increased means of acquisition on which its writer’s mind was so much bent, the fault did not lie in the Trustees. It lay with the House of Commons, and with the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The impediments in the way of improvement.
It is hard to realise, in 1870, how entirely the effort for an adequate improvement of the British Museum was an uphill task. Trustees like the late LordDerbyand the late Sir R. H.Ingliswere earnestly desirous to carry out such recommendations as those of Mr.Panizzi, but the employment of urging them on the Ministry was an ungrateful one. In those days of reforming-activity, although, in 1837, the average radicals in ‘the House’ were not quite such devout believers in the faith that a general overturn was the only road to a general millenium as they had been in 1832, they were willing enough to listen to attacks upon the managers of any public institution (no matter how crude were the views of the assailants, or how lopsided their information), but they were not half so ready to open the public purse-strings in order to enable impugned managers or trustees to improve the institution entrusted to them upon a worthy scale.
Three months after writing his Report of 1837, Mr.Panizziwas enabled to procure the official assistance of Mr.Watts. The appointment strengthened his hands, by giving to a man of extraordinary powers for organization and government, the services of a man not less extraordinary for his powers of accumulating and assimilating detail. What each man characteristically possessed, was just the right supplement to the specialfaculties of the other. But even such a happy union of personal qualities would have failed to carry into effect the large aspirations for the improvement of the Museum which both men, severally and independently, had cherished (during many years), but for one other circumstance. This was a merely incidental—one might say a fortuitous—circumstance; but it proved very influential upon the fortunes of the British Museum in the course of the years to come.|See hereafter, Chap. V.|When Mr.Panizzibegan to be known in London society—at first, very much by the instrumentality of the late Mr. ThomasGrenville, who, at an early period, had become warmly attached to him—his acquaintance was eagerly cultivated. In this way he obtained opportunities to preach his doctrine of increased public support for our great national and educational institutions (his advocacy was not limited within the four walls of the Museum) in the ears of very valuable and powerful listeners. It was thought, now and then, that he preached on that topic out of season as well as in season. But the issue amply vindicated the zeal which prompted him to make the pleasures of social intercourse subserve the performance of a public trust. Few men, I imagine—holding the unostentatious post of a librarianship—ever possessed so many social opportunities of the kind here referred to, as were possessed by Mr.Panizzi. And even those listeners who may have thought him over-pertinacious, sometimes, in pressing his convictions, must needs have carried away with them the assurance that one public servant, at all events, did not regard his duties as ‘irksome.’ They must have seen that this man’s heart was in his official work.
So was it also in the instance of Mr.Panizzi’srighthand man within the Museum itself. ThomasWattswas not gifted with powers of persuasive argument. Hisaddress and manners did no sort of justice to the intrinsic qualities, or to the true heart, of the man himself. To strangers, they often gave a most inaccurate idea of his faculties and character. Under the outward guise of a blunt-spoken farmer, there dwelt, not only high scholarship, but a lofty sense—it would not be too strong to say a passionate sense—of public duty. He had none of the persuasive gifts of vivid talk. But he could preach forcibly, by example. When he had made some way with the first task which was assigned him, that of superintending the removal of the Library, and its due ordering—in some of the details of which he was ably assisted, almost from the outset, by Mr. GeorgeBullen(who, in January, 1838, was first specially employed to retranscribe the press-marks or symbols of the books, as they stood in old Montagu House, into the new equivalents necessitated by their altered position in the new Library, in which labour he was, in the April following, assisted by Mr. N. W.Simons)—and had solved, by assiduous effort and self-denying labour, some of the many difficulties which stood in the way of effecting that removal without impeding, to any serious degree, the service of the Public Reading-Room, he turned his attention, at Mr.Panizzi’sinstance, to the—to him—far more grateful task of preparing lists of foreign books for addition to the Library. For this task he evinced special qualities and attainments which, I believe, were never surpassed, by any librarian in the world; not even by anAudiffredi, aVan-Praet, or aMagliabechi.
