My dear Sir,
Notwithstanding the concluding part of your letter of yesterday, which shall be submitted to the Trustees with the rest of our correspondence, I think that to find fault with my Department implies a charge against myself; still more so, as in your second letter you began by declaring—that my first was, "wholly unsatisfactory,"—that in the time of my predecessors things were better managed, by their requiring only the Title of the books wanted by readers, and no Press-mark,—that "your next complaint" should be to the Trustees themselves; and concluded by stating that their attention "must shortly be called by the Public, or by Government, to the difficulties and delay arising from the present regulations and state of the catalogues, in obtaining printed books."
These are certainly charges, and I naturally expected you would do me the favour to bring them before the Trustees, so that I might have an opportunity of proving them groundless.
I am glad that you now give me credit for good intentions; but as you still consider that "many of my proceedings are detrimental to the Public, and require to be altered," I shall feel obliged by your informing me what are the proceedings to which you allude: I presume that your unfavourable opinion of them is of a recent date.
Believe me, &c.
No. VIII. Sir N. H. Nicolas to Mr. Panizzi.
Torrington Square, 24 May, 1846.
My dear Sir,
I am favoured with your letter of yesterday. As you have referred our correspondence to the Trustees, and as my letters advert to those arrangements in your Department, which I consider detrimental to the Public, it is possible that I may be requested by the Trustees to state my objections more fully, when you will have an opportunity of answering them. If, however, the Trustees do not do so, you may be assured that you shall have ample information on the subject.
To enter into a personal discussion with a gentleman who is so perfectly satisfied of the propriety of his own measures, as to invite it, only that he may prove my objections to them "groundless;" and who, when complained to of a flagrant act of neglect in his Department, thought proper to justify it,—would manifestly be an utter waste of time. There must be an appeal to a higher authority: and which is the more necessary because you may not be answerable for all, though you certainly are for much, of what seems to be improper in your Department.