THE ACTUAL CONDITION 



OF THE 



BRITISH MUSEUM. 



A LITERARY EXPOSTULATION. 



ITH the possible exception of the Vatican the 

 British Museum has probably the most glorious 

 and valuable library in the world ; and, it may 

 be by contagion of coincidences, the two 

 institutions vie with each other in decrees 

 hostile to progress and enlightenment. Mr. Gladstone 

 seems fully competent to deal with the Vatican, though it 

 would seem to be only lately that he has discovered the 

 error of its ways. But as Mr. Gladstone had special 

 reasons for investigating the question — "Are these propo- 

 sitions proper to be set forth by the present writer ?" — so 

 perhaps it may be well for a foreigner to explain how it is 

 that he appears as a critic of the British Museum. 



Thanks to the genial nature of Englishmen, there is no 

 land in which a man may so soon find himself at home 

 as in England, and the first privilege of an acclimatised 



