_RECONSTRUCTORS AND PROJECTORS._
_The Plans and Projects for the Severance and Partial Dispersion
of the Collections which at present form ‘The British Museum,’
and for their re-combination and re-arrangement_ 721
INDEX 763
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
I. VIEW OF THE GARDEN-FRONT OF OLD MONTAGU HOUSE,
THE FIRST ‘BRITISH MUSEUM;’ as it appeared at
the opening of the Institution to the Public in
1759 _Frontispiece._
II. VIEW OF THE OLD TOWNELEY GALLERY (built for the
reception of the Towneleian Marbles in 1805,
and pulled down on the erection of the existing _Vignette on
Museum) Title-page._
III. GROUND-PLAN OF THE PRINCIPAL FLOOR OF THE
ORIGINAL BRITISH MUSEUM OF 1759 325
IV. GROUND-PLAN OF THE SECONDARY FLOOR OF THE SAME 327
V. SUGGESTIONS MADE IN 1847 FOR THE ENLARGEMENT OF
THE LIBRARY OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM; being the
facsimile of a Plan inserted in a Pamphlet
(written in 1846) entitled ‘_Public Libraries _To face p._
in London and Paris_’ 556
VI. REDUCED COPY OF BENJAMIN DELESSERT’S ‘_PROJET
D’UNE BIBLIOTHÈQUE CIRCULAIRE_,’ 1835 587
VII. GENERAL BLOCK-PLAN OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM, as it
was in 1857 589
VIII. GROUND-PLAN OF THE NEW OR ‘PANIZZI’ READING-ROOM,
and of the adjacent Galleries, 1857 590
IX. INTERIOR VIEW OF THE NEW READING-ROOM, 1857 591
X. COLOURED PLAN OF THE GROUND-FLOOR OF THE BRITISH
MUSEUM, as it was in 1862. _Copied from the _To face p._
Parliamentary Return, No. 97 of Session 1862_ 750
XI. COLOURED PLAN OF THE GROUND-FLOOR &C., (as
above); TOGETHER WITH THE ALTERATIONS PROPOSED
TO THE LORDS OF THE TREASURY BY THE TRUSTEES OF
THE BRITISH MUSEUM; in their Minutes of
December, 1861, and January 21st, 1862, and in
their Letter to the Treasury of 11th February, _To face p._
1862. _Copied from the same Return_ 752
XII. COLOURED PLAN OF THE UPPER FLOOR OF THE BRITISH
MUSEUM, as it was in 1862. _Copied from the _To face p._
same Return_ 754
XIII. COLOURED PLAN OF THE UPPER FLOOR, &C. (as above);
TOGETHER WITH THE ALTERATIONS PROPOSED TO THE
TREASURY BY THE TRUSTEES; in their Minutes of
December, 1861, and January, 1862, and in their
Letter of 11th February, 1862. _Copied from the _To face p._
same Return_ 756
BOOK THE FIRST.
_EARLY COLLECTORS:—THE GATHERERS OF THE FOUNDATION COLLECTIONS._
_CONTENTS OF BOOK I._
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION.
II. THE FOUNDER OF THE COTTONIAN LIBRARY.
III. THE COLLECTORS AND AUGMENTORS OF THE OLD ROYAL AND PUBLIC
LIBRARY AT ST. JAMES’.
IV. THE COLLECTOR OF THE ARUNDELIAN MSS.
V. THE COLLECTOR OF THE HARLEIAN MANUSCRIPTS.
VI. THE FOUNDERS OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM.
... “The reverence and respect your Petitioners bear to the memory of
the most learned Sir ROBERT COTTON are too great not to mention, in
particular, that from the liberal use of his Library sprang (chiefly)
most of the learned works of his time, for ever highly to be valued. The
great men of that age constantly resorted to and consulted it to shew
the errors and mistakes in government about that period. And, as this
inestimable Library hath since been generously given and dedicated to
the Public use for ever, to be a National Benefit, your Petitioners
presume that no expression of gratitude can be too great for so valuable
a treasure, or for doing honour to the Memory and Family of Sir ROBERT
COTTON.”—‘_Petition to the Honourable House of Commons from the
Cottonian Trustees_’ (drawn up antecedently to the Foundation Act of the
British Museum); 1752.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
_Chronological Epochs in the Formation of the British Museum._
In two particulars, more especially, our great National Museum stands
distinguished among institutions of its kind. The collections which
compose it extend over a wider range than that covered by any other
public establishment having a like purpose. And, if we take them as a
whole, those collections are also far more conspicuously indebted to the
liberality of individual benefactors. [Sidenote: THE PUBLIC DEBT TO
PRIVATE COLLECTORS.] In a degree of which there is elsewhere no example,
the British Museum has been gradually built up by the munificence of
open-handed Collectors, rather than by the public means of the Nation,
as administered by Parliament, or by the Governments of the day.
The real founders of our British Museum have been neither our British
monarchs nor our British legislators, as such. They have been, commonly,
individual and private British subjects; men loyal both to the Crown and
to the People. Often, they have been men standing in direct lineal
descent from the great Barons who dictated the Charter of our liberties,
in the meadow near Windsor, and from those who led English knights and
English bowmen to victory, on the wooded slopes near Poitiers.
Sometimes, they have been men of very lowly birth; such as could point
to no ancestral names appended to _Magna Charta_, or to the famous
letter written from Lincoln to Boniface the Eighth; such as may, indeed,
very well have had ancestors who gave their lives, or their limbs, for
England at Poitiers or at Cressy, but who certainly could point to no
heraldic memorials of feats of arms done on those bloody fields of
France. Not a few of them, perhaps, would have been vainly asked to tell
the names of their grandfathers. One boast, however, is common to both
of these groups of our public benefactors. They were men who had alike a
strong sense of gratitude to those who had gone before them, and a
strong sense of duty to those who were to come after them. To nearly all
of the men whose lives will be told in this volume are applicable, in a
special sense, some words of Julius HARE:—‘They wrought in a magnanimous
spirit of rivalry with Nature, or in kindly fellowship with her....
[Sidenote: J. & A. Hare, _Guesses at Truth_, vol. ii, p. 18.] When they
planted, they chose out the trees of longest life—the Oak, the Chestnut,
the Yew, the Elm,—trees which it does us good to behold, while we muse
on the many generations of our Forefathers, whose eyes have reposed
within the same leafy bays.’ They were men whose large impulses and deep
insight led them to work, less for themselves than for their successors.
It is by dint of what men of that stamp did—and did, not under the
leading of the Gospel according to Adam SMITH, but of a Gospel very much
older than it—that upon us, whose day is now passing, Posterity, so to
speak, ‘has cast her shadow before; and we are, at this moment, reposing
beneath it.’ Of Public Benefactions, such as those which this volume
very inadequately commemorates, it is true, with more than ordinary
truth, that we owe them, mainly, to a generous conviction in the hearts
of certain worthies of old days that they owed suit and service to
Posterity. This may, indeed, be said of public foresight, when evidenced
in material works and in provisions to smooth some of the asperities of
common life and of manual toil. But it may be said, more appropriately
still, of another and a higher kind of public foresight;—of that
evidenced in educational institutions, and in the various appliances for
raising and vivifying the common intellect; for enlarging its faculties;
diffusing its enjoyments; and broadening its _public_ domain. As it has
been said (by the same acute thinker who has just been quoted) in better
words than any of mine:—‘The great works that were wrought by men of
former times; the great fabrics that were raised by them; their mounds
and embankments against the powers of evil; their drains to carry off
mischief; the wide fields they redeemed from the overflowings of
barbarism; the countless fields they enclosed and husbanded for good to
grow and thrive in; ... all this they [mainly] achieved _for
Posterity_.... [Sidenote: J. & A. Hare, _Guesses at Truth_, vol. ii, p.
13.] Except for Posterity; except for the vital magnetic consciousness
that while men perish, Man survives, the only principle of prudent
conduct must have been, “_Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die_.”’
The pages which follow have been written in the belief that they
afford—whatever the defects of their Writer—useful illustrations of this
great and pregnant truth. To him it has not been given to work ‘_for
Posterity_,’ otherwise than as a Chronicler of some of the workings of
other men. But he owns to a special delight in that humble function. Its
charm,—to his mind,—is enhanced, on the present occasion, by the very
fact that so much of the work now about to be narrated is the work of
men who only rarely have been labouring with other means, or with other
implements, than those which were personal to themselves, as
individuals.
In the chief countries of the Continent of Europe—on the other
hand—great national Museums have, commonly, had their origin in the
liberality and wise foresight either of some sovereign or other, or of
some powerful minister whose mind was large enough to combine with the
cares of State a care for Learning. In Britain, our chief public
collection of literature and of science originated simply in the public
spirit of private persons.
