BRITISH MCSKIM. THi: 



BRITISH Mt'SEUM, Till'. 



M 



Uao th amount has nevr ren to 700,000. In 1858 it w 619,565. 

 The greatest number, howerer, that ever entered the Museum in one 

 day wa* on the Boxing-day of Christnis*, 18(8, when there wen 

 upward* of 42,000. It i* a circumstance that says much, that with 

 this vast multitude of Tiaiton, the only oonapieuoiu act of destruction 

 of the Museum property that ha* occurred wu the act of a madman 

 Ura breaking of the Portland ran in 1845. The demeanour of the 

 public in general ha* been excellent. 



The Act of Parliament for founding the Museum had directed 

 100.000/. to be raised for the purpoe* by way of lottery, a method to 

 which no objection appear* to hare been suggested in any quarter. Out 

 of this mm, 10,3502. were paid to Lord Halifax for Montague House, and 

 13,8731. wen expended in its repairs, which, characteristically enough, 

 had been estimated in 1 754 by three surveyors at 38002. : $0,0002. were 

 set apart as a fund for the payment of salaries, taxes, and other expenses. 

 The salaries established at tie outset appear on a very moderate scale 

 indeed : the principal librarian received 2122. a year, the under- 

 librarians for the three departments into which the Museum was 

 divided 108J. each, and the assistant-librarians 6l/. fe. 8rf. They con- 

 tinued apparently at this rate for about forty years ; but a nearer 

 examination shows that during most of that period the attendance of 

 the officers was only given on two days in a week for two hours each 

 ton*, and on three days in the following week for two hours each, and 

 so by alternate weeks throughout the year ; or, on an average, that the 

 attendance of the officers was for fire hours a week, instead of, at 

 present, six hours a day. For any extra attendance they received 

 extra compensation. No intention appears to have existed at first to 

 make augmentations of the Museum to any considerable extent : 

 according to a return made to the House of Commons in June, 1847, 

 the amount of money expended in purchases in the year 1766 was only 

 2/. 8s. 6tl., and in 1/68, U 10*. UL, in each case for additions to the 

 department of printed books. The sums expended did not continue 

 so excessively low ss this ; but only on five occasions during the forty- 

 one years which elapsed from the opening of the Museum to the close 

 of the 18th century is the regular annual expenditure of the Museum 

 on purchases recorded to have exceeded 4002. 



With the beginning of the 19th century the character of the Museum 

 began to change, and, gradually, from a stationary it became an emi- 

 nently progressive institution. The adoption of the more liberal system 

 of admission, both to the Museum in general and to its reading-room, 

 appears to have given an impulse to improvement by arousing the 

 interest of the public in its welfare, and thus favouring the appli- 

 cation to the legislature for grants for its increase. The votea for 

 purchases began to grow perceptibly larger towards the conclusion of 

 the reign of George IV., and after the passing of the Reform Bill. 

 Kor the ten years which ended in 180, the total given in the return 

 to the House of Commons, in 1847, is 4401/. &. 8f/.; for the ten years 

 to 1816, 78,1 78*. 18>. Id.; but this is evidently swelled by the grant of 

 35,0002. for the Klgin Gallery, the largest grant for a purchase the 

 Museum has ever received. In the ten years to 1826, the total had 

 again sunk to 30,583/. 5*. 6d. ; in those to 1836 it rose to 49.434A 1U 

 The average of the grants in the succeeding ten years was over 16,0002. 

 a-year. In the estimates for 1859, the amount proposed to be granted 

 for purchases and acquisitions is 21,9551. : of which 10,0002. are for 

 the Printed Book Department; 25602. for that of Manuscript*; 8202. 

 for the Minerals; 8202. for Geology; 16252. for Zoology; 1752. for 

 Botany; 80502. for Coins and Antiquities; 21152. for Prints and 

 Drawings ; leaving 10002. for freight and carriage. 



Many of the great purchases of the Museum have been effected by 

 special grant*, which will be found recorded in the outline of the 

 history and state of the separate departments which follows this sketch 

 of the general history of the establishment. We will now pursue the 

 history of the building. 



Large acquisitions of antiquities in 1801 and 1805 led to the esta- 

 blinhment of a separate department of antiquities in the Museum, 

 and to the erection of a new edifice of thirteen rooms in the 

 garden* to receive the new treasures. This building, which communi- 

 cated by a passage with old Montague House, was of an entirely 

 different architectural character, and offered to the London public- for 

 the first time a aerie* of classical saloons suited to the idea of a 

 Museum. It was opened in 1807, and did credit to it* architect, 

 Mr. Sounders. The subsequent acquisition, in 1816, of the Elgin 

 marbles, which were for some years exhibited in a wooden shed, ren- 

 i familiar the contemplation of further extension of the building; 

 the presentation of the library of George III. in 1821 made it 



i to provide a suitable room for its reception, which was one 

 of the conditions of the gift. 



The design for the King's Library, which was prepared on that 

 occasion by Sir Robert Smirke, the architect of the Museum, i 

 |rt of a general design for rebuilding the whole Museum, involving 

 the demolition not only of Montague House, but of the saloons for the 

 department of antiquities constructed by Mr. Saunders. Sir I: 

 proposals were adopted by the Trustee* and in the course of the 

 twenty-five years from 1*23 to 1847 were carried into ex. 