Linguistic attainments of Thomas Watts.
Mr.Watts’earliest schoolfellows had marvelled at his faculty for acquiring with great rapidity such a degree of familiarity with foreign tongues, as gave him an amply sufficient master-key to their several literatures. Whenyet very young, he showed a scholarly appreciation of the right methods of setting to work. He studied languages in groups—giving his whole mind to one group at a time, and then passing to another. At an age when many men (far from being blockheads) are painfully striving after a literary command of their mother-tongue, youngWattshad showed himself to be master of two several clusters of the great Indo-European family, and to have a very respectable acquaintance with a third. When, as a youthful volunteer at the Museum, he was fulfilling a request made to him by Mr.Baber, that he would catalogue the Collection of Icelandic books given to the Public, half a century before, by Sir JosephBanks, and also another parcel of Russian books, which had been bought at his own recommendation, the reading of Chinese literature was the labour of his hours of private study, and the reading of Polish literature was the recreation of his hours of leisure.
What the feelings of an ambitious student of that strain would be when officially instructed by his superior to take under his sole (or almost sole) charge the duty of examining the Museum Catalogues, and of obtaining from all parts of Europe and Asia, and from many parts of America, other catalogues of every kind, in order to ascertain the deficiencies of the Library, and to supply them, the reader can fancy. The new assistant luxuriated in his office. Many of his suggestions were periodically and earnestly supported with the Trustees by Mr.Panizzi. His labours were appreciated and often (to my personal knowledge) warmly applauded by his superior officer.
His Lists of Museum Desiderata.
He began with making lists of Russian books that weredesideratain the Museum Library; then of Hungarian; then of Dutch; then of French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese; then of Chinese; then of Welsh; then of therapidly growing, but theretofore (at the Museum) much neglected, literature of the Americas and the Indies.
I used, now and then, to watch him at his work, and to think that no man could possibly be employed more entirely to his liking. Long after I ceased to enjoy any opportunity of talking with him about his employment, I used occasionally to hear that similar tasks occupied, not infrequently, the hours of evening leisure as well as the hours of official duty. Some who knew him more intimately than—of late years—it was my privilege to know him, believe that his early death was in part (humanly speaking) due to his passion for poring over catalogues and other records of far-off literatures when worn-out nature needed to be refreshed, and to be recreatively interested in quite other occupations.
During the last twenty years alone (1850–1869 inclusive) he cannot have marked and recommended for purchase less than a hundred and fifty thousand foreign works, and in order to their selection he must needs have examined almost a million of book-titles, in at least eighteen different languages.
When little more than half that last-named term of years had expired he was able to write—in a Report which he addressed to Mr.Panizziin February, 1861—that the common object of Keeper and Assistant-Keeper had been, during almost a quarter of a century, to ‘bring together from all quarters the useful, the elegant, and the curious literature of every language; to unite with the best English Library in England, or the world, the best Russian Library out of Russia, the best German out of Germany, the best Spanish out of Spain, and so with every language from Italian to Icelandic, from Polish to Portuguese. In five of the languages in which it now claims this species of supremacy, in Russian, Polish, Hungarian, Danish, and Swedish, Ibelieve I may say that, with the exception of perhaps fifty volumes, every book that has been purchased by the Museum within the last three and twenty years has been purchased at my suggestion. I have the pleasure of reflecting that every future student of the less-known literatures of Europe will find riches where I found poverty; though, of course,|Reports of 1861, pp. 17, 18.|the collections in all these languages together form but a small proportion of the vast accumulations that have been added to the Library during your administration and that of your successor.’[31]
When the reader comes to add to his estimate of the amount of mental labour thus briefly and modestly indicated by the man who performed it, a thought of the further toil involved in the re-arrangement and carefulclassificationof more than four hundred thousand volumes of books, in all the literary languages of the world (without any exception), he will have attained some rough idea of the public service which was crowded into one man’s life; and that, as we all have now to regret, not a protracted life. He will have, too, some degree of conception of the amount of acquired knowledge which was taken from us when ThomasWattswas taken.
