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BRITISH MUSEUM, THE. 



BRITISH MUSEUM, THE. 



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of building in the hollow square or quadrangle of the main building to 

 Mr. Edward Hawkins in 1842 ; but the idea will be found in a series 

 of letters on the Museum, which were published anonymously in the 

 ' Mechanics' Magazine ' for 1836 and 1837, but have since been acknow- 

 ledged by Mr. Watts, now one of the officers of the Printed Book 

 department. " The space thus unfortunately wasted," says Mr. Watts, 

 speaking of the quadrangle (' Mechanics' Magazine,' vol. xxvi. p. 457), 

 " would have provided accommodation for the whole library. A 

 reading-room of ample dimensions might have stood in the centre, and 

 been surrounded on all four sides by galleries for the books communi- 

 cating with each other and lighted from the top." " Perhaps the best 

 plan," he suggests, in another part of the same paper, " would be to 

 design another range of building entirely inclosing the present at the 

 eastern and northern sides, as the Elgin gallery, &c., do on the west." 

 Each of these plans was proposed many years after to the Lords of the 

 Treasury by the trustees of the Museum ; but that of encircling the 

 present Museum with a belt of additional buildings would of necessity 

 have required the demolition of the ranges of valuable private houses 

 which at present occupy the site ; and as the expense of thus clearing 

 the ground was estimated at a quarter of a million, the plan was 

 rejected as too costly. In 1852, and again in 1854, Mr. Panizzi pro- 

 posed the plan of covering the quadrangle, which was at length 

 adopted, and in the very centre of the Museum now rises a reading- 

 room of truly "ample dimensions, surrounded on all four sides by 

 galleries for the books, lighted from the top." 



The new reading-room is now one of the principal architectural 

 features of the Museum, and is the only one that is visible at a distance, 

 the dome that crowns it forming part of the view of London from 

 Hampstead Heath, and from the Norwood hills near the Crystal Palace. 

 The approach to the room from the entrance hall of the museum is 

 by a long passage, which is adorned with a bust of Mr. Panizzi by 

 Marochetti, an excellent likeness, the result of a subscription pro- 

 poeed by Mr. Winter Jones, the present keeper of the printed books. 

 On crossing the threshold the visitor finds himself in a large circular 

 apartment crowned with a dome of the most magnificent dimensions, 

 the largest indeed, with one exception, in the world. The diameter on 

 the floor is 140 feet, the height from the floor to the top of the dome 

 106 feet ; while the Pantheon at Rome, the room which it most 

 resembles, is 142 feet in both dimensions, the drum or cylindrical 

 portion rising to half that height before the arch begins to spring. It 

 is contended by Mr. Hosking, who proposed in 1848 to erect on the 

 same spot a hall for the reception of antiquities, of the exact pro- 

 portions of the Pantheon, but on a reduced scale, that this departure 

 from these proportions destroys the beauty of the reading-room ; but 

 the general opinion appears to be rather one of regret that the architect 

 of this portion of the Museum, Mr. Sidney Smirke, did not increase his 

 dimensions by a few feet ; so that the dome, which surpasses in size that 

 of St. Peter's at Rome, and of course ita nearer neighbour St. Paul's 

 of London, might, surpassing that of the Pantheon also, be indis- 

 putably the largest in the world. Several who have seen both buildings 

 declare that the reading-room, as it is, produces the impression of being 

 the larger of the two, and its arch of blue and gold gives it much the 

 superiority in richness and lightness. Instead of the somewhat mono- 

 tonous diminishing squares of the Pantheon dome, a range of twenty 

 lofty windows, 27 feet high and 12 feet wide, run round the circle of 

 the reading-room, and in conjunction with a lantern light of 40 feet 

 diameter at the crown of the arch, pour a flood of light below. Under 

 the windows the room presents a continuous circular wall of books, 

 25 feet high. They are disposed in presses or bookcases, accessible 

 from the floor, or from low galleries running round the apartment, and 

 comprise in the part open to the readers, about 20,000 volumes of books 

 of reference and standard works, and in the part round the galleries more 

 than 50,000 volume* of the principal sets of periodical publications, old and 

 new, in the English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Danish, Swedish, 

 Dutch, Russian, Polish, Bohemian, Hungarian, Welsh, Latin, Greek, 

 and Hebrew languages : a collection already more rich and varied than 

 wai ever before assembled under one roof, and receiving daily increase. 

 The floor of the room is occupied with 19 large and 16 smaller tables, 

 fitted up with ample accommodation for more than 800 readers ; but, 

 by the simple expedient of raising the partition down the middle of 

 each of the larger tables t>o high that a reader cannot see his opposite 

 neighbour, so much privacy is produced that on entering the room 

 when it is quite full a stranger might at first suppose that it was nearly 

 empty, and no seated reader Been more than three or four of his fellow- 

 readers at a time. The tables are all arranged so as to converge 

 towards the centre of the room, and near the centre are the two circular 

 ranges of stands for the catalogue, a portion of which is thus actually 

 at the end of every table. Directly in the centre is the table of the chief 

 superintendent of the reading-room, a duty at present assigned to 

 Mr. Watte, the assistant keeper of the Printed Books, who has already 

 been mentioned as having first suggested the idea of a central reading- 

 room. From hia position, and still more from the galleries, an interesting 

 view is commanded of all the tables and their occupants, often between 

 two and three hundred in number, and comprising among them some 

 of the best known names in the world of literature and learning names 

 that are familiar now to all the readers of Europe and America, and 

 will be familiar in all probability centuries hence, from the very labours 

 in which they are aided by the Museum reading-room. From the nature 



of the library around them, not only such men as Carlyle and Thack- 

 eray, Kossuth and Montalembert, but the humblest labourer in the 

 literary vineyard, from the most distant corners of the world, may be 

 certain that on the walls around there exists some record of his labours, 

 or the copy of some lines traced by his hand. The name of Mr. Panizzi 

 will be inseparably connected with this, the most magnificent temple 

 ever erected to literature, which, without his powerful influence, would 

 probably never have existed. 



