Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

LIVES OF
THE FOUNDERS
OF THE
BRITISH MUSEUM;
WITH
NOTICES OF ITS CHIEF AUGMENTORS AND OTHER BENEFACTORS.
1570–1870.

By EDWARD EDWARDS.

PART I.

LONDON:

TRÜBNER AND CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW.

1870.

(All rights reserved.)

PRINTED BY J. E. ADLARD, BARTHOLOMEW CLOSE.

LIVES OF THE FOUNDERS, AND NOTICES OF SOME CHIEF BENEFACTORS AND ORGANIZERS, OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

COTTON—ARUNDEL—HARLEY—COURTEN—SLOANE—HAMILTON—CHARLES TOWNELEY—PAYNE-KNIGHT—LANSDOWNE—BRIDGEWATER—KING GEORGE III—BANKS—CRACHERODE—GRENVILLE—FELLOWS—LAYARD—CURETON—&c. &c. &c.

WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

MEMOIRS OF LIBRARIES: including a Handbook of Library Economy. 2 vols. 8vo. [With 8 steel plates; 36 woodcuts; 16 lithographic plates; and 4 illustrations in chromo-lithography.] 48s.

LIBRARIES, AND FOUNDERS OF LIBRARIES. 8vo. 18s.

COMPARATIVE TABLES of Schemes which have been proposed for the Classification of Human Knowledge. Fol. 5s.

SYNOPTICAL TABLES OF THE RECORDS OF THE REALM. With an Historical Preface. Fol. 9s.

CHAPTERS OF THE HISTORY OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY, &c. 8vo. 6s.

LIBER MONASTERII DE HYDA; comprising a Chronicle of the Affairs of England from the Settlement of the Saxons to Cnut; and a Chartulary; A.D. 455–1023. Edited by the Authority of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Treasury, under the Direction of the Master of the Rolls. 8vo. 10s. 6d.

THE LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH; based on Contemporary Documents preserved in the Rolls House, the Privy Council Office, Hatfield House, the British Museum, and other Manuscript Repositories, British and Foreign. Together with his Letters, now first Collected. 2 vols. 8vo. 32s.

EXMOUTH AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD, ANCIENT AND MODERN; being Notices, Historical, Biographical, and Descriptive, of a Corner of South Devon. Crown 8vo. 5s.

FREE TOWN LIBRARIES, their Formation, Management, and History; in Britain, France, Germany, and America. Together with brief Notices of Book-Collectors, and of the Respective Places of Deposit of their Surviving Collections. 8vo. 21s.

DALLASTYPE.
The first British Museum; formerly the residence of the Duke of Montagu.

LIVES OF
THE FOUNDERS
OF THE
BRITISH MUSEUM;
WITH
NOTICES OF ITS CHIEF AUGMENTORS AND OTHER BENEFACTORS.
1570–1870.

By EDWARD EDWARDS.

The old “Townley Gallery.”

LONDON:

TRÜBNER AND CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW.

1870.

(All rights reserved.)

PREFATORY NOTE.

For the materials of the earlier of the ‘Lives’ contained in this volume I have been chiefly indebted to the Collection of State Papers at the Rolls House; to the Privy-Council Registers at the Council Office; and to many manuscripts in the Cottonian, Harleian, Sloane, and Lansdowne Collections at the British Museum.

Highgate; 6th May, 1870.

The liberal deviseth liberal things; and by liberal things shall he stand.

Isaiah, xxxii, 8.

Man’s only relics are his benefits;

These, be there ages, be there worlds, between,

Retain him in communion with his kind.

Landor (Count Julian).

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

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. |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.... |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.... |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.

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.

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. |(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 |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.

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.

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.

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:—

Epochs of Brit. Museum growth and increase.

Class II.—Primary Accession Collections.

1757–1831:—

(I)

1757. Old ‘Royal Library.’

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)