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BRITISH MUSEUM, THE. 



BRITISH MUSEUM, THE. 



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absolutely unique, and which could not have found a more appropriate 

 resting-place than the British Museum. Dr. Edward Whitaker Gray, 

 M.D., assistant and afterwards keeper of the natural history (1778 

 1807), was a relative of Dr. John Edward Gray, the present keeper of 

 the zoology ; Dr. Gray's successor in the keepership was Dr. George 

 Shaw, a well-known writer, whose ' Naturalist's Miscellany," and 

 ' General Zoology,' are still referred to. In 1803 to 1806 the Rev. 

 William Beloe, author of the ' Sexagenarian,' was keeper of the printed 

 books, and one fruit of his connection with the Museum was his six 

 volumes of ' Anecdotes,' in which he gives somewhat dry particulars 

 of many books in the library, especially of those in the Cracherode 

 collection. While the Rev. Samuel Ayscough was index-maker to the 

 ' British Critic,' the Rev. Robert Nares was editor, and figured not 

 only as a writer but a novelist, in ' Thinks I to Myself, Thinks I.' 

 He was assistant in 1795, and rose to be keeper of the manuscripts 

 in 1799, on the promotion of Planta, but resigned the office in 1807, 

 on being appointed to an archdeaconry. His successor in the manu- 

 script department was Francis Douce, the antiquary, who only 

 held it till 1812, when, taking offence at some circumstances of 

 his position, and being in possession of a good private fortune, 

 he resigned, and at his decease, in 1834, left his valuable library 

 to increase the stores of the Bodleian. The Rev. Thomas Maurice, 

 " the author of ' Indian Antiquities,' " as he delighted to style himself, 

 entered the Museum as assistant librarian in 1799, at the promotion of 

 Nares, and remained unpromoted till his decease in 1824. Among 

 his numerous works he had commenced an autobiography, which 

 contains some agreeable gossip, but does not come down to the time 

 of his connection with the Museum. Mr. Taylor Combe, who entered 

 in 1803 as assistant librarian, became in 1807 keeper of the new 

 department of antiquities, which was founded, as already mentioned, 

 in consequence of large additions, and installed in a new building. He 

 held the office till 1826, when, by his unexpected demise, Mr. Edward 

 Hawking, who had only entered the Museum that year, at once mounted 

 to the keepership. Mr. William Alexander was, from 1808 to 1816, 

 keeper of the prints, which then formed a portion of the department of 

 antiquities. He had accompanied Lord Macartney in his embassy to 

 China, and his published views in China testify to his skill as a 

 draughtsman. His successor, Mr. John Thomas Smith, from 1816 to 

 1833, was the author of the amusing volumes entitled ' Nollekens and 

 his Times,' and many other works of less note. The next keeper of 

 the prints was Mr. William Young Ottley, whose works on early 

 engravings are still the first referred to in any question on the history 

 of the art. 



Mr. Charles Konig, an accomplished German, who entered as 

 assistant in 1807, and was promoted in 1813, continued keeper of the 

 mineralogy till his death in 1851. He had been one of the Banksian 

 librarians, and continued united in friendship with Mr. Robert Brown, 

 who came to the Museum in 1827 as head of the Banksian or botanical 

 department. Mr. Brown was recognised by foreigners as well as 

 Englishmen as the first botanist in Europe. Humboldt styled him 

 " Botanicorum facile Princeps," and his works are perhaps better known 

 in (iermany than in England. Mr. John George Children, who was 

 MiMnt librarian in 1816, and in 1837 became keeper of zoology, was 

 the friend of Sir Humphry Davy. He resigned his post in 1840, on the 

 death of his wife. A volume of his biography has been privately printed 

 by his family since his decease in 1852. Dr. Leach, who entered the 

 Museum in 181 3 and retired in 1822 on account of ill health, which con- 

 tinued till his decease in 1826, was a naturalist of great eminence, unsur- 

 passed in zeal for science and acuteness of intellect, but remarkable also 

 fur eccentricity of character. His labours at the Museum were of great 

 importance in improving its classification. His successor, Dr. George 

 Henry Noehden, a German, assistant librarian from 1822 to 1826, was 

 the author of a much esteemed German grammar, and corresponded 

 with Goethe. The Rev. Henry Francis Cary, assistant librarian of the 

 Printed Books from 1826 to 1837, is universally known as the trans- 

 lator of Dante. His biography was published by his son in two 

 volumes, and contains some matter of interest with regard to the 

 Museum, especially on the circumstances which led to the resignation 

 of Mr. Gary, circumstances which are fully and satisfactorily ex- 

 plained in Mr. Panizzi's evidence before the Royal Commission in 

 1848. The life of Mr. Gary's successor, the Rev. Richard Garnett, 

 assistant librarian from 1838 to 1850, has also been written by hia son, 

 but in a briefer form, and is prefixed to a collection of the Philological 

 Essays of Mr. Garnett, chiefly consisting of papers from the Trans- 

 actions of the Philological Society, and articles inserted in the Edin- 

 burgh and Quarterly Reviews. Dr. Frederick Henry Trithen, by 

 birth a Swigs, but removed when a child to Russia, and generally con- 

 sidA-ed as a Russian, was an assistant in the Printed Book department 

 in 1844, and resigned in 1845. In 1848 he was elected the first 

 professor of modern languages at the University of Oxford on the 

 Taylor foundation. Mr. Edward Edwards was an assistant in the same 

 department from 1839 to 1850. He is the author, among other works, 

 of the article on Libraries in the eighth edition of the ' Encyclopedia 

 Britannica,' and of ' Memoirs of Libraries, including a Handbook of 

 Library Economy,' published in two volumes in 1859, in which is con- 

 tained the longest and most elaborate history of the Museum library 

 that has yet appeared extending to 120 octavo pages. The reader of 

 this history would however hardly suppose that the writer was more 



intimately acquainted with the Museum library than with the Bodleian, 

 his account of both wearing the appearance of being entirely derived 

 from books. M. Louis Augustin Prevoat was also assistant in the same 

 department from 1843 to his death in 1858, employed in cataloguing 

 the Chinese collection. His fondness for languages was remarkable, 

 and he had studied more or less minutely upwards of forty, with 

 several of which he was well acquainted. Mr. Thomas Oliphant, secre- 

 tary of the Madrigal Society, and author of the ' Musa Madrigalesca," 