To his works of industry and of learning, the man we have lost added the still better works of a kindly, benevolent heart. Many a struggling student received at his hands both wise and loving counsel, and active help. And his good deeds were not advertised. They would not now have been spoken of, but for his loss—in the very thick of his labours for the Public.
In a precious volume, which was first added to the manuscript stores of the British Museum a little beforeMr.Watts’death, there occurs the rough jotting of a thought which is very apposite to our human and natural reflections upon such an early removal from the scene of labour as that just referred to. When somebody spoke toBaconof the death, in the midst of duty and of mental vigour, of some good worker or other in the vineyard of this world, almost three centuries ago, he made the following entry in his private note-book:—‘Princes, when in jousts, triumphs, or games of victory, men deserve crowns for their performance, do not crown them below, where the deeds are performed, but call them up.|Lord Bacon’sNote-Book(MS.Addit.B. M.).|So doth God by death.’
Other literary labours of Thomas Watts.
But these several branches of public duty, onerous as they were, were far from exhausting Mr.Watts’mental activity, either within the Museum walls or outside of them. He was a frequent contributor to periodical literature. To his pen theQuarterly Reviewwas indebted for an excellent article on theHistory of Cyclopædias; theAthenæum, for a long series of papers on various topics of literary history and of current literature, extending over many years; the various Cyclopædias and Biographical Dictionaries successively edited by Mr. CharlesKnight, for a long series of valuable notices, embracing the Language and Literature of Hungary; those of Wales; and more than a hundred and thirty brief biographical memoirs, distinguished alike for careful research and for clear and vigorous expression. These biographies relate, for the most part, to foreign men of letters. To the pages of theTransactions of the Philological Societyhe was a frequent contributor. His Memoir on Hungarian Literature, first read to that Society, procured him the distinction of a corresponding-membership of the Hungarian Academy, and the distinction was enhancedby his being elected on the same day with LordMacaulay.
Within the Museum itself two distinct and important departments of official labour, both of which he filled with intelligence and zeal, have yet to be indicated.|The Museum Printed Book Catalogue of 1839–1869, and Watts’ labours in relation to it.|In 1839, he took part—with others—in framing an extensive code of ‘rules’ for the re-compilation of the entire body of the Catalogues of Printed Books. In May, 1857, he took charge of the Public Reading-Room, as Chief Superintendent of the daily service.
It need hardly be said that the first-named task—that on the Catalogues—was a labour of planning and shaping, not one of actual execution. It was very important, however, in its effects on the public economy of the Library, and it was the one only labour, as I believe, performed by Mr.Watts, whether severally or in conjunction with others, which failed to give unmixed satisfaction to the general body of readers. TheMinutes of Evidence, taken by the Commissioners of 1848–1850, whilst they abound in expressions of public gratitude both to Mr.Panizziand, next after him, to Mr.Watts, contain a not less remarkable abundance of criticisms, and of complaints, upon the plan (not the execution) of theCatalogue of Printed Booksbegun in 1839. The subject is a dry one, but will repay some brief attention on the reader’s part.
When Mr.Panizzibecame Keeper, he had (it will have been seen) to face almost instantly, and abreast, three several tasks, each of which entailed much labour upon himself, personally, as well as upon his assistants. The third of them—this business of the Catalogue—proved to be not the least onerous, and it was, assuredly, not the best rewarded in the shape of its ultimate reception by those concerned more immediately in its performance. I canspeak with some sympathy on this point, since it was as a temporary assistant in the preparation of this formidable and keenly-criticised Catalogue, that the present writer entered the service of the Trustees, in February, 1839.
Objections to the plan of the Museum Printed Book Catalogue (1839–1869).
