By this, as will be universally allowed, criticism is disarmed. The proportions of the room are admirable, and the lines of architecture full of grace and beauty. The lighting is based on the most scientific principles, and the dome itself (only inferior in dimensions to one other in existence) maintains its own appearance as to actual size, and is of grandeur proportionate to its general lightness and elegance.
The spectator will, however, be most struck with its style of internal decoration, a grand example of success, when our attempts have hitherto been so futile.
The fear of tampering with colour has ever been one of our idiosyncrasies, and it may be observed in this instance.
True, that in our uncertain climate and obscure atmosphere, Nature herself lends but little aid in the matter, either as regards instruction or example; but the colouring of the Reading-Room may be pronounced free from indifference or conventionality, and to the freedom observable is added a boldness and originality which must be seen to be truly estimated at its proper value.
To give the reader, however, some general notion of the manner in which the colouring has been managed, we quote, without apology, one more passage from the small brochure to which we have alluded:—
“In the decoration of the interior dome, light colours and the purest gilding have been preferred. The Great Room, therefore, has an illuminated and elegant aspect. The decorative work may be shortly described:—The inner surface of the dome is divided into twenty compartments by moulded ribs, which are gilded with leaf prepared from unalloyed gold, the soffites being in ornamental patterns, and the edges touching the adjoining margins fringed with a leaf-pattern scolloped edge. Each compartment contains a circular-headed window, twenty-seven feet high and twelve feet wide, with three panels above, the central one being medallion-shaped, the whole bordered with gilt mouldings and lines, and the field of the panels finished in encaustic azure blue, the surrounding margins being of a warm cream colour. The details of the windows are treated in like manner—the spandril panels blue; the enriched column and pilaster caps, the central flowers, the border moulding and lines being gilded—the margins cream colour throughout. The moulded rim of the lantern light, which is painted and gilded to correspond, is 40 feet in diameter. The sash is formed of gilt moulded ribs, radiating from a central medallion, in which the Royal Monogram is alternated with the Imperial Crown.
“The cornice, from which the dome springs, is massive and almost wholly gilded, the frieze being formed into panels bounded by lines terminating at the ends with a gilt fret ornament. Each compartment of the dome is marked by a bold enriched gilt console, which forms at once the support of the main rib and the base for a colossal marble statue, a series of which it is proposed to place on the cornice.
“Between the cornice and the floor the space is filled with the bookcases and galleries of access, the cornice, standards, and railings of which are wholly gilded, the panels of the soffites of the latter being blue, having gilded ornaments therein.”
It will have been observed that the original draft of Panizzi’s scheme proposed to provide space for a larger number of readers than was ultimately found advisable. The problem of accommodating readers was, indeed, less momentous than that of accommodating books; and any account of Panizzi’s edifice would be most imperfect which did not take some notice of his solution of this latter difficulty. As already stated, the space in which the new Reading-Room was to be erected was quadrangular, while the room itself was to be circular. The quadrangle is 335 feet by 235; the diameter of the dome of the Reading-Room, as ultimately constructed, was 140 feet. The circle thus inscribed in the quadrangle left, consequently, ample space for the construction of additional rooms. After deducting a clear space of from 27 to 30 feet left, for the sake of air and light, between the exterior of the new building and the inner wall of the original Museum, the former was still 258 feet by 184, equivalent to an area of 47,472 square feet. The amount of this space external to the Reading-Room (about three-eighths of the whole) was occupied:—1. By a circular gallery in four tiers, including the basement storey, carried entirely round the Reading-Room. 2. By four corridors in three tiers, each forming a quadrangle parallel with the interior walls of the original Museum structure. 3. By four apartments of triangular shape, filling up the spaces left vacant between the circle and the quadrangle in which it was inscribed. Accommodation was thus provided for about 1,200,000 books, or five times as many as the Museum had possessed when Panizzi became Keeper. This result was obtained by great economy of space, there being no walls except the exterior wall, the partitions being formed by the books themselves arranged fore-edge to fore-edge, except against the external wall, the shelves of double bookcases being divided longitudinally by a wire lattice. These shelves are placed between grooved uprights of galvanized iron, and upon metal pins inserted into holes made for the purpose in the wooden lining of the grooves. Sufficient space is left between these rows of bookcases to admit of the passage of two barrows, and the entire remaining space is available for the storage of books. The roof is glass, and the flooring of the galleries is formed of open iron gratings to allow of the transmission of light to the basement. The presses are everywhere of the same dimensions, eight feet by three, so that each gallery is eight feet high. The shelves are made of zinc covered with leather, the multiplicity of perforations in the wooden lining of the uprights allowing of their being placed apart at any interval required, and, thanks to Mr. Watts’s elastic system of numbering the presses, the books destined to occupy them were removed from their previous locality without the alteration of a single press mark. They consisted, for the most part, of acquisitions made since 1845, the date when Panizzi’s quoted report on the deficiencies of the Library was laid before the House of Commons. The ground floor of the Reading-Room was occupied by 20,000 volumes especially selected to serve as a Reference Library. These were partly chosen, and the whole were admirably catalogued by Mr. Rye, then Second Assistant-Keeper, who also drew the coloured ground plan of the Reading-Room, and superintended the placing of the volumes. Several picked Assistants worked extra time under him for many days, and the task was only completed just in time for the opening of the room. The galleries were filled with periodicals, and all the books above and below were bound, or, at least, gilt and furbished, with an especial view to decorative effect.
It only remained to provide for the management of the Room by the appointment of Mr. Watts as Superintendent. “The readers,” wrote Mr. Winter Jones in 1859, “have thus placed at their disposal, for six hours every day, the services of a gentleman whose intimate acquaintance with the Museum collections, extensive knowledge of the literature of his own and foreign countries, and acquirements as a linguist rarely to be met with, render him peculiarly fitted to carry out the chief object of the Trustees.”