The BRITISH MUSEUM was founded precisely at that period of our history
when the distinctively national, or governmental, care for the interests
of literature and of science was at its lowest, or almost its lowest,
point. As regards the monarchs, it would be hard to fix on any, since
the dawn of the Revival of Learning, who evinced less concern for the
progress and diffusion of learning than did the first and second princes
of the House of Hanover. As regards Parliament, the tardy and languid
acceptance of the boon proffered, posthumously, by Sir Hans SLOANE,
constitutes just the one exceptional act of encouragement that serves to
give saliency to the utter indifference which formed the ordinary rule.
Long before SLOANE’s time (as we shall see hereafter), there had been
zealous and repeated efforts to arouse the attention of the Government
as well to the political importance as to the educational value of
public museums. Many thinkers had already perceived that such
collections were a positive increase of public wealth and of national
greatness, as well as a powerful instrument of popular education. It had
been shewn, over and over again, that for lack of public care precious
monuments and treasures of learning had been lost; sometimes by their
removal to far-off countries; sometimes by their utter destruction.
Until the appeal made to Parliament by the Executors of Sir Hans SLOANE,
in the middle of the eighteenth century, all those efforts had uniformly
failed.
[Sidenote: THE REAL FOUNDERS OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM.]
But Sir Hans SLOANE cannot claim to be regarded, individually or very
specially, as the Founder of the British Museum. His last Will, indeed,
gave an opportunity for the foundation. Strictly speaking, he was not
even the Founder of his own Collection, as it stood in his lifetime. The
Founder of the Sloane Museum was William COURTEN, the last of a line of
wealthy Flemish refugees, whose history, in their adopted country, is a
series of romantic adventures.
[Sidenote: THE ACQUISITION, BY THE NATION, OF THE COTTON LIBRARY.]
Parliament had previously accepted the gift of the Cottonian Library, at
the hands of Sir John COTTON, third in descent from its Founder, and its
acceptance of that gift had been followed by almost unbroken neglect,
although the gift was a noble one. [Sidenote: (T. Carte to Sir Thomas
Hanmer, Speaker of the House of Commons; _Hanmer Corresp._, p. 226.)]
Sir John, when conversing, on one occasion, with Thomas CARTE, told the
historian that he had been offered £60,000 of English money, together
with a _carte blanche_ for some honorary mark of royal favour, on the
part of LEWIS THE FOURTEENTH, for the Library which he afterwards
settled upon the British nation. It has been estimated that SLOANE
expended (from first to last) upon his various collections about
£50,000; so that, even from the mercantile point of view, the COTTON
family may be said to have been larger voluntary contributors towards
our eventual National Museum than was Sir Hans SLOANE himself. That
point of view, however, would be a very false, because very narrow, one.
Whether estimated by mere money value, or by a truer standard, the
third, in order of time, of the Foundation-Collections, that of the
‘Harleian Manuscripts,’—was a much less important acquisition for the
Nation than was the Museum of SLOANE, or the Library of COTTON; but its
literary value, as all students of our history and literature know, is,
nevertheless, considerable. Its first Collector, Robert HARLEY, the
Minister of Queen Anne and the first of the Harleian Earls of Oxford, is
fairly entitled to rank, after COTTON, COURTEN, and SLOANE, among the
virtual or eventual co-founders of the British Museum.
Chronologically, then, Sir Robert COTTON, William COURTEN, Hans SLOANE,
and Robert HARLEY, rank first as Founders; so long as we estimate their
relative position in accordance with the successive steps by which the
British Museum was eventually organized. But there is another
synchronism by which greater accuracy is attainable. Although four years
had elapsed between the passing—in 1753—of ‘_An Act for the purchase of
the Museum or Collection of Sir Hans Sloane, and of the Harleian
Collection of Manuscripts, and for providing one general repository for
the better reception and more convenient use of the said Collection, and
of the Cottonian Library and of the additions thereto_,’ and the gift—in
1757—to the Trustees of those already united [Sidenote: THE OLD ROYAL
LIBRARY, formed by PRINCE HENRY (son of James I) at St. James’.]
Collections by King GEORGE THE SECOND, of the Old Royal Library of the
Kings his predecessors, yet that royal collection itself had been (in a
restricted sense of the words) a Public and National possession soon
after the days of the first real and central Founder of the present
Museum, Sir Robert COTTON. But, despite its title, that Royal Library,
also, was—in the main—the creation of subjects, not of Sovereigns or
Governments. Its virtual founder was HENRY, Prince of Wales. It was
acquired, out of his privy purse, as a subject, not as a Prince. He,
therefore, has a title to be placed among the individual Collectors
whose united efforts resulted—after long intervals of time—in the
creation, eventually, of a public institution second to none, of its
kind, in the world.
Prince HENRY’s story is not the least curious of the many life-stories
which these pages have to tell. That small span of barely eighteen years
was eventful, as well as full of promise. And it may very fitly be told
next, in order, after that of COTTON, who was not only his contemporary
but his friend.
[Sidenote: THE MSS. OF LORD ARUNDEL.]
As the Royal Library was, in a certain degree, a Public Collection
before the foundation of the Museum, so also was the Arundelian Library
of Manuscripts. It did not become part of the British Museum until
nearly eighty years after the amalgamation of the Cottonian, Harleian,
Sloanian, and Royal Collections into one integral body. But the
munificent Earl who formed it had often made it public, for the use of
scholars, in his own lifetime. One or two of his descendants allowed it
to fall into neglect. Before it left old Arundel House, in the Strand,
it was exposed, more than once, to loss by petty thefts. But when, by
another descendant, the injury was repaired, and the still choice
collection given—at the earnest entreaty of another of our English
worthies, John EVELYN—to the Royal Society, the Arundelian MSS., like
the Library at Saint James’ Palace, became (so far as a circle of
literary men and of the cultivators of scientific inquiry were
concerned) a public possession. Many of the Arundelian marbles had also
become—by other acts of munificence worthy of the time-honoured name of
HOWARD—to the Public at large, and without restriction, ‘things of
beauty,’ and ‘joys for ever.’ Others of them, indeed, are—even in these
days—shut up at Wilton with somewhat of a narrow jealousy of the
undistinguished multitude. But, by the liberality of the Dukes of
MARLBOROUGH, the choice gems gathered by the Earl of ARUNDEL during his
long travels on the Continent, and his widespread researches throughout
the world, have long been made available to public enjoyment, in more
ways than one. The varied narrative of that famous Collector’s life may,
perhaps, not unfitly be placed next after that of the best of the Stuart
princes. ARUNDEL, like HENRY, was the friend of Sir Robert COTTON, and
was proud of that distinction.
Undoubtedly, there is more than one point of view from which we may
regard the preponderating share borne by private collectors in the
ultimate creation of our national repository as matter of satisfaction,
rather than matter of shame. It testifies to the strength amongst
us—even at times deeply tinged with civil discord—of public and
patriotic feeling. Nor is this all. It testifies, negatively, but not
less strongly, to a conscientious sense of responsibility, on the part
of those who have administered British rule in conquered countries, and
in remote dependencies of the Crown. Few readers of such a book as this
are likely to be altogether unacquainted with national museums and
national libraries which have been largely enriched by the strong hand
of the spoiler. Into some such collections it is impossible for portions
of the people at whose aggregate expense they are maintained to enter,
without occasional feelings of disgust and humiliation. There are, it is
true, a few trophies of successful war in our own Museum. But there is
nothing in its vast stores which, to any visitor of any nationality
whatever, can bring back memories of ruthless and insolent spoliation.
That narrowness of conception, however, which has made some publicists
to regard the slenderness of the contributions of the Nation at large,
when contrasted with the extent of those of individuals, as if it were a
cause for boasting, is visibly, and very happily, on the decline. It is
coming to be recognised, more implicitly with every year that passes,
that whatever can be done by the action of Parliament, or of the
Government, for the real promotion of public civilisation,—in the
amplest and deepest meaning of that word,—is but the doing of the People
themselves, by the use of the most effective machinery they have at
hand; rather than the acceptance of a boon conferred upon them,
extraneously and from above.
If that salient characteristic in the past history of our BRITISH MUSEUM
is very far from affording any legitimate cause of boasting to the
publicist, it affords an undeniable advantage to the narrator of the
history itself. It not only broadens the range of his subject, by
placing at its threshold the narrative of several careers which will be
found to combine, at times, romantic adventure and political intrigue
with public service of a high order; but it binds up, inseparably, the
story of the quiet growth of an institution in London with occasional
glimpses at the progress, from age to age, of geographical and
scientific discovery, of archæological exploration, and of the most
varied labours for the growth of human learning, throughout the world.