That some objections to the plan adopted in 1839 are well-grounded I entirely believe. But the important point in this matter, for our present purpose, is, not that the plan preferred was unobjectionable, but that the utmost effort was used, at the time and under the circumstances of the time, to prepare such a Catalogue as should meet the fair requirements both of the Trustees and of the Readers. It is within my recollection that, to effect this, Mr.Panizzilaboured, personally as well as in the way of super-intendance and direction, as it has not often happened to me, in my time, to see men labour for the Public. Assuredly to him promotion brought no lessening of toil in any form.
In shaping the plan of the General Catalogue of 1839–1870 (for it is, at this moment of writing, still in active progress), the course taken was this:—A sort of committee of five persons was formed, each of whom severally was to prepare, in rough draft, rules for the compilation of the projected work, illustrated by copious examples. It was to be entirely new, and to embrace every book contained in the Library up to the close of the year 1838. The draft rules were then freely discussed in joint committee, and wherever differences of opinion failed to be reconciled upon conference, the majority of votes determined the question. Such was Mr.Panizzi’sanxiety to prepare the best Catalogue for the Readers that was practicable, that he never insisted, authoritatively, on his own view of any point whatever, which might be in contention amongst us, when he stood in a minority. On all such points, he voted uponan exact equality with his assistants. The rules that were most called into question (before the Commissioners of 1848–1850) had been severally discussed and determined in this fair and simple way. Beyond all doubt, some of the rules might now be largely amended in the light of subsequent experience. But, when adopted, they seemed toallof us the best that were practicable under all the then circumstances.
The committee thus formed consisted of Mr.Panizzihimself, of Mr. ThomasWatts, of Mr. John WinterJones(now Principal-Librarian), of Mr. John HumffreysParry(now Mr. SerjeantParry), and of the writer of this volume. The labour was much more arduous than the average run of readers in a Public Library have any adequate conception of. It occupied several months. It was pushed with such energy and industry, that many a time, after we had all five worked together, till the light of the spring days of 1839 failed us, we adjourned to work on—with the help of a sandwich and a glass of Burgundy—in Mr.Panizzi’sprivate apartment above the old gate in the Court-yard. If the result of our joint labours had been printed in the ordinary form of books, it would have made a substantial octavo volume. The code has, no doubt, many faults and oversights, but, be they what they may, it was a vast improvement upon former doings in that direction;|See Mr. Panizzi’s evidence before the Commissioners of 1848–9.|and not a little of it has been turned to account, of late years, in the Public Libraries of France, of Germany, and of America.
In the labours of this little house-committee my late friend took a very large share. To Mr.Panizzi, and to him, all their colleagues in the task of 1839 will readily admit that the chief merit of what is good, and the smallest part of the demerit of what may have been injudicious, in theRules for the Compilation of the Catalogue of PrintedBooks(now before me) is incontestably due. My own experience in such matters, in the spring of 1839, was small indeed. That of my friendParrywas even less. Mr. WinterJonespossessed, already, the advantage of a thorough familiarity with the Library about to be catalogued, and also an extensive and thorough general knowledge of books. Of Mr.Panizzi’squalifications and attainments, for such a labour, it would be supererogatory and idle to say a word more, except that he had already—and single-handed—made so good a Catalogue of the fine Library of the Royal Society that the meddling of half a dozen ‘revisers’ failed to spoil it. But there is no impropriety in saying of Mr.Watts, that he so delighted in the labour in hand as to make it seem, to those who worked with him, that he looked upon it in the light of a pleasant recreation rather than in the light of a dry task.
But whatever the ultimate differences of opinion, amongst those concerned in such a matter, about the merits of the Museum Catalogue, begun in 1839, there was no difference at all, either in the House or out of it, as to the conspicuous merits of his performance of every subsequent duty. His stores of knowledge were put, with the utmost readiness, at the service of all sorts of readers; and he was not less admirable in the discharge of his office of Superintendent of the Reading-Room than afterwards in the more prominent office of Keeper of Printed Books—which he held little more than three years.
