118 



al dews that always fall on them from surrounding atmo- 

 spheres, such as are never overcharged but never dry. Let 

 the gauge be accurately taken, and it will assuredly appear, 

 that the crowning and superior measure of support in these 

 cases, on the whole, has come of the largesses of subjects, not 



It has been the pleasure of sovereigns that certain magnifi- 

 cent establishments of a literary and scientific character, ex- 

 isting in the name and under the control of royalty, should 

 adorn the capitals of their empires ; and in furtherance of this 

 object they have sometimes indulged in princely profusion. 

 And yet it is remarkable that scarcely an instance can be 

 found where one of these establishments has originated with 

 the titular head of a government, or has been sustained by its 

 authority and means, at least without the aid of large indi- 

 vidual contributions, or of gross public robberies. The impe- 

 rial library now at St. Petersburgh, containing 400,000 vo- 

 lumes, set out with a capital of 200,000 volumes, which had 

 been collected at the private cost of an ecclesiastic in Poland- 

 Zaluski in his hfe time, had generously opened his library to 

 the public, and at his death the government seized it as its 

 own, to the exclusion of all claims on the part of his lawful 

 heirs. The royal academy of sciences at Paris did not receive 

 the sanction of the king for more than thirty years after it had 

 been founded by Colbert. The king's library at the same 

 place received a supply of 100,000 volumes at one time, the 

 property of French subjects, wrested from them on the sup- 

 pression of monastic houses. The museum of natural history 

 at the Garden of Plants, the most extensive in the world, 

 owes its existence to the solicitations and zeal of two physi- 

 sicians of Louis XIII. Sir Robert Cotton laid the foundation 

 of the British Museum, by the gift of an invaluable private 

 collection. The celebrated royal society of London was wholly 

 a private association for many years, and even now, since 

 its incorporation and adoption by the government, each mem- 

 ber pays an admission fee of eight guineas, and an annual 

 contribution of four guineas, to sustain it. 