As an organized establishment, the BRITISH MUSEUM is but little more
than a century old. The history of its component parts extends over
three centuries. That history embraces a series of systematic
researches,—scientific, literary, and archæological,—the account of
which (whatsoever the needful brevity of its treatment in these 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.
[Sidenote: THE DIVERSITY OF THE MUSEUM COLLECTIONS.]
Even the least thoughtful among those visitors who can 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 life (unofficial as they were), and the
powerful influence 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.
[Sidenote: RECENT ATTACKS ON SIR ROBERT COTTON’S MEMORY.]
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 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,’—as well as by those great Parliamentarian
leaders whose estimate of him may, perhaps, be thought—by hasty
readers—to rest partly, if 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 from the rapidly growing
Libraries and from the vast Galleries of marbles, bronzes, pottery,
medals, and prints. It is the business of writers to state and marshal
the evidence. It is the business of Parliament to pronounce the
judgment.
The main epochs in the History of the British Museum afford what may be
looked upon almost as a ‘table of contents’ to the present volume. And
they may be brought under the Reader’s eye in a way which will much
facilitate the correct apprehension of the author’s plan. I exhibit them
thus:—
[Sidenote: EPOCHS OF BRIT. MUSEUM GROWTH AND INCREASE.]
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE DATES, FOUNDERS, AND CHARACTER, OF THE │
│ COMPONENT COLLECTIONS, OUT OF WHICH THE BRITISH MUSEUM HAS BEEN │
│ FORMED OR ENLARGED:— │
├───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┬─────────────┤
│ CLASS I.—=Foundation Collections, 1570–1762=. │ |
│ │ |
│ I. COTTONIAN MANUSCRIPTS, COINS, MEDALS, AND OTHER │ │
│ ANTIQUITIES. │ │
│ │ │
│_Collected_ by =Sir Robert Cotton=, Baronet (born in │ │
│the year 1570; died 6 May, 1631). _Given_ to the Nation│ │
│by =Sir John Cotton= in 1700. _Augmented_ during the │ │
│Collector’s lifetime by the gifts of =Arthur Agarde= │ │
│(1615), =William Camden= (1623), =John Dee= (1608), │ │
│=William Lambarde= (1601), and others; and, after his │ │
│death, by the acquisitions of Sir Thomas COTTON and Sir│INCORPORATED │
│John COTTON, his descendants; and also by the Printed │by the Act │
│Library of =Major Arthur Edwards=, given in 1738. │(A.D. =1753=)│
│ │26 Geo. II, │
│ II. OLD ‘ROYAL LIBRARY.’ │c. 22, │
│ │entitled, │
│Re-founded, or restored, by =Henry, Prince of Wales= │‘_An Act for │
│(born in 1594; died 6 November, 1612). [See CLASS II, §│the Purchase │
│1.] │of the Museum│
│ │or Collection│
│ III. ARUNDELIAN MANUSCRIPTS. │of Sir Hans │
│ │Sloane and of│
│_Collected_ by =Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel and of │the Harleian │
│Norfolk=; Earl Marshal of England; K.G. (Born in 1586; │Collection of│
│succeeded as XXIII^{rd} Earl of Arundel in 1603; died 4│MSS.; and for│
│October, 1646.) [See CLASS II, § 33.] │providing one│
│ │General │
│ IV. THOMASON TRACTS (Printed and Manuscript). [See │Repository │
│ CLASS II, § 3.] │... for the │
│ │said │
│ V. HARLEIAN MANUSCRIPTS. │Collections │
│ │and for the │
│_Collected_ by =Robert Harley, Earl Of Oxford= (born in│Cottonian │
│1661; died 21 May, 1724). _Augmented_ by incorporation,│Library and │
│at various times, of the Collections, severally, or of │additions │
│considerable portions of the Collections of =Sir │thereto_;’ │
│Humphrey Gilbert= (died 1584), =John Foxe= (1581), │ │
│=Daniel Rogers= (1590), =John Stowe= (1605), =Sir Henry│Opened, for │
│Savile= (1622), =Sampson Lennard= (1633), =Sir Henry │Public Use, │
│Spelman= (1641), =Sir Symonds D’Ewes= (1650), =Sir │on Monday the│
│James Ware= (1666), =William Sancroft=, Archbishop of │15th January,│
│Canterbury (1693), =Peter Séguier=, Chancellor of │=1759=; and │
│France (1696), =John Bagford= (1716); and others. [See │subsequently │
│BOOK I, c. 5.] │AUGMENTED, │
│ │from time to │
│ VI. ‘SLOANE MUSEUM’ OF NATURAL HISTORY AND OF │time, by │
│ ANTIQUITIES; AND LIBRARY OF MANUSCRIPTS AND PRINTED │numerous │
│ BOOKS. │additional │
│ │Collections; │
│_Collected_ by =William Courten= [known during part of │and, MORE │
│his life as ‘William CHARLETON’] (born in 1642; died 26│PARTICULARLY,│
│March, 1702); _continued_ by =Sir Hans Sloane=, Baronet│by the │
│(born in 1660; died 11 January, 1752); _bequeathed_, by│following— │
│the Continuator, to the British Nation,—conditionally │ │
│on the payment to his executors, by authority of │ │
│Parliament, of the sum of £20,000,—in order that those │ │
│his Collections—to use the words of his last Will—being│ │
│things ‘tending many ways to the Manifestation of the │ │
│Glory of God, the Confutation of Atheism and its │ │
│consequences, the Use and Improvement of the Arts and │ │
│Sciences, and benefit of Mankind, may remain together │ │
│and not be separated, and that chiefly in or about the │ │
│City of London, where they may by the great confluence │ │
│of people be of most use.’... [See BOOK I, c. 6.] │ │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┴─────────────┘
CLASS II.—=Primary Accession Collections.=
=1757–1831=:—
(I)
=1757.= Old ‘ROYAL LIBRARY.’
[Sidenote: EPOCHS OF BRIT. MUSEUM GROWTH AND INCREASE.]
_Restored_, by =Henry, Prince of Wales=, in the year 1609, by the
purchase—and incorporation with the remnants of an ancient collection—of
the Library of =John de Lumley, Lord Lumley= (Born _circa_ 1530;
Restored in blood, as VIth Baron Lumley, in 1547: Died 1609);
_Continued_ by =Charles I= and =Charles II=, =Kings of England, &c.=,
from 1627 to 1683; _Given_ to the Nation by =King George the Second= in
1757.
This OLD ROYAL LIBRARY, although, as above mentioned, it still
contains fragments of the more ancient Collection of the Kings of
England—and among them books which undoubtedly belonged to King
HENRY THE SIXTH, if not to earlier Plantagenet kings—may fairly be
regarded as of Prince HENRY’s foundation in the main. Lord LUMLEY’s
Library (which the Prince bought in bulk) contained that of his
father-in-law, Henry =Fitzalan=, Earl of Arundel, into which had
passed a part of Archbishop =Cranmer’s= Library. But this conjoined
Collection has not wholly passed to the British Museum. It suffered
some losses after Prince HENRY’s death. On the other hand, it had
acquired the collection of MSS. formed by the THEYERS (John and
Charles), in which was included another part of the Library of
CRANMER; as I shall shew hereafter.
[See BOOK I, Chapter 3.]
(II)
=1759.= HEBREW LIBRARY (Printed and Manuscript) of DA COSTA.
_Collected_ by =Solomon Da Costa=, formerly of Amsterdam, and chiefly
between the years 1720 and 1727; _Given_ by the Collector, in 1759, to
the Trustees of the British Museum ‘for inspection and service of the
Public, as a small token of my esteem, reverence, love, and gratitude to
this magnanimous Nation, and as a thanksgiving offering ... for
numberless blessings which I have enjoyed under it.’ (From DA COSTA’s
Letter to the Trustees.)
A collection, small in extent, but of great intrinsic worth; and
very memorable, both as the generous gift of a good man; and as
instancing the co-operation (at the very outset) of the love of
learning in a foreigner—and a Jew—with a like love in Britons, for a
common object; national, indeed, but also much more than national.
(III)
=1762.= The THOMASON COLLECTION OF ENGLISH BOOKS and TRACTS, Printed and
Manuscript.
_Collected_ by =George Thomason= (Died 1666); _Purchased_ by =King
George the Third=, in 1762, for presentation to the British Museum.