When Sir HenryEllisretired, in 1856, from the office of Principal-Librarian, the Collection of Printed Books—which he had found, on his accession to that office, extending to less than one hundred and fifty thousand volumes—exceeded five hundred and twenty thousand volumes.The annual number of Readers admitted had increased from about seven hundred and fifty to nearly four thousand.
The one step which did more than aught else to promote this improvement was the systematic survey of the then existing condition of the Printed Library, in all the great departments of knowledge, which Mr.Panizziset on foot in 1843, and embodied in a Memoir addressed to the Trustees, on the first of January, 1845.
Mr. Panizzi’s Memoir on the Collection of Printed Books, 1845.
The principle on which this Memoir was compiled lay in the careful comparison of the Museum Catalogues with the best special bibliographies, and with the Catalogues of other Libraries. In Jurisprudence, for example, the national collection was tested by theBibliotheca JuridicaofLipenius,Senckenberg, andMadahn; by the list of law-books inserted inDupin’sedition ofCamus’Lettres sur la profession d’Avocat, and by theBibliothèque diplomatique choisieofMartens. In Political Economy, byBlanqui’slist given in theHistoire de l’Economie politique en Europe. The Mathematical section of the Library was compared withRogg’sHandbuch der mathematischen Literatur. In British History, theBibliotheca Grenvilliana, and theCatalogue of the Library of the Writers to the Signet, were examined, for those sections of the subject to which they were more particularly applicable, and so on in the other departments. The facts thus elicited were striking. It was shown that much had been done since 1836 to augment almost every section of the Library; but that the deficiencies were still of the most conspicuous sort. In a word, the statement abundantly established the truth of the proposition that ‘the Collection of Printed Books in the British Museum is not nearly so complete and perfect as the National Library of Great Britain ought to be ...’and it then proceeded to discuss the further question: ‘By what means can the collection be brought with all proper despatch to a state of as much completeness and perfection as is attainable in such matters, and as the public service may require?’
It was shown that no reliance could be placed upon donations, for the filling up those gaps in the Library which were the special subject of the Memoir. Rare and precious books might thus come, but not the widely miscellaneous assemblage still needed. As to special grants for the acquisition of entire collections, not one of ten such collections, it was thought, would, under existing circumstances, be suitable for the Museum. The Copyright-tax has no bearing, however rigidly enforced, save on current British Literature. There remained, therefore, but one adequate resource, that of annual Parliamentary grants, unfettered by restrictions as to their application, and capable of being depended upon for a considerable number of years to come. Purchases might thus be organized in all parts of the world with foresight, system, and continuity. In the letter addressed by the Trustees to the Treasury, it was stated that, ‘for filling up the chasms which are so much to be regretted, and some of which are distinctly set forth in the annexed document, the Trustees think that a sum of not less than ten thousand a year will be required for the next ten years,’ in addition to the usual five thousand a year for the ordinary acquisitions of the Library.
The Lords of the Treasury were not willing to recommend to Parliament a larger annual grant than ten thousand pounds, ‘for the purchase of books of all descriptions,’ but so far they were disposed to proceed,|Treasury Minutes, 1845.|‘for some years to come;’ and they strongly inculcated upon the Trustees ‘the necessity, during the continuance of suchgrants, 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.’
Manuscripts added in the years 1849, 1850.
In 1843, an important series of modern Historical MSS., relating more especially to the South of Europe, was purchased from theRanuzzifamily of Bologna. The papers of the Brothers LaurenceHyde, Earl of Rochester, and HenryHyde, 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 ofWilliam 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 twenty-seven thousand autographs of persons more or less eminent in the various departments of human activity. Amongst them is the signature ofMilton. 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 FrederickMaddenthus summed up the accessions to his Department since the year 1836:
Tabular view of the accessions to the MSS. Department from 1836–1851.
