XXX 
INTRODUCTION. 
The Reading- 
Room. 
these officers are to arrange and keep in order 
the several collections committed to their charge, 
to correct the old, and when required to compile 
new catalogues of their contents, to pay proper 
attention to visitors of distinction either for rank 
or learning, and some of them, in rotation, to 
attend the Reading-Room, which it is strictly or¬ 
dered should never be left without an inspecting 
officer. Besides these, a Secretary, a Surveyor, 
five ordinary and eight extra Attendants, a Mes¬ 
senger, a Porter, a Gardener, and a few inferior 
servants, complete the establishment. 
The chief use of the Museum consists, no 
doubt, in the means it affords to men of letters 
and artists to recur to such materials as they may 
want in the prosecution of their studies or la¬ 
bours. For this purpose a very commodious 
apartment has been set aside, by the name 
of the Reading-Room, which is open every 
day, Saturdays and Sundays excepted, and to 
which persons not wholly strangers are freely 
admitted, and there readily supplied with 
whatever books, or manuscripts, they may 
desire to consult; as also with such productions 
of art or nature, of which they may wish to 
have a closer inspection than can be had in 
the cursory manner allowed to ordinary visitors. 
The 