This Collection—the interest of which is specially but by no means
exclusively political and historical—was formed between the years
1641 and 1663 inclusive, and it contains everything printed in
England during the whole of that period which a man of great
enterprise and energy could bring together by daily watchfulness and
large outlay. It also contains many publications, and many private
impressions, from printing-presses in Scotland, Ireland, and the
Continent of Europe, relating to or illustrating the affairs of the
United Kingdom and of the Commonwealth. In his lifetime, the
Collector refused £4000 for his library, as insufficient to
reimburse his costs, charges, and labour. His heirs and their
assigns kept it for a century and then sold it to King George III
for £300. It includes many political MSS., which no printer dared to
put to press.
(IV)
=1766.= The SOLANDER FOSSILS.
_Collected_ by =Daniel Charles Solander= (Died 16 May, 1782); Purchased
by =Gustavus Brander= and by him _presented_ to the Museum (of which he
was one of the first Trustees) in 1766.
The ‘Solander Fossils’—so called from the name of the eminent
naturalist who found and described them—formed the primary
Collection on which by gradual accessions the present magnificent
collection of fossils has been built up.
(V)
=1766.= The BIRCH LIBRARY OF PRINTED BOOKS and MANUSCRIPTS.
_Collected_ by =Thomas Birch, D.D.=, a Trustee of the British Museum
(Died 1766), and _bequeathed_ by the Collector.
(VI)
=1772.= The HAMILTON VASES, ANTIQUITIES, and DRAWINGS.
_Collected_ by =Sir William Hamilton= (Died 6 April, 1803); _Purchased_
by Parliament from the Collector in 1772 for £8400.
[See BOOK II, Chapter 2.]
(VII)
=1790–1799.= The MUSGRAVE LIBRARY.
_Collected_ by =Sir William Musgrave=, a Trustee (Died 1799);
_Acquired_, partly by gift in 1790; partly by bequest in 1799.
[See BOOK II, Chapter 1.]
(VIII)
=1799.= The CRACHERODE LIBRARY and MUSEUM.
_Collected_ by the Reverend =Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode=, a Trustee of
the British Museum (Died 1799), and _bequeathed_ by the Collector.
[See BOOK II, Chapter 3.]
(IX)
=1799.= The HATCHETT MINERALS.
_Collected_ by =Charles Hatchett=, and _purchased_ for £700.
(X)
=1802.= The ALEXANDRIAN COLLECTION of EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES.
_Collected_ by the =French Institute of Egypt= in 1800; _Transferred_ to
the Crown of England by the terms of the Capitulation of Alexandria in
1801; _Given_ to the Museum in 1802 by =King George the Third=.
[See BOOK II, Chapter 2.]
(XI)
=1802.= The TYSSEN ANGLO-SAXON COINS.
_Collected_ by =Samuel Tyssen=; _Purchased_ by the Trustees (for £620).
(XII)
=1805–1814.= The TOWNLEY MARBLES, COINS, and DRAWINGS.
_Collected_ by the Townley Family, and chiefly by =Charles Townley=, of
Townley in Lancashire; and acquired by Parliament, by successive
_purchases_, in the years 1805 and 1814, for the aggregate sum of
£28,200.
[See BOOK II, Chapter 2.]
(XIII)
=1807.= The LANSDOWNE MANUSCRIPTS.
_Collected_ by =William Petty Fitzmaurice=, Marquess of Lansdowne (Died
1805), who _incorporated_ in it from time to time parts of the Libraries
and Manuscript Collections of =William Cecil, Lord Burghley= (Died
1598); of =Sir Julius Cæsar= (Died 1636); of =White Kennet=, Bishop of
Peterborough (Died 1728); of =John Strype= (Died 1737); of =Philip
Carteret Webb= (Died 1770); and of =James West= (Died 1772). _Purchased_
by Parliament for the sum of £4925.
[See BOOK II, Chapter 3.]
(XIV)
=1810.= The GREVILLE MINERALS.
_Collected_ by =Charles Greville=. _Purchased_ by Parliament for the sum
of £13,727.
[See BOOK II, Chapter 2.]
(XV)
=1810.= The ROBERTS ENGLISH COINS.
_Collected_ by =Edward Roberts=, of the Exchequer; _Purchased_ by
Parliament for the sum of £4200.
This Collection extended from the Norman Conquest to the reign of
George the Third. It was purchased for the Collector’s heir.
(XVI)
=1811.= The DE BOSSET GREEK COINS.
_Collected_ by =Colonel De Bosset=. _Purchased_ by the Trustees for the
sum of £800.
(XVII)
=1813.= The HARGRAVE LIBRARY.
_Collected_ by =Francis Hargrave=. _Purchased_ by Parliament for the sum
of £8000.
[See BOOK II, Chapter 3.]
(XVIII)
=1815.= The PHIGALEIAN MARBLES.
_Discovered_, in 1812, amongst the ruins of Ictinus’ Temple of Apollo
‘the Deliverer’ at Phigaleia, in Arcadia, built about B.C. 430.
_Purchased_ in 1815, for the sum of £15,000.
[See BOOK II, Chapter 2.]
(XIX)
=1815.= The VON MOLL LIBRARY and MUSEUM.
_Collected_ by the =Baron Von Moll= (Died ...). _Purchased_ (at Munich)
for the sum of £4768 (including the contingent expenses), out of the
Fund bequeathed by =Major Edwards=.
The Library of BARON VON MOLL comprised nearly 20,000 volumes, and a
considerable Collection of Portraits and other Prints. His Museum
consisted of an extensive Herbarium and a Collection of Minerals.
The purchase was completed in 1816.
(XX)
=1816.= The BEROLDINGEN FOSSILS.
Acquired by _purchase_; and the only considerable acquisition, made
in this department, between BRANDER’S gift of Fossils (gathered from
the London Clay) in 1766, and the purchase of HAWKINS’ fine
Collection, in 1835.
(XXI)
=1816.= The ELGIN MARBLES.
_Collected_, under firman of the Ottoman Porte, between the years 1801
and 1810—and chiefly in the years 1802 and 1803—by =Thomas Bruce, Earl
of Elgin= (Died 14 October, 1841). _Purchased_ by Parliament in 1816 for
the sum of £35,000.
[See BOOK II, Chapter 2.]
(XXII)
=1816.= The MONTAGU ZOOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS.
_Collected_ by =Colonel George Montagu= (Died 20 June, 1815), and
arranged, as a Museum of British Zoology—and especially of
Ornithology—at Knowle, in Devonshire. _Purchased_ at a cost of £1100.
(XXIII)
=1818.= The BURNEY LIBRARY.
_Collected_ by =Dr. Charles Burney= (Died 28 December, 1817).
_Purchased_ by a Parliamentary vote for the sum of £13,500.
[See BOOK II, Chapter 3.]
(XXIV)
=1818.= MRS. BANKS’ ARCHÆOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS.
Collected by =Mrs. S. S. Banks=, and by =Lady Banks=; comprising a
valuable series of coins, medals, prints, &c., and _presented_ to the
Museum by the Survivor.
(XXV)
=1823–1825.= The KING’S LIBRARY.
_Collected_ by =King George the Third= (Died 1820); inherited by King
George the Fourth, and by him transferred, on terms, to the British
Museum.
[See BOOK II, Chapter 4.]
(XXVI)
=1824.= The PAYNE-KNIGHT CABINETS, LIBRARY, and MUSEUM.
_Collected_ by =Richard Payne Knight= (Died 24 April, 1824), a Trustee;
comprising Marbles, Bronzes, Vases, Prints, Drawings, Coins, Medals, and
Books. _Bequeathed_ by the Collector.
[See BOOK II, Chapter 3.]
(XXVII)
=1825.= The PERSEPOLITAN MARBLES.
[See BOOK II, Chapter 2.]
(XXVIII)
=1825.= The ORIENTAL COLLECTIONS of CLAUDIUS JAMES RICH.
=Claudius Rich= was British Consul at Bagdad (Died 5 Oct., 1821). He
made an extensive gathering of Persian, Turkish, Syriac, and Arabic
MSS., and of Coins, &c. These were purchased by a Parliamentary vote.
(XXIX)
=1825.= SIR RICHARD COLT HOARE’S ITALIAN LIBRARY.
_Given_, by the Collector, in 1825, and subsequently increased, by
another gift.
[See BOOK II, Chapter 3.]
(XXX)
=1827.= The BANKSIAN LIBRARY, HERBARIA, and MUSEUM.
_Collected_ by =Sir Joseph Banks=, P.R.S. (Died 19 June, 1820), and a
Trustee. _Bequeathed_ by the Collector, with a prior life interest, to
=Robert Brown= (Died 1858); and by him _transferred_ to the British
Museum in 1827.