And he adds:—‘If money had been forthcoming, the number of manuscripts acquired during the last fifteen years might have been more than doubled. The collections that have passed into other hands, namely, Sir RobertChambers’Sanscrit MSS.; Sir WilliamOuseley’sPersian;Bruce’sEthiopic and Arabic;Michael’sHebrew;Libri’sItalian, 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. LordAshburnham, 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.’
Growth of the Printed Department up to 1851.
The causes which at this period again tended somewhat to slacken the growth of the Printed Collection have been glanced at already. But during the fifteen years from 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.Panizzistated, ‘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.Panizziadded, ‘that he could not but deeply regret the ill-consequences which must accrue by allowing old deficiencies to continue,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 1846–1850. The increase in the printed books, therefore, although it had not quite kept pace with Mr.Panizzi’shopeful 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.|See hereafter, Chap. V.|It was owing to the splendid bequest of Mr.Grenvillethat 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.|Growth of the Printed Section of the Library since 1852.|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 volumeswas already upwards of four hundred and seventy thousand. 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’sKeepership. During the next like term of years, when the department was partly under the administration of Mr.Panizzi, and partly under that of Mr. WinterJones, it was nearly doubled again. It follows that the anticipation expressed in theReportof 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.
Progress of the Natural History Collections.
At the commencement of Sir HenryEllis’sterm of Principal-Librarianship, the Natural-History Collections were partly under the charge of Dr.Leach, partly under that of Mr. CharlesKönig. Both were officers of considerable 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 ofthe day that is passing, has often been noted.Leachevinced this tendency in more ways than one. But a favourite way of manifesting it led him many times into difficulties with his neighbours. He despised the taxidermy of Sir HansSloane’sage, and made periodical bonfires of Sloanian specimens. These he was wont to call his ‘cremations.’ In his time, the Gardens of the Museum were still a favourite resort of the Bloomsburians, but the attraction of the terraces and the fragrance of the shrubberies were sadly lessened when a pungent odour of burning snakes was their accompaniment. The stronger the complaints, however, the more apparent became Dr.Leach’sattachment to his favourite cremations.
George Montagu; his labours in Natural History and his Zoological Museum.
Leachwas the friend and correspondent of that eminent cultivator of the classificatory sciences, Colonel GeorgeMontagu, of Lackham. Both of them rank among the early members of the Linnæan Society, and it was underLeach’seditorship thatMontagu’slatest contributions to the Society’sTransactionswere published.|1802–13.|Montagu’sSynopsis of British Birdsmarks an epoch in the annals of our local ornithology, as does his treatise entitledTestacea Britannicain those of conchology.|1803–9.|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 removedfrom Knowle soon after his death. Scarcely any other purchase of like value in the Natural-History Department was made for more than twenty years afterwards. After the purchase of the Montagu Collection, the growth of that department depended, as it had mainly depended before it, on the acquisitions made for the Public by the several naturalists who took part in the Voyages of Discovery or whose chance collections, made in the course of ordinary duty, came to be at the disposal of the British Admiralty.
Many of those naturalists were men of marked ability. Of necessity, their explorations were attended with much curious adventure. To detail their researches and vicissitudes would form—without much credit to the writer—an interesting chapter, the materials of which are superabundant. But, at present, it must needs be matter of hope, not of performance.