 In place of the former brick wall in Great Russell Street a spl<-n.li.l 

 partially gilded railing now allows the passenger to survey the mag- 

 oeUy >rioh*d front of the new edifice, presenting a recessed 

 portico and two injecting wings, each clothed In Ionic column*, the 



whole forming a forest of column* forty f"r in number, which from 

 fronting to the south have a play of light and shade such as no other 

 portico in London presents. On each aide, a range of officers' houses en- 

 cloees the court-yard, through which the visitor proceed* to the principal 

 entrance, where, as before, he finds a spacious hall, with, on the left- 

 hand aide, the principal staircase. The building erected by Sir Robert 

 Smirke consuls of four ranges of apartment*, east, west, north, and 

 south, which enclose a hollow square or large open quadrangle in the 

 centra. The eastern range, which was built and in use some yean 

 previous to the gradual erection of the others, contain* some apart- 

 ment* appropriated to the manuscript collection, and also the Royal 

 Library, a magnificent apartment 800 feet in length and 40 wide, 

 with inlaid floor and coffered ceiling. The northern range of apart- 

 ment*, is allotted to the general library, and is less ornate in 

 appearance than the eastern range, but contains one room called 

 the Main Library," of the dimensions of 84 feet by 80, which is of 

 a striking character. The western range, erected partly on the site 

 of Mr. Saundera's building, presents one large apartment 800 feet 

 in length, appropriated to Kgyptian and other sculpture. The southern 

 range, which was the last to be completed, occupies the site of old 

 Montague House, and contains the great hall and staircase, to whic li we 

 have now returned by performing the circuit of the building, with to 

 the east of the hall a room containing the Grenville library, and to the 

 west of the hall a saloon containing antiquities. The whole of this long 

 extent of building on the principal floor is of the height of 31 feet, 

 lighted by large windows, which are at the height of nearly 1 4 feet from 

 the floor. Its general character is classical, and its features almost inva- 

 riably square or oblong, the arch and circle being apparently avoided with 

 care throughout ; and from the height of the windows, which are in 

 some case* flanked by columns outside, there is in some portions a 

 deficiency of light. The leas important range of rooms on the floor 

 above is lighted invariably by skylights, on arrangement whi.-h 

 allows more wall-space for the exhibition of object*. Commcn. ing 

 with the eastern range, as in the case of the floor below, we first line) ,-i 

 long gallery of the same dimensions, except in height, as the Royal 

 Library, over which it stands. This room was originally designed by 

 Sir Robert Smirke for the reception of the National Gallery of pictures, 

 but was never used for that purpose, having first been appropriated to 

 the ininemlogic.il, and afterwards, as it is now (in 1859), to the orni- 

 thological collection. The rooms in the other three ranges of building 

 are all much of the same character, and in no instance of very large 

 dimensions ; they are all fitted up with plain glass cases against the walls 

 and in the middle for the exhibition of the objects they contain, the 

 mineralogical and part of the natural history collection in the northern 

 range,) the antiquities in the western and in the division of the 

 southern gallery to the west of the great staircase, while the I 

 occupies the division to the east. The ranges of apartments on this 

 floor, while of good dimensions and not unornamental, can hardly 

 be considered as advancing any pretensions to high architectural 

 character. 



Such is the groat edifice of Sir Robert Smirke, which, even if it 

 stood thus without any additions, might yet claim to be the first in 

 importance and splendour of the unecclesiastical edifices of the British 

 metropolis, with one exception which was not in existence or contem- 

 plation at the time his design commenced the Houses of Parliament. 

 But even before the grand square had slowly worked its way to com- 

 pletion, it was discovered that the space its apartments afforded was 

 insufficient for the continually increasing needs of the Museum. A 

 gallery or saloon for the Elgin marbles was constructed by erecting a 

 fresh building to the west of the western range, and other similar 

 rooms for the reception of other collections have since been added com- 

 municating with it. Further accommodation for the library was 

 procured by building what is called " the Arch-room," in continuation 

 of the northern wing towards the west. In this case the wishes of the 

 librarian, as well as the architect, were token into ccni.-idc-rution, and 

 the result was gratifying even in an architectural point of \irw. 

 Room for books was gained by a second gallery on arches, and ad. I 

 light by the insertion of a large arched window in the principal floor, 

 the only window on that floor which the building contains. The 

 who stands at the point where the eastern and northern ranges of 

 building intersect, and first surveys in one direction the long array of 

 300 feet of glazed book-case* in the Royal Library, meets, as he turns 

 in the other direction, the flood of light from the great window, at the 

 end of the long perspective of more than 450 feet of book-filled 

 rorcnssriiy which stretch from one end to the other of the, northern 

 range. These improvements owe their origin to the librarian, Mr. Pa- 

 nizzi ; and to him is due also the suggestion of an additional room 

 for books at the eastern or exterior side of the King's Library, a 

 room which, though only of half the height and half the breadth 

 of that beside which it stands, and thus only a quarter of it* dimen- 

 sions, was finally adapted by an economical disposition of its space 

 to receive fully the name number of volumes. When even all tin- 

 room thus gained had been appropriated, and more was still wanting 

 for the library, which began to overflow into the basement, a .- 

 question arose, of how to provide space for the increase of the Museum. 

 Some discussion ha* arisen as to the priority of suggestions on the 

 subject, and Mr. Honking, an architect, who publisheda pamphlet of 

 Observations on the Reading-room ' in 1858, assigns the earliest notion 