Sir Joseph’s botanical Collections included the Herbaria, severally,
of =Cliffort=; of =Clayton= (the basis of the ‘_Flora Virginica_’);
of =John Baptist Fusée d’Aublet= (Died 6 May, 1728); of =Nicholas
Joseph Jacquin=, author of the ‘_Floræ Austriacæ_’ (Died 24 October,
1817); and of =Philip Miller=, author of ‘_The Gardener’s
Dictionary_’ (Died 18 December, 1771); with portions of the
Collections of =Tournefort=, =Hermann=, and =Loureiro=.
(XXXI)
=1829.= The HARTZ-MOUNTAINS MINERALS.
_Collected_ at various periods and by several mineralogists. This fine
Cabinet was for a considerable period preserved at Richmond. _Presented_
by =King George the Fourth=.
(XXXII)
=1829.= The EGERTON MANUSCRIPTS.
_Collected_ by =Francis Henry Egerton, Earl of Bridgewater= (Died 11
February, 1829). _Bequeathed_ by the Collector; together with a sum of
£12,000, to be invested, and the yearly income to be applied for further
purchases of MSS. from time to time; and with other provision towards
the salary of an ‘Egerton Librarian.’
[See BOOK II, Chapter 5.]
(XXXIII)
=1831.= The ARUNDELIAN MANUSCRIPTS.
_Collected_, between the years 1606 and 1646, by =Thomas Howard, Earl of
Arundel=, &c. (Died 4 Oct., 1646); _Given_ in 1681 by his eventual heir,
=Henry Howard=, Esquire (afterwards XIIth Duke of Norfolk—Died in 1701),
and at the request of John Evelyn, to the Royal Society; _Transferred_
by the Council of that Society, in 1831,—partly by purchase, and partly
by exchange—to the Trustees of the British Museum. The Collection
includes the bulk of the Library of =Bilibald Pirckheimer=, purchased at
Nuremberg, by LORD ARUNDEL, in 1636.
[See BOOK I, Chapter 4.]
_COLLECTIONS OF PICTURES BELONGING TO THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH
MUSEUM, BUT DEPOSITED IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY._
(XXXIV)
=1823.= The BEAUMONT GALLERY.
_Collected_ by =Sir George Howland Beaumont= (Died 7 February, 1827);
_Given_ by the Collector in 1823 to the British Museum, on condition of
its usufructuary retention, during his lifetime. Deposited in the
National Gallery, under terms of arrangement, after the Collector’s
death.
(XXXV)
=1830.= The HOLWELL-CARR GALLERY.
_Collected_ by the Reverend =William Holwell Carr= (Died 24 December,
1830), and by the Collector _bequeathed_ to the British Museum.
_Deposited_ under arrangements similar to those adopted for the Beaumont
Pictures in the National Gallery.
These are the primary Accession-Collections that came to the British
Museum, during the first seventy years which elapsed after its public
opening (January, 1759). They form a noble monument alike of the
liberality and public spirit of individual Englishmen, and of the
fidelity of the Trustees to the charge committed to them as a body. And
the reader will hardly have failed to notice how remarkable a proportion
of the most munificent of the Benefactors of the institution were,
previously to their gifts, numbered amongst its Trustees.
If the liberality of Parliament failed to be elicited in due
correspondency—in respect either to the amount or the frequency of its
grants—to that of individuals, the failure is rarely, if ever,
ascribable to oversight or somnolency on the part of the Trustees. If,
during the lapse of those seventy years, they obtained grants of public
money which amounted, in the aggregate, to but £151,762—little more, on
an average, than two thousand pounds a year—they made not a few
applications to which the Treasury, or the House of Commons, refused to
respond. Meanwhile, the gifts of Benefactors probably much more than
trebled the public grants.
At the outset, the Museum was divided into three ‘Departments’ only: (1)
_Manuscripts_; (2) _Printed Books_; (3) _Natural History_.
The acquisition, in 1801, of the Alexandrian monuments, was the first
accession which gave prominence to the ‘Antiquities’—theretofore
regarded as little more than a curious appendage to the Natural History
Collections. Four years later came the Townley Marbles. It was then
obvious that a new Department ought to be made. This change was effected
in 1807. The Marbles and minor Antiquities, together with the Prints,
Drawings, Coins, and Medals (formerly appended to the Departments of
Printed Books and of MSS.) were formed into a separate department.
Twenty years afterwards the ‘Botanical Department’ was created, on the
reception of the Banksian herbaria and their appendant Collections. The
division into five departments continued down to the date of the
Parliamentary inquiry of 1835–36 [Book III, Chapter 1]. Soon afterwards
(1837), the immediate custody of the ‘Prints and Drawings’ was severed
from that of the ‘Antiquities’ and made a special charge. In like
manner, the Department of ‘Natural History’ was also (1837) subdivided;
but in this instance the one department became, eventually, three: (1)
Zoology; (2) Palæontology; (3) Mineralogy. The two last-named divisions
were first separated in 1857. How the eight departments of 1860 have
become _twelve_ in 1869 will be seen hereafter.
It will also, I think, become apparent that this subdivision of
Departments has contributed, in an important measure, to the enlargement
of the several Collections; as well as to their better arrangement, and
to other exigencies of the public service.
We have now to enumerate the more salient and important among the many
successive acquisitions of the last forty years. Taken collectively,
they have so enlarged the proportions of the national repository as to
make the ‘British Museum’ of 1831 seem, in the retrospect, as if, at
that time, it had been yet in its infancy.
In 1831 there were still living—here and there—a few ancient Londoners
whose personal recollections extended over the whole period during which
the Museum had existed. One or two of them could, perhaps, still call to
mind something of the aspect which the gaily painted and decorated rooms
of old Montagu House presented when—as children—they had been permitted
to accompany some fortunate possessor of a ticket of admission to ‘see
the curiosities;’ and were hurried by the Cerberus in charge for the day
from room to room; the Cerberus aforesaid (unless his memory has been
libelled) seeming to count the minutes, if a visitor chanced to show the
least desire for a closer inspection of anything which caught his eye.
And, in some points—although certainly not in that point—the Museum of
1831 was not very greatly altered, much as it had been enlarged, from
the Museum of 1759. Cerberus had long quitted his post; but many
portions of the Collections he had had in charge retained their wonted
aspect, much as he had left them.
Such octogenarian survivors—if endowed with a good memory—would see, in
their latest visits to Great Russell Street much more to remind them of
what they had seen in the first, than a new visitor of 1831 could now
see,—in 1869,—were he, in his turn, striving to recall the impressions
of _his_ earliest visit.
The period now to be briefly outlined—in order to a fair preliminary
view of our subject—is marked, like that of 1759–1831, by continued
munificence on the part of private donors; but it is also marked—unlike
that—by some approach towards proportionate liberality from the keepers
of the public purse; as well as by energetic and persistent efforts for
internal improvement, on the part both of Trustees and of Officers. It
forms a quite new epoch. It may be said, unexaggeratedly, to have
witnessed a re-foundation of the Museum, in almost everything that bears
on its direct utility to the public.
In regard to this last period, however—no less than in regard to the
foregoing one—only the more salient Collections can here be enumerated.
Many minor ones have been passed over already, notwithstanding their
intrinsic value. Many others—equally meriting notice, were space for it
available—will have, in like manner, to be passed over now.
CLASS III.—=Recent Accession-Collections. 1833–1869.=
(XXXVI)
=1833.= The BORELL CABINET of GREEK and ROMAN COINS.
_Collected_ by the late =H. P. Borell=, of Smyrna. _Purchased_ by the
Trustees for £1000.
(XXXVII)
=1834.= SAMS’ COLLECTION of EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES.
_Collected_ by =Joseph Sams=. _Purchased_, by a Parliamentary grant, for
£2500.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 3.]
(XXXVIII)
=1834= (and subsequent years). The HAWKINS FOSSILS.
_Collected_ by =Thomas Hawkins=, of Glastonbury. _Purchased_, by
successive grants of Parliament, in the years 1834 and 1840.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 3.]
(XXXIX)
=1835.= The HARDWICKE ORNITHOLOGICAL MUSEUM.
_Collected_ by =Major-General Hardwicke=. _Bequeathed_ by the Collector.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 4.]
(XL)
=1835.= The SALT MUSEUM of EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES.
_Collected_ by =Henry Salt=, British Consul at Alexandria (Died 30
October, 1827). _Purchased_ (at various times) by Parliamentary grants.
Of Mr. Salt’s successive Collections of Egyptian antiquities the
most valuable portions have come to the Museum; chiefly in the years
1823 and 1835.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 3.]
