Part of Mr. Cary’s duties at the Museum now necessarily fell, for a few months, to be discharged by Mr. Panizzi, who, in the preceding year, had been appointed next in office to Cary. The circumstances of that appointment have been thus stated by the eminent Prelate who made it:—
Circumstances of Mr. Panizzi’s first appointment in 1831.
‘Mr. Panizzi was entirely unknown to me, except by reputation. I understood that he was a civilian who had come from Italy, and that he was a man of great acquirements and talents, peculiarly well suited for the British Museum. That was represented to me by several persons who were not connected with the Museum, and it was strongly pressed by several of the Trustees, who were of opinion that Mr. Panizzi’s appointment would be very advantageous for the institution. |Minutes of Evidence taken before the Select Committee on the British Museum, 28 June, 1836, p. 433.|Considering the qualifications of that gentleman, his knowledge of foreign languages, his eminent ability and extensive attainments, I could not doubt the propriety of acceding to their wishes.’
When that appointment was made, Mr. Panizzi had already passed almost ten years in England. |Mr. Panizzi’s early career and his labours in England.| The greater part of them had been spent at Liverpool, as a tutor in the language and literature of Italy. Born at Brescello, in the Duchy of Modena, Mr. Panizzi had been educated at Reggio and at Parma; in the last-named University he had graduated as LL.D. in 1818; and he had practised with distinction as an advocate. Part of his leisure hours had been given to the study of bibliography, and to the acquisition of a library. But he was an ardent aspirant for the liberty of Italy, and, in 1820, narrowly escaped becoming one of its many martyrs. After the unsuccessful rising of that year in Piedmont, he was arrested at Cremona, but escaped from his prison. After his escape he was sentenced to death. He sought a refuge first at Lugano, and afterwards at Geneva. But his ability had made him a marked man. Austrian spies dogged his steps, and appealed, by turns, to the suspicions and to the fears of the local authorities. Presently it seemed clear that England, alone, would afford, to the dreaded ‘conspirator’ for Italy, a secure abode. At Liverpool he acquired the friendship successively of Ugo Foscolo, of Roscoe, and of Brougham. In 1828, he received and accepted the offer of the Professorship of Italian Literature in the then London University, now ‘University College.’ In 1830, he began the publication of his admirable edition of the poems of Bojardo and Ariosto, which was completed in 1834.
Minutes of Evidence on the Constitution and Management of the British Museum, 26 May, 1848, § 2764 (Report of 1850, p. 114).
When Mr. Baber announced, in March, 1837, his intention to resign his Keepership, Mr. Panizzi made no application for the office, but he wrote to the Principal Trustees an expression of his hope that if, in the event, ‘any appointment was to take place on account of Mr. Baber’s resignation,’ his services would be borne in mind.
One of Mr. Cary’s earliest steps in the matter was to apply to his friend and fellow-poet, Mr. Samuel Rogers. Rogers—to use his own words—was one who had known Cary ‘in all weathers.’ His earnest friendship induced him to write a letter of recommendation to the three Principal Trustees. After he had sent in his recommendation, a genuine conscientiousness—not the less truly characteristic of the man for all that outward semblance of cynicism which frequently veiled it—prompted him to think the matter over again. It occurred to him to doubt whether he was really serving his old friend Cary by helping to put him in a post for which failing vigour was but too obviously, though gradually, unfitting him. His misgiving increased the more he turned the affair over in his mind. He then wrote three letters (to the Archbishop, Chancellor, and Speaker), recalling his recommendation, and stating his reason. With the Speaker, Rogers also conversed on the subject. Mr. Abercromby asked the poet: ‘What do you know about a Mr. Panizzi, who stands next to Cary?’ ‘Panizzi,’ said Rogers, ‘would serve you very well.’ ‘To tell you the truth,’ rejoined the Speaker, ‘we think that, if Mr. Cary is not appointed, Panizzi will be the right man.’ At that time, Mr. Panizzi was not personally known either to the Speaker or to the Chancellor.
I give these details, first, because they became, in after-days, a very vital and influential part of the History of the British Museum. No appointment was ever made during the whole of the hundred and fifteen years which have elapsed betwixt the first organization of the establishment in 1755 and the year in which I write (1870) that has had such large influence upon its growth and its improvement; and, secondly, because in a published life of the excellent man whose temporary disappointment led to a great public benefit a passage appears which (doubtless very unintentionally, but not the less seriously) misrepresents the matter, and hints, mysteriously, at underhanded influence, as though something had been done in the way of treachery to Cary. ‘The Lord Chancellor and the Speaker,’ writes Cary’s biographer, ‘acting under information, the source of which was probably known only to them and their informant, |Life of Henry Francis Cary, vol. ii, p. 200.| resolved on passing him over, and appointing his subordinate, Mr. Panizzi, to the vacant place.’
These letters and conversations passed in the interval between the announcement that there would be a vacancy in the Museum staff and its actual occurrence. The Keepership became vacant on the twenty-fourth of June. On that day Mr. Cary made his personal application to the Archbishop. The Archbishop told him that objections were made to his appointment. Cary, immediately after his return, told his brother-officers Baber and Panizzi what the Archbishop had communicated to him. ‘Then,’ said Mr. Panizzi, ‘the thing concerns me.’ ‘Yes,’ rejoined Cary, ‘certainly it does.’ They all knew that applications for the vacant office from outsiders were talked of. Among these were the late Reverend Ernest Hawkins and the late Reverend Richard Garnett (who afterwards succeeded to the Assistant-Librarianship). And Mr. Panizzi then proceeded to say to Mr. Cary: ‘You will not, now, object to my asking for the place myself, as there are these objections to you.’ Cary replied, ‘Not at all.’ Instantly, and in Cary’s presence, Mr. Panizzi wrote thus to the Archbishop:—‘I hope your Grace will not deem it presumptuous in me to beg respectfully of your Grace and the other Principal Trustees to take my case into consideration, should they think it necessary to depart from the usual system of regular promotion, on appointing Mr. Baber’s successor. |Panizzi to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 26 June, 1837 (Minutes of Evidence of 1850).| I venture to say thus much, having been informed by Mr. Cary of the conversation he has had the honour to have with your Grace.’ The writer gave his letter into Mr. Cary’s hand, received his brother-officer’s immediate approval, and had that approval, at a later hour of the day and after a re-perusal of the letter, confirmed.
Within the walls of the Museum, the general feeling was so strongly in favour of Mr. Cary’s appointment, despite all objection (and nothing can be more natural than that it should be so—‘A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind’), that the public interest, in having an officer who would use the appointment rather as a working-tool than as a reclining staff, was, for the moment, lost sight of. Sir Henry Ellis himself, when asked to give a formal testimonial of Mr. Panizzi’s qualifications to be head of the Printed Book Department, answered: ‘If you told me that the Bodleian Librarianship was vacant—or any other outside Librarianship worth your having—you should have my heartiest recommendation. At present, you must excuse me;’ or in words to that effect. Edward Hawkins, then Keeper of the Department of Antiquities, expressed himself (in the hearing of the present writer) to like purpose, when asked what his opinion was on a point which, at the moment, attracted not a little attention in literary circles.[[28]]