The distinctive progress of the Natural-History Collections, from comparative and relative poverty, to a creditable place amongst rival collections, connects itself pre-eminently with the labours of Dr. John EdwardGray, who will hereafter be remembered as the ablest keeper and organizer those collections have hitherto had. Dr.Grayis now (1870) in the forty-sixth year of his public service at the British Museum, which he entered as an Assistant, in 1824. He is widely known by his able edition ofGriffiths’Animal Kingdom, by hisIllustrations of Indian Zoology, by his account of the famous Derby Menagerie at Knowsley, and by hisManual of British Shells; but his least ostensible publications rank among the most conclusive proofs both of his ability and of his zeal for the public service. Dr.Grayhas always advocated the publication—to use Mr.Carlyle’swords when under interrogatory by the MuseumCommissioners of 1848—of ‘all sorts of Catalogues.’ It is to him that the Public owe the admirable helps to the study of natural history which have been afforded by the long series of inventories, guides, and nomenclators, the publication of which began, at his instance, in the year 1844, and has been unceasingly pursued. A mere list of the various printed synopses which have grown out of Dr.Gray’ssuggestion of 1844 would fill many such pages as that which the reader has now before him. The consequence is, that in no department of the Museum can the student, as yet, economise his time as he can economise it in the Natural-History Department.Printed, not Manuscript, Catalogues mean time saved; disappointment avoided; study fructified. No literary labour brings so little of credit as does the work of the Catalogue-maker. None better deserves the gratitude of scholars, as well as of the general mass of visitors.
State of the Natural History Collections of the Museum in 1836.
Dr.Graybecame Keeper of Zoology in 1840. Four years earlier, he had given to Sir BenjaminHawes’Committee a striking account of the condition of that department, illustrating it by comparisons with the corresponding Collections in Paris, which may thus (not without unavoidable injustice) be abridged:—The species of mammalia then in the Museum were four hundred and five; the species of birds were two thousand four hundred, illustrated by four thousand six hundred and fifty-nine individual specimens. At that date, the latest accessible data assigned to the Paris Collection about five hundred species of mammals, and about two thousand three hundred species of birds, illustrated by nearly six thousand specimens. The Museum series of birds was almost equally rich in the orders, taken generally; but in gallinaceous birds it was more than proportionately rich, alarge number of splendid examples having been received from India. In the birds of Africa, of Brazil, and of Northern Europe, also, the Museum was already exceptionally well-stored.
The special value of the Ornithological Collection undoubtedly showed that it had been more elaborately cared for than had been some other parts of natural history. But the extent and richness of the bird gallery, even at this period, is not to be ascribed merely to a desire to delight the eyes of a crowd of visitors. For scientific purposes, a collection of birds must be more largely-planned and better filled than a collection of mammals, or one of fish. In birds, the essential characters of a considerable group of individual specimens may be identical and their colours entirely different.|SeeMinutes of Evidence, 1836, p. 238.|Besides the numerous diversities attendant upon age and sex, the very date at which a bird is killed may produce variations which have their interest for the scientific student.
The number of species of reptiles was in 1836 about six hundred, illustrated by about one thousand three hundred specimens. This number was much inferior to that of the Museum at Paris, but it exceeded by one third the number of species in the Vienna Museum,|Ibid., p. 242 (Q. 2996–9).|and almost by one half the then number at Berlin.
The species of fish amounted to nearly a thousand, but this was hardly the fourth of the great collection at Paris, although it probably exceeded every other, or almost every other, Continental collection of the same date. Of shells, the Museum number of species was four thousand and twenty-five (exclusive of fossils), illustrated by about fifteen thousand individuals. This number of species was at par with that of Paris; much superior both to Berlin and to Leyden; but it was far from representing positive—as distinguishedfrom comparative—wealth. There were already, in 1836, more than nine thousand known species of shells.
It was further shown in the evidence that, even under the arrangements of 1836, the facilities of public access equalled those given at the most liberal of the Continental Museums, and considerably exceeded those which obtained at fully four-fifths of their number.
Among the many services rendered to the Museum by Dr.Gray, one is of too important a character to be passed over, even in a notice so brief as this must needs be.|The Hardwicke Bequest of Zoology.|The large bequest in Zoology of Major-GeneralHardwickegrew out of a stipulation made by Dr.Gray, when he undertook, at GeneralHardwicke’srequest, the editorship of theIllustrations of Indian Zoology. A long labour brought to the editor no pecuniary return, but it brought an important collection to the British Public in the first instance, and eventually a large augmentation of what had been originally given.