(XLI)
=1836.= The MARSDEN CABINET of ORIENTAL COINS.
_Collected_ by =William Marsden= (Died 6 October, 1836). _Bequeathed_ by
the Collector.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 3.]
(XLII)
=1836.= The SHEEPSHANKS COLLECTION of ETCHINGS, PRINTS, &C.
_Collected_ by =John Sheepshanks= (Died October, 1863); and _Given_ by
the Collector.
(XLIII)
=1837–43.= The CANINO VASES.
A selection from the superb Museum of the Prince of =Canino= (Died 29
June, 1840); acquired by successive purchases before and after the
Collector’s death.
(XLIV)
=1839.= The MANTELL FOSSILS.
_Collected_ by =Gideon Algernon Mantell= (Died November 10, 1850).
_Purchased_ by a Parliamentary grant.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 4.]
(XLV)
=1841–1847.= SYRIAC MANUSCRIPTS from the NITRIAN MONASTERIES.
_Collected_ by the Reverend =Henry Tattam= and by =M. Pachot=.
_Purchased_ by the Trustees, by three successive bargains, in the years
1841–1847.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 3.]
(XLVI)
=1842.= The HARDING PRINTS and DRAWINGS.
_Purchased_, for the Trustees, by selection at the Collector’s sale. The
selection comprised 321 very choice specimens of early German and
Italian masters; and was acquired for the sum of £2390.
(XLVII)
=1843.= The RAPHAEL MORGHENS PRINTS.
_Purchased_ by the Trustees, by a like selection, at a public sale in
1843.
(XLVIII)
=1845.= The LYCIAN or XANTHIAN MARBLES.
_Discovered_ by =Sir Charles Fellowes= (Died 1860) in the years
1842–1844. _Transferred_ to the Museum at the cost of the Trustees in
1845.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 3.]
(XLIX)
=1847.= The GRENVILLE LIBRARY.
_Collected_ by the Right Hon. =Thomas Grenville= (Died 17 December,
1846). _Bequeathed_ by the Collector.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 2.]
(L)
=1847.= The MICHAEL HEBREW LIBRARY.
_Collected_ by =H. J. Michael=, of Hamburgh. _Purchased_ by the Trustees
from his Executors.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 4.]
(LI)
=1847.= JOHN ROBERT MORRISON’S CHINESE LIBRARY.
_Collected_ by =J. R. Morrison= (son of the eminent Christian Missionary
and Lexicographer—Died 1843). _Purchased_ from his Executors by a
Parliamentary grant.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 4.]
(LII)
=1848.= The CROIZET FOSSIL-MAMMALS.
_Collected_ by =M. Croizet= in Auvergne. _Purchased_ by the Trustees.
(LIII)
=1851–1860.= The ASSYRIAN ANTIQUITIES.
Partly _discovered_ by =Austen Henry Layard=. Excavated at the public
charge, and under the joint direction of the Trustees of the British
Museum and of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in 1851 and
subsequent years by the Discoverer, and by =H. Rassam=, and =W. K.
Loftus=.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 3.]
(LIV)
=1853.= The GELL DRAWINGS.
_Drawn_ and _Collected_ by =Sir William Gell= (Died 4 February, 1836).
_Bequeathed_ by the Honorable =Keppel Craven= (Died 1853).
[See BOOK III, Chapter 3.]
(LV)
=1853.= The STEPHENS CABINET of BRITISH ENTOMOLOGY.
_Collected_ by =James Francis Stephens= (Died 22 December, 1852).
_Purchased_ by the Trustees.
Although this Collection contained about 88,000 specimens, it cost
the Trustees only £400.
(LVI)
=1854.= The DES-HAYES TERTIARY FOSSILS.
_Collected_, in France, by =M. Des Hayes=. _Purchased_ by the Trustees.
(LVII)
=1855–1860.= The HALICARNASSIAN and CNIDIAN MARBLES.
_Discovered_ and excavated by =C. T. Newton= (then Vice-Consul at
Mitylene) and other Explorers (earlier and later). In part _Presented_
by =Lord Canning= of Redcliffe (then Ambassador at Constantinople); and
in part excavated and transported by the Trustees, with the aid of
Parliamentary grants made in 1855 and subsequent years.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 3.]
(LVIII)
=1856.= The TEMPLE MUSEUM of ITALO-GREEK and ROMAN ANTIQUITIES.
_Collected_ by =Sir William Temple= (Died 1856) during his Embassy at
Naples. _Bequeathed_ by the Collector.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 3.]
(LIX)
=1857.= The CAUTLEY FOSSILS from the Himalayas.
_Collected_ by =Major Cautley=, during his service in India. _Purchased_
by the Trustees.
(LX)
=1858.= The BRUCHMANN FOSSIL PLANTS.
_Collected_ by =Bruchmann= at and near Œningen. _Purchased_ by the
Trustees.
(LXI)
=1859.= The CARTHAGINIAN ANTIQUITIES.
_Discovered_,—and excavated (partly at the cost of the Trustees),—by
=Nathan Davis= and others, during the year 1856 and subsequent years.
The Davis Collection includes a series of Phœnician Inscriptions, some
of which are of great antiquity. _Purchased_ from the Collector.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 3.]
(LXII)
=1860.= The ALLAN-GREG CABINET of MINERALS.
_Collected_, mainly, by =R. H. Greg=, of Manchester. _Purchased_ by the
Trustees.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 4.]
(LXIII)
=1860.= The GARDNER HERBARIUM of BRAZIL.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 4.]
(LXIV)
=1860.= The CYRENE MARBLES.
_Discovered_, and excavated by Lieutenants =R. M. Smith= and =Porcher=,
under firmans from Constantinople, and at the charge of the Trustees, in
1860 and subsequent years.
[See also No. LXVI under the year ‘1863,’ and
BOOK III, Chapter 3.]
(LXV)
=1862.= The HAEBERLEIN FOSSILS.
_Collected_ by =Haeberlein=. Brought from Solenhofen; and _Purchased_ by
the Trustees.
(LXVI)
=1863.= The SICILIAN ANTIQUITIES.
_Discovered_ and excavated by =George Dennis= (Her Majesty’s Consul at
Benghazi), under direction from the Foreign Office, in 1862 and
subsequent years. _Presented_ by =Earl Russell=.
(LXVII)
=1863.= The BOWRING COLLECTION of FOREIGN INSECTS.
_Collected_ by =John Bowring=. _Presented_ by the Collector.
The Collector obtained a large portion of this fine Cabinet of
Entomology during his own travels in India, Java, and China. It
consists chiefly of Coleopterous insects.
(LXVIII)
=1864.= The WIGAN CABINET of COINS.
_Collected_ and _Presented_ by =Edward Wigan=.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 3.]
(LXIX)
=1864.= The RHODIAN MARBLES.
_Excavated_, at the charge of the Trustees, by =MM. Salzmann= and
=Biliotti=, in 1863 and subsequent years.
(LXX)
=1864.= The CURETON ORIENTAL MANUSCRIPTS.
_Collected_ by the late =William Cureton, D.D.= (Died 17 June, 1864).
_Purchased_ by the Trustees from his Executors.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 3.]
(LXXI)
=1864.= The WRIGHT HERBARIUM of CUBA and NEW MEXICO.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 4.]
(LXXII)
=1864.= The TRISTRAM CABINET of the ZOOLOGY of the HOLY LAND.
_Collected_ by the Reverend =H. B. Tristram, M.A.= _Presented_ by the
Collector.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 4.]
(LXXIII)
=1865.= The HEBREW LIBRARY of ALMANZI.
This valuable series of Hebrew Manuscripts, &c. was _collected_ by the
late =Joseph Almanzi=, of Padua; and was _purchased_ by the Trustees of
his Executors.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 4.]
(LXXIV)
=1865.= The ERSKINE ORIENTAL MANUSCRIPTS.
_Collected_ by =William Erskine=, during his residence in India.
_Purchased_ by the Trustees.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 4.]
(LXXV)
=1865.= The MALCOLM PERSIAN MANUSCRIPTS.
_Collected_ by =Sir John Malcolm= (Died 31 May, 1833) during his Embassy
to Persia. _Purchased_ by the Trustees.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 4.]
(LXXVI)
=1865.= The KOKSCHAROW MINERALS.
_Collected_ by =Colonel de Kokscharow=. _Purchased_ by the Trustees.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 4.]
(LXXVII)
=1865.= The EPHESIAN MARBLES.
Excavated, at the charge of the Trustees, by Vice-Consul =Wood=.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 3.]