 catalogued the music both in the Printed Book and the manuscript 

 departments from 1841 to 1850. In the latter year he resigned, and 

 may now be considered the poet of the Court for which he writes 

 verses on festal occasions. Dr. Rosen, an eminent Sanscrit, Ara- 

 bic, and Syriac scholar, editor of the 'Radices Sanscritse,' and 

 many other works of importance, was an assistant in the Manu- 

 script department for some years previous to his death in 1837, and 

 was at the game time professor of oriental languages at the London 

 University. The Rev. William Cureton passed in 1837 from the 

 assistant librarianship of the Bodleian to the assistant librarianship of 

 the Manuscript department at the Museum. Mr. Cureton had given 

 his chief attention to Arabic, and published various works in that 

 language. The acquisition of the Syrian manuscripts during his 

 librarianship gave him an opportunity such as might not have occurred 

 for ages of turning to the advantage of learning his knowledge of 

 Syriac. He resigned in 1850 on receiving preferment in the Church, 

 and in 1859, as has been already mentioned, was appointed by the 

 Queen the Queen's trustee at the Museum. Mr. John Holmes, his 

 successor in the assistant librarianship (1850-54), had been an assistant 

 from 1830, and had given evidence on catalogues before the Committee 

 of the House of Commons in 1836. He was more inclined to con- 

 tribute to the works of others than to publish anything of his own, 

 and paid the inevitable penalty of the non-acquirement of reputation, 

 which was within his reach. One of his contributions to the ' Quarterly 

 Review ' was an article on catalogues of libraries. The Rev. Henry 

 Octavius Coxe, formerly assistant in the Manuscript department 

 (1833), and now assistant librarian at the Bodleian, has been able 

 since his removal to Oxford to publish several valuable catalogues 

 of manuscripts in that university. There were at the same time in 

 the Museum two officers of the name of Doubleday, one of whom, 

 Mr. John, was an American, and the other, Mr. Edward Doubleday, 

 had travelled extensively in America, but who were no relations. 

 Mr. Edward Doubleday, an assistant in the natural history department 

 (1842-49) was author of a magnificent work on the ' Genera of Diurnal 

 Lepidoptera." Mr. John Doubleday, long an assistant in the antiqui- 

 ties department, had an opportunity of signalising the ingenuity for 

 which he was noted by the completely successful restoration of the 

 Portland vase, when it was shivered to atoms in 1845. Mr. Charles 

 Newton, an assistant in the antiquities from 1840 to 1852, afterwards 

 consul at Mytilene, and now (1859) consul at Rome, formed the design of 

 prosecuting his researches in antiquity on the spot in Greece and Asia 

 Minor, and with that view applied to government for a consulship iu the 

 Levant, which was given to him by Lord Grauville. His excavation of 

 the mausoleum at Halicarnassus, and others which ho has made and is 

 making, are materially augmenting the treasures of the institution to 

 which he belonged. Mr. Thomas Burgon, also an assistant of the anti- 

 quities department (1844-58), entered the Museum late in life, and had 

 already passed many years in commercial pursuits in Asia Minor, 

 where he acquired that knowledge of Greek coins which was his dis- 

 tinguishing characteristic. 



Such are some of the past officers of the Museum, taking the word 

 " officers " in its ordinary sense, not in the technical one iu use in the 

 official documents of the Museum, iu which it is assigned to no one 

 beneath the rank of an assistant-keeper. Of the present officers, only 

 those will be mentioned whose names are affixed to some separate 

 printed publication. 



The keeper of the Printed Book department, Mr. John Winter Jones, 

 has had the good fortune to discover among the treasures now under 

 his charge, two volumes unknown to any previous bibliographer, which 

 in the ' Archseologia ' for 1846, he has demonstrated to be in the type 

 of Caxton. Mr. Thomas Watts, the assistant-keeper, has shown, on the 

 other hand, that a newspaper in the Museum which was supposed to 

 be the first of all newspapers, 'The English Mercurie,' of 1588, is 

 an entire fabrication. Both Mr. Jones and Mr. Watts have written on 

 numerous other occasions, and in these papers they have produced 

 information which all succeeding writers on the subject are bound to 

 notice. The Rev. Thomas Hartwell Home, who has been connected 

 with the Museum library in some degree from the period when he 

 framed the classed index to the catalogue of the Harleian manuscripts 

 in 1808, and who in 1824 was appointed to carry out the plan of a 

 classed catalogue, which was subsequently arrested, is universally 

 known in America as well as Europe for his ' Introduction to the 

 Bible,' which has been a text-book for students since its first publica- 

 tion in 1818. In the opinion, however, of many, even this work is 

 surpassed in neatness of execution by his ' Introduction to Bibliography,' 

 which has not met with the distinguished success it deserved. A 

 complete list of Mr. Home's numerous publications is to be found 

 in Allibone's ' Dictionary of English and American Authors.' Mr. 

 William Brenchley Rye has edited a volume for the Hakluyt Society 

 on early travels in Florida; and to Mr. George Bullun we are 



