To return to the British Museum and[and] the Royal Commission of 1847-49—which differed widely from the Committee of 1835-36. Before both Parliamentary Committee and Royal Commission, the Institution was on its trial, but the points of attack were different. In 1835, the Natural History Departments engrossed the principal attention, while the Library escaped with comparatively slight notice, for although its deficiencies were not less conspicuous than those of the Natural History Department, the public standard of completeness in the Library was low. Panizzi had been Keeper eleven out of the twelve years. There could hardly have been a better proof of his administration than the elevated ideal of a public Library which it had produced. He was tried by a standard of his own, which but for him would have had no existence. Many silent in 1836 were now clamorous for the realization of an ideal which they owed to him, and the severity of their attacks was in truth the best testimony to his desert.
It soon appeared that Panizzi would be the lion of the day, and that the proceedings of the Commission would be chiefly important as they might result in confirming or weakening his position with the public. It was believed, indeed, that the dissatisfaction of scientific men with the preponderance of literature in the governing body had much to do with the appointment of the Commission; and the ostensible cause was undoubtedly a memorial addressed by many persons of high eminence in science to the Prime Minister on March 10th, 1847. The centre of gravity, nevertheless, shifted very quickly. The proceedings of the Commission, as regarded the Library, were interesting from beginning to end; elsewhere, though much that was curious and amusing came to light, it would hardly be thought that a nodus tali dignus vindice had been shown to exist.[exist.] If such there were, it was in the Secretary’s Office, where irregularities were admitted requiring correction, and involving the examination of the whole anomalous system by which, in a measure since 1828, and more particularly since the Committee of 1835, the Secretary had been allowed to usurp the functions of the Principal Librarian. Everywhere else the subjects calling for inquiry were comparatively slight, such as misunderstandings between Sir C.[C.] Fellows and Sir R. Westmacott respecting the arrangement of the Xanthian marbles, or disagreements between Dr. Gray and Mr. König respecting the rightful custody of the Gilbertson fossils and the boundaries of Zoology and Palæontology in general. The Library was the real field of contention, and matters relating to it occupy more than one half of the bulky tome in which the evidence and recommendations of the Committee were finally embodied (1850).
The Commission was originally appointed on June 17th, 1847, but was only enabled to hold three sittings during the expiring session of that year.
It reassembled in 1848, amid the storms of Continental revolution which inevitably occupied much of the time and thoughts of its members; and it was soon discovered, both that its numbers were too limited, and that the quorum required by the Royal Letters of appointment was too large to insure the indispensable regularity of attendance. It having on one occasion proved impossible to obtain a sufficient attendance, the original Commission was revoked, and a new one issued, increasing the number of Commissioners from eleven to fourteen, and reducing the number necessary for despatch of business from five to three (May 5, 1848).
The Commission, as thus finally constituted, was a very strong one, presided over by so accomplished a man of letters as Lord Ellesmere, and including, among its more active members Lord Seymour (the present Duke of Somerset), Lord Canning, Sir R. Murchison, and the Lord Advocate, Mr. Andrew Rutherfurd. Mr. John Payne Collier, at that time Librarian to the Duke of Devonshire, officiated as Secretary.
The first attention of the Commissioners was naturally directed to the Principal Librarian’s and Secretary’s Offices, and their inquiry soon brought out the extent to which the functions of the former had come to be discharged by the latter. “He has risen,” said the report, “to be the most important officer in the establishment, though without that responsibility which attached to the Principal Librarian and the heads of departments.” The importance which the Commissioners rightly ascribed to this officer entirely depended upon his preparation of the agenda to be submitted to the Trustees, and his habitual attendance at their meetings. The duties of his office were in other respects so light, although they had been represented to require the assistance of a subordinate, who had actually been appointed (Mr. Fitzgerald, subsequently Prime Minister in New Zealand), that when Mr. Forshall was attacked with serious illness, during the sittings of the Commissioners, Sir Henry Ellis found himself able to discharge all the duties of the Secretary in addition to his own. Of an endeavour which had been made to find the Secretary occupation in keeping a register of acquisitions, the Commissioners were obliged to report that this document, as prepared in his office, was “not only of no practical use, but in some cases destructive of responsibility.[responsibility.]”
Under these circumstances, the Commissioners very quickly came to the conclusion that the false step made in 1837 must be retraced, and the offices of Principal Librarian and Secretary amalgamated—a decision so obviously sound that it must probably have been carried into effect, even if, shortly after the close of their deliberations, Mr. Forshall’s infirmities had not rendered his retirement absolutely inevitable.
The administration of the Secretary’s Office had a strong bearing upon the questions relating to the Department of Printed Books of which the Commissioners had to take cognizance. Nothing had more strongly excited public animadversion than the delay in the preparation of the new printed Catalogue. The Trustees, as was supposed, had directed that it should be complete in print by the end of 1844. The year 1848 had now come, and it had not progressed, even in manuscript, beyond letter D. One volume, containing letter A (or part of it), had been printed in 1841, and there were no symptoms of a successor. Panizzi was able to show convincingly how contradictory were the instructions which the inexplicable carelessness of the executive department had allowed to be attributed to the Trustees. In the manuscript copy of their minute of July 13, 1839, the application of the rules of cataloguing was left to his discretion. In the copy subsequently printed by direction of the Trustees, this discretion was limited to titles already prepared. In the former he was ordered to have the Catalogue ready in press by December, 1844. In the latter he was told that it must be ready for press. The latter, it would appear, was what the Trustees really intended; but no intimation of their wishes having been conveyed to Panizzi, time, labour, and money had been wasted in printing an imperfect volume, which, it now appeared, need not have been printed at all; whilst the supposed necessity for an alphabetical method of cataloguing had prevented recourse to the much more expeditious plan of taking the books shelf by shelf. It further appeared that this unfortunate minute need not necessarily have been final. An opportunity for remonstrance had been expressly reserved, but the portion of the document referring to this point having been kept from Panizzi’s knowledge, no action could be taken, so that the Trustees and their Officer were committed to an impracticable undertaking. The Commissioners determined that “any delay which could have been avoided was mainly ascribable to the desire of the Trustees to hurry on printing.”
A still more important question was whether the Catalogue ought to be printed at all. The opinion of the literary witnesses unconnected with the Museum was naturally strongly in favour of a printed Catalogue. The opinion of Panizzi may be gathered from the verbal replies he had already given to questions put to him by the Library Committee of the Trustees on March 6th, 1847.
“The Catalogue might be completed by the end of 1854 of all the books which the Museum will contain up to that period. It would take to 1860 to prepare such Catalogue in such a state of revision as might be fit for the press. It would occupy seventy volumes. It would require one year to correct the press of two volumes. It would, therefore, require thirty-five years to pass the catalogue through the press, and, when completed in 1895, it would represent the state of the Library in 1854.”