(LXXVIII)
=1865.= The CHRISTY PRE-HISTORIC and ETHNOLOGICAL MUSEUM.
_Collected_ and _Bequeathed_ by =Henry Christy= (Died 4 May, 1865).
[See BOOK III, Chapter 4.]
(LXXIX)
=1865.= The BANK of ENGLAND CABINET of COINS and MEDALS.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 1.]
(LXXX)
=1865.= WITT’S ETHNIC MUSEUM.
_Collected_ and _Presented_ by =Henry Witt=.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 4.]
(LXXXI)
=1866.= The BLACAS MUSEUM.
_Collected_ by the =Dukes of Blacas= (The elder Collector died in 1839;
the younger, in 1865). _Purchased_, by the Trustees, of the heirs of the
Survivor.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 4.]
(LXXXII)
=1866.= The WOODHOUSE MUSEUM.
_Collected_ by =James Woodhouse=, Her Majesty’s Treasurer at Corfu (Died
February, 1866). _Bequeathed_ by the Collector.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 4.]
(LXXXIII)
=1866.= The CUMING CONCHOLOGICAL COLLECTION.
_Collected_ by =Hugh Cuming= (Died 1866). Acquired by the Trustees in
1866, partly by gift, and partly by purchase, under the directions of
the Collector’s Will.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 4.]
(LXXXIV)
=1867.= The HAWKINS COLLECTION OF ENGLISH POLITICAL AND HISTORICAL
PRINTS.
_Collected_ by =Edward Hawkins= (Died 1867). _Purchased_ by the
Trustees.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 1.]
(LXXXV)
=1868.= The ABYSSINIAN ANTIQUITIES and MANUSCRIPTS.
Acquired by the Trustees during and after the Abyssinian War; partly
by gift from the British Government, and partly by the researches of
the Representative of the Trustees in the British Camp. Another and
a very valuable portion of the Abyssinian Manuscripts came to the
India Office, by the gift of =Lord Napier= of Magdala; and by the
Secretary of State for India was given to the British Museum.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 4.]
(LXXXVI)
=1868.= The SLADE ARCHÆOLOGICAL COLLECTION.
_Collected_ by =Felix Slade= (Died 1868). _Bequeathed_ by the Collector.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 4.]
(LXXXVII)
=1869.= The HAYS COLLECTION of EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES.
[See BOOK III, Chapter 4.]
As I have had occasion to observe in a former paragraph, the preceding
list is, of necessity, an abridged list. It is by no means a complete or
exhaustive one. The prescribed bounds—those of a single volume for a
very wide and multifarious subject—compel the writer to treat his
subject by way of selection. The reader is solicited to keep that fact
in mind; as well for its bearing on the chapters which follow, as on the
introductory chapter now under his eye. And in regard both to this brief
enumeration of the successive component parts of the Museum, and to the
biographical notices of which it is the preliminary, the cautionary
remark here repeated applies to _every_ Department of the national
repository. It holds good of the Natural History Collections, and of the
Collections of Antiquities, no less than of the Collections of Printed
Books and of Manuscripts.
Among the many minor, but intrinsically important, Collections
thus—compulsorily—passed over, in the present volume, are some of which
brief notices have been given (by the same hand) in a preceding work,
published in 1869. Those ‘Notices,’ however, relate exclusively to
collectors and collections of Printed Books, of Engravings, of Drawings,
and of Manuscripts. Thus,—to give but a few examples,—important
collections, now forming part of the British Museum, and gathered
originally by =Thomas Rymer= (1713); =Thomas Madox= (1733); =Brownlow
Cecil, Earl of Exeter= (1739); =David Garrick= (1779); =Peter Lewis
Ginguene= (1816); the =Abate Canonici= (_circa_, 1818); =John Fowler
Hull= (1825); =Frederick North=, sixth =Earl of Guildford= (1826);
=Count Joseph de Puisaye= (1827); the =Marquess Wellesley= (1842); =D.
E. Davy= (_circa_ 1850),—are all noticed in an Appendix headed
‘Historical Notices of Collectors’ to the volume entitled ‘_Free Town
Libraries_’ published in 1869. Of that Appendix the notices above
referred to form, respectively, Nos. ‘848’ (_Rymer_); ‘570’ (_Madox_);
‘186’ (_Cecil_); ‘351’ (_Garrick_); ‘372’ (_Ginguene_); ‘165’
(_Canonici_); ‘462’ (_Hull_); ‘683’ (_North_); ‘781’ (_Puisaye_); ‘1049’
(_Wellesley_); and ‘249’ (_Davy_).
The existing constitution of the Board of Trustees of the British Museum
has been on many occasions, and by several writers, somewhat freely
impugned. More than once it has been the subject of criticism in the
House of Commons. With little alteration that Board remains, in 1869,
what Parliament made it in 1753. Obviously, it might be quite possible
to frame a new governing Corporation, in a fashion more accordant with
what are sometimes called the ‘progressive tendencies’ of the period.
But I venture to think that the bare enumeration of the facts which have
now been briefly tabulated, in this introductory chapter, gives a proof
of faithful and zealous administration of a great trust, such as cannot
be gainsaid by any the most ardent lover of innovation. Both the
Collections given, and the Collections purchased, afford conclusive and
splendid proofs that the Trustees and the Officers have alike won the
confidence and merited the gratitude of those whose acquirements and
pursuits in life have best qualified them to give a verdict on the
implied issue.
If, of late years, the public purse has been opened with somewhat more
of an approach to harmony with the openhandedness of private Englishmen,
that result is wholly due to unremitting effort on the part both of the
Trustees who govern, and of the Officers who administer, or have
administered, the British Museum. And, to attain their end, both
Trustees and Officers have, very often, had to fight hard, as the later
chapters of this volume will more than sufficiently show.
CHAPTER II.
=THE FOUNDER OF THE COTTONIAN LIBRARY.=
‘Est in hac urbe nobilis Eques, homo pereruditus rerum vetustarum et
omnis historiæ, sive priscæ, sive recentis, studiossisimus, qui ex
ipsis monumentis publicis et epistolis duarum reginarum Angliæ et
Scotiæ veram eorum quæ gesta sunt, historiam didicit, et jam regis
jussu eandem componit, digeritque in ordinem.’
CASAUBON to DE THOU (London, 5 Kal. Mart., 1611). _Epistolæ_, 373.
_The Personal and Public Life of Sir Robert_ COTTON.—_His Political
Writings and Political Persecutions.—Sources and Growth of the
Cottonian Library.—The Successors of Sir Robert_ COTTON.—_History
of the Cottonian Library, until its union with the Library of
Harley, and with the Museum and Miscellaneous Collections of_
SLOANE.—_Review of some recent Aspersions on the Character of the
Founder._
[Sidenote: BOOK I, Chap. II. LIFE OF SIR ROBERT COTTON.]
Sir Robert COTTON was the eldest son of Thomas COTTON of Conington and
of Elizabeth SHIRLEY, daughter of Francis SHIRLEY of Staunton-Harold in
Leicestershire. He was born on the 22nd of January, 1570, at Denton, in
the county of Huntingdon. Denton was a sort of jointure-house attached
to that ancient family seat of Conington, which had come into the
possession of the Cottons, about the middle of the preceding century, by
the marriage of William COTTON with Mary WESENHAM, daughter and heir of
Robert WESENHAM, who had acquired Conington by his marriage with Agnes
BRUCE.[1]
[Sidenote: PARENTAGE AND ANCESTRY OF SIR ROBERT COTTON.]
The Cottons of Conington were an offshoot of the old Cheshire stock.
They held a good local position in right of their manorial possessions
both in Huntingdonshire and in Cambridgeshire, but they had not, as yet,
won distinction by any very conspicuous public service. Genealogically,
their descent, through Mary WESENHAM, from Robert BRUCE, was their chief
boast. Sir Robert was to become, as he grew to manhood, especially proud
of it. He rarely missed an opportunity of commemorating the fact, and
sometimes seized occasions for recording it, heraldically, after a
fashion which has put stumbling-blocks in the way of later antiquaries.
But the weakness has about it nothing of meanness. It is not an
unpardonable failing. And with the specially antiquarian virtues it is
not less closely allied than with love of country. In days of court
favour, JAMES THE FIRST was wont to please Sir Robert COTTON by calling
him cousin. Sir Robert’s descendants became, in their turn, proud of his
personal celebrity, but they too were, at all times, as careful to
celebrate, upon the family monuments, their Bruce descent, as to claim a
share in the literary glories of the ‘Cottonian Library.’