The reading-room and the new library which surrounds it are con- 

 structed almost entirely of iron and brick, to guard against the danger 

 of combustion. Even the shelves, which it is estimated will extend to 

 about twenty-five miles in length, are partly constructed of metal. 

 Beneath the room is a large array of pipes for heating the room in cold 

 weather with warm water, and there are ingenious contrivances for 

 cooling it when required. The expense of the new reading-room and 

 its appurtenances, including the new library around it, which is to 

 afford space for more than a million of books, amounted at the time 

 of its being opened to the readers, on May 18th, 1857, to 150,000?. 



All the available space under the control of the Museum being now 

 occupied with buildings, and a strong demand still existing for space 

 for the extension of the departments of antiquities and natural history, 

 the question is again under consideration how this domand is to be 

 met whether by an extension of the present edifice, or by removing 

 some portion of the contents of the Museum to another locality. A 

 copy of communications made by the officers and architect of the 

 British Museum to the trustees, respecting the want of space, was laid 

 before the House of Commons in March, 1859. The plan at present 

 in contemplation is understood to be that proposed by Mr. Panizzi so 

 early as 1836, of removing the whole of the departments of natural 

 history to some other spot, and thus allowing space for the growth of 

 the antiquities. There is a precedent in the history of the Museum 

 for the transfer of a portion of its property to the custody of another 

 institution, while still retaining it under the control of the trustees. 

 Sir George Beaumont's pictures, given by him to the Museum, are 

 still the property of the Museum, though preserved in the National 

 Gallery. Whatever may be the decision arrived at, it appears probable 

 that the Museum is on the eve of another change, as important 

 as any it has undergone. 



While in other respects the Museum has witnessed so many 

 alterations, it is remarkable that the constitution and character 

 of its governing body remain after the lapse of more than a cen- 

 tury nearly the same as at its origin. The Board of Trustees con- 

 sisted of forty-one members, it now, by gradual additions of official 

 and family members, consists of fifty. The power of patronage, or of 

 nomination to the different posts of the Museum, with the exception 

 of that of principal librarian, is vested by act of parliament in the 

 hands of the three principal trustees, the Archbishop of Canterbury, 

 the Lord Chancellor, and the Speaker of the House of Commons. 

 There are twenty-two other official trustees, the Lord President of the 

 Council, the First Lord of the Treasury, the Lord Privy Seal, the First 

 Lord of the Admiralty, the Lord Steward, the five principal Secretaries 

 of State, the Bishop of London, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the 

 Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench, the Master of the Rolls, 

 the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, the Attorney- and 

 Solicitor-General, the Presidents of the Royal Society, of the College of 

 Physicians, of the Society of Antiquaries, and of the Royal Academy. 

 Since 1832 one trustee is appointed by the sovereign, and this post 

 which remained vacant for years after the death of the Duke of Cam- 

 bridge in 1851, was filled up in 1859, by the Queen's appointment of 

 the Rev. William C'ureton, who from 1837 to 1850, was the assistant- 

 librarian of the Manuscript department. Of the family trustees, two 

 are representatives of the Sloane, two of the Cotton, and two of the 

 Harley family, one of the Townley, one of the Elgin, and one of the 

 Payne Knight family ; the Earl of Derby and the Earl of Elgin 

 are at present two of the number. The fifteen elected trustees are 

 chosen by the other members of the board, and to attain tin's honour 

 has been called " the blue riband of literature." The list of them 

 offers the. names of many illustrious persons, and in particular of many 

 eminent benefactors to the Museum. Dr. Birch, and Sir William 

 Musgrave, the Rev. Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode, Mr. Tyrwhitt, Sir 

 Joseph Banks, Sir George Beaumont, and the Right Hon. Thomas 

 Grenville, all bequeathed important donations to the Museum, and 

 several made presents of value during their lifetime. The list of 

 the fifteen elected trustees is at present as follows : the Earl of Aber- 

 deen, the Marquis of Lansdowne, the Duke of Sutherland, Lord 

 Macaulay, Sir David Dundas, Sir Philip Egerton, the Duke of 

 Somerset, Sir Roderick Murchison, the Very Rev. H. H. Milman, 

 Dean of St. Paul's, Lord John Russell, the Right Hon. William 

 Ewart Gladstone, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, the Right Hon. Spencer 

 Walpole, Viscount Eversley, and George Grote, Esq. The business of 

 the Museum is laid before a standing committee of the trustees, con- 

 sisting of the three principal trustees, and of fifteen others selected 

 from among themselves by the main body. 



At two different periods the management of the Museum by the 

 trustees has been made the subject of public inquiry, by a committee 

 of the House of Commons, moved for by Mr. Hawes in 1835-36, and 

 by a Royal Commission presided over by the Earl of Ellesmere in 

 1848-49. On each occasion the body of evidence taken occupied about 



