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INTRODUCTION. 
The great Museum of art, of natural history, and of literature, to 
which the present volume is hat a partial guide, has been of gradual, 
and until of late years of slow growth. It dates its actual foundation Foundation, 
from the year 1753, when an Act of Parliament was passed "for the 
purchase of the Museum, or Collection of Sir Hans Sloane, and of the 
Harleian Collection of Manuscripts; and for providing one General 
Repository for the better reception and more convenient use of the 
said collections; and of the Cottonian Library, and of the additions 
thereto." Virtually, its origin may be ascribed to the formation by Sir 
Robert Cotton, at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th Cotton 
. . . T "U 
centuries, of his noted collection of Manuscripts, embracing biblical, library, 
historical, and literary remains of the early and middle ages, and 
especially rich in English literature, monastic records, and state papers. 
The collection received augmentations from his descendants, and was 
eventually presented to the nation by his grandson, Sir John Cotton, 
in the year 1700. 
The history of the Cotton Library is directly connected with the 
origin of the British Museum ; for it was in consequence of the 
building in which it was preserved at Westminster being destroyed by 
fire, in the year 1731, that the Government of that time was induced 
to consider the scheme of a general repository for that and similar 
collections, resulting in the Act of foundation of the present 
Museum. 
The several collections enumerated in the Act of Incorporation — 
the Museum of Sir Hans Sloane, the Harleian Manuscripts, and the Sloane 
Cottonian Library — were brought together in the year 1754, in Mon- Museum, 
tagu House, Bloomsbury, which had been built for Ralph, Duke of ^[ ar ^ an 
Montagu, and the site of which is occupied by the existing Museum. sc ^ pts 
They were opened to thepublicon the 15th of January, 1759. Admis- Montagu 
sions to the galleries of antiquities and natural history were by tickets House, 
only, on application in writing, and were, in the first instance, limited to 
ten, for each of three hours in the day. Visitors were not allowed to 
inspect the cases at their leisure, but were conducted through the 
galleries by officers of the house. The hours of admission were 
subsequently extended, but it was not till the year 1810 that the 