This cousinship with King James—and also a matter which to Sir Robert
was much more important, the descent to the Cottons of the rich Lordship
of Conington with its appendant manors and members—will be seen, at a
glance, by the following—
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
| PEDIGREE OF COTTON, OF CONINGTON. |
| |
| EDMUND, called _Ironside_,----King of England. |
| | |
| Edward = Agatha, Daughter of the Emperor Henry III. |
| | |
| +-----------------+ |
| | |
| MALCOLM, = Margaret (Saint). |
| Cean-mohr, King of Scotland.| |
| +------------------+ |
| | |
| DAVID, King of Scotland = Maud,[2] daughter, and heir |
| | of Waltheof, Earl |
| | of Huntingdon. |
| +---------------+ |
| | |
| Henry, = Ada, daughter of the William de COTTON |
| Prince of Scotland. | Earl of Warren. (of Cotton, in Cheshire).|
| +----+ | |
| | | |
| David, = Margaret, daughter | |
| Earl of Huntingdon and Angus, | and heir of Ralph, | |
| Lord of Conington. | Earl of Chester. | |
| | | |
| +-------+ | |
| | | |
| Robert BRUCE, = Isabel, heiress of | |
| Lord of Conington | Conington. William de COTTON |
| (_jure uxoris_). | (of Hampstall-Ridware |
| +-----------+-------------+ in Staffordshire). |
| | | | |
| Robert BRUCE, Sir Bernard de BRUCE, [*] |
| Earl of Carrick, Lord of Conington |
| Competitor for the [‘by the gift of his Mother, |
| Crown of Scotland. 37 Henry III,[3]-_Sir R._ |
| | _Cotton’s Note in MS._ Harl.] |
| +-------+ |
| | |
| ROBERT, = . . . . |
| King of Scotland. | |
| +-----------+-----+ |
| | | |
| DAVID, Marjory BRUCE = Walter STUART. |
| King of Scotland. | |
| +------------------+ |
| | |
| ROBERT (Stuart) II, |
| King of Scotland. |
| | |
| JAMES I, King of Scotland. |
| | |
| |
| | |
| JAMES VI, of Scotland, |
| and I, of Britain. |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Sir Bernard de BRUCE |
| Lord of Conington. |
| | |
| Sir John de BRUCE, = Margaret Beauchamp. |
| Lord of Conington. | |
| +---------------+----------+ |
| | | |
| Agnes BRUCE, = Sir Hugh de Joan BRUCE = Sir Nicholas |
| eldest daughter | WESENHAM. 2nd daughter | Greene. |
| and co-heir. | and co-heir. | |
| | +------------+ |
| +-+--------------------+ | |
| | | | |
| Thomas WESENHAM Robert WESENHAM _a quo_ |
| (d. 39 Hen. VI, (died 17 Edw. IV). Culpeper |
| without issue). | and |
| +-------+ Harington. |
| [*] | |
| | | |
| William de COTTON (2nd son = Mary WESENHAM |
| of Richard de COTTON), | (heir of Conington). |
| (of Hampstall Ridware) | |
| slain at the Battle of | |
| St. Albans, 33 H. VI. | |
| +-------------+ |
| | |
| Thomas COTTON = Eleanor Knightley. |
| (Lord of Conington). | |
| +-----+ |
| | |
| Thomas COTTON = Jane Paris. |
| | |
| +-----+ |
| | |
| Thomas COTTON = Lucy Harney. |
| | |
| +-----+ |
| | |
| Thomas COTTON = Elizabeth Shirley. |
| | |
| +-----+ |
| | |
| SIR ROBERT (BRUCE) COTTON, |
| Knight and Bart., Lord of Conington, &c., and |
| FOUNDER OF THE COTTONIAN LIBRARY (Born |
| 1570; Died 6 May, 1631).[3] |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
[From the COTTON ROLL XIV, 6 [by SEGAR, CAMDEN, and ST. GEORGE];
compared with MS. Hark 807, fol. 95, and with MS. LANSD., 863,
containing the heraldic Collections of R. ST. GEORGE, Norroy, Vol.
III, fol. 82 verso.]
[For the continuation of the COTTON PEDIGREE, showing (1) the descent
from Sir Robert of the subsequent possessors of the COTTONIAN
LIBRARY, up to the date of the gift to the Nation made by Sir John
COTTON, and (2) the relationship of the Cottonian Trustees of the
British Museum, see the concluding pages of the present Chapter.]
Robert COTTON was educated at Trinity College in Cambridge, where he
took the degree of B.A. towards the close of 1585.[4] Of his collegiate
career very little is discoverable, save that it was an eminently
studious one. [Sidenote: COTTON’S EARLY FRIENDSHIPS.] Long before he
left Trinity, he had given unmistakeable proofs of his love for
archæology. Some among the many conspicuous and lifelong friendships
which he formed with men likeminded took their beginnings at Cambridge,
but most of them were formed during his periodical and frequent sojourns
in London. John JOSCELINE, William DETHICK, Lawrence NOWELL, William
LAMBARDE, and William CAMDEN were amongst his earliest and closest
friends. Most of them were much his seniors. Whilst still in the heyday
of youth he married Elizabeth BROCAS, daughter and eventually coheir of
William BROCAS of Thedingworth in Leicestershire. Soon after his
marriage he took a leading part in the establishment of the first
Society of Antiquaries. Some of COTTON’S fellow-workers in the Society
are known to all of us by their surviving writings. Others of them are
now almost forgotten, though not less deserving, perhaps, of honourable
memory; for amongst these latter was—
‘that good Earl, once President
Of England’s Council and her Treasury;
Who liv’d in both unstain’d with gold or fee,’
at a time when such praise could seldom be given truthfully. It was as a
contributor towards the common labours of that Society that COTTON made
his earliest appearance as an author. The subjects chosen for his
discourses at the periodical meetings of the Elizabethan antiquarians
indicate the prevalent bias of his mind. Nearly all of them may be said
to belong to our political archæology.
[Sidenote: GROWTH OF THE COTTONIAN LIBRARY AND GALLERY.]
Before the close of the sixteenth century, his collections of
Manuscripts and of Antiquities had already become so large and important
as to win for him a wide reputation in foreign countries, as well as at
home. His correspondence indicates, even at that early period, a
generous recognition of the brotherhood of literature, the world over,
and proves the ready courtesy with which he had learned to bear somewhat
more than his fair share of the obligations thence arising. In later
days he was wont to say to his intimates: ‘I, myself, have the smallest
share in myself.’ From youth, onwards, there is abundant evidence that
the saying expressed, unboastingly, the simple facts of his daily life.
[Sidenote: FRIENDSHIP WITH CAMDEN.]
CAMDEN was amongst the earliest of those intimates, and to the dying day
of the author of the _Britannia_ the close friendship which united him
with COTTON was both unbroken and undiminished. The former was still in
the full vigour of life when COTTON had given proof of his worthiness to
be a fellow-labourer in the field of English antiquities. In 1599 they
went, in company, over the northern counties; explored together many an
old abbey and many a famous battle-field. When that tour was made, the
evidences of the ruthless barbarism with which the mandates of HENRY THE
EIGHTH had been carried out by his agents lay still thick upon the
ground, and may well have had their influence in modifying some of the
religious views and feelings of such tourists. Not a few chapters of the
_Britannia_ embody the researches of COTTON as well as those of CAMDEN;
and the elder author was ever ready to acknowledge his deep sense of
obligation to his younger colleague. For both of them, at this time, and
in subsequent years, the storied past was more full of interest than the
politics, howsoever momentous or exciting, of the day. But,
occasionally, they corresponded on questions of policy as well as of
history. There is evidence that on one stirring subject, about which
men’s views were much wont to run to extremes, they agreed in advocating
moderate courses. In the closing years of the Queen, COTTON, as well as
CAMDEN, recognised the necessity that the Government should hold a firm
hand over the emissaries of the Church and Court of Rome, whilst
refusing to admit that a due repression of hostile intrigues was
inconsistent with the honourable treatment of conscientious and peaceful
Romanists.
It was, in all probability, almost immediately after COTTON’S return
from the Archæological tour to the North which he had made with his
early friend, that he received a message from the Queen. ELIZABETH had
been told of his growing fame for possessing an acquaintance with the
mustiest of records, and an ability ‘to vouch precedents’ such as few
students, even of much riper years, had attained to. He was now to be
acquainted with a dispute about national precedency which had arisen at
Calais between Sir Henry NEVILLE and the Ambassador of Spain. [Sidenote:
THE TRACTATE ON ENGLISH PRECEDENCY OVER SPAIN.] It was Her Majesty’s
wish that he should search the records which bore upon the question, and
send her such a report as might strengthen NEVILLE’S hands in his
contest for the honour of England.