THE same in object-the same as to the nature of its collections-unchanged in government and general administration, yet no two public establishments can be well more dissimilar than the British Museum of 1759 and the British Museum of 1859.* The Act of Incorporation was passed in the year 1753, and the six years from that date to the time of opening (15th of January, 1759) had been spent by the Trustees in procuring a suitable building for the collections, in selecting officers, and in making all the necessary arrangements for carrying out the trusts committed to their charge.

By these regulations the Museum was closed on Saturday and Sunday in each week, and likewise on Christmas Day and for one week after, one week after Easter day and Whit Sunday respectively, Good Friday, and on all days appointed for thanksgivings. and fasts.

At all other times it was to be set open from nine o'clock in the morning till three in the afternoon from Monday to Friday between the months of September and April inclusive; and also at the same hours on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in May, June, July, and August; but on Monday and Friday only from four o'clock to eight in the afternoon during these four months.

Persons desirous to see the Museum were to be admitted by printed tickets, to be delivered by the porter upon their application in writing.

No more than ten tickets were to be delivered out for each hour, and five of the persons producing such tickets were to be attended by the Under-Librarian, and the other five by the Assist

* 1859 is the date of the first edition of this List.

ant Librarian in each department. Company was to be admitted at the hours of nine, ten, eleven, and twelve respectively in the morning, and at the hours of four and five in the afternoon of those days in which the Museum was open at that time.

The visitors were to be first conducted through the department of Manuscripts and Medals; then the department of Natural and Artificial Productions; and afterwards the department of Printed Books, by the particular officers assigned to each department; and one hour only was allowed to the several companies for viewing each department.

No children were to be admitted into the Museum.

After the lapse of a few months an alteration was suggested by the officers of the Museum, and on the 30th of March, 1761, the hours of admission were changed from nine, ten, eleven, and twelve, to nine, eleven, and one, the numbers admitted at one time were increased from ten to fifteen, and the time visitors were allowed to remain in the Museum was reduced from three hours to two.

These regulations were not mere matters of form. It would appear that some attempt had been made to break through the order for admission by ticket, for on the 7th of April, 1769, the Trustees directed "that the porter and messengers have positive orders not to admit anybody into the house without tickets." This system naturally confined the number of visitors within. very narrow limits (forty-five per diem at the utmost), and as the number of applicants for tickets was very large, and visitors were admitted in the order of their application, weeks, and ultimately months, would elapse between the date of application and admission.

On the 9th of February, 1774, a Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to consider of a more convenient method of admitting persons to the sight of the British Museum, and on the 11th of May following the Committee reported "that it was their opinion that the most probable method of obviating these inconveniences would be by enabling the Trustees to demand and receive money for the admission of persons to see the Museum on certain days in the week, some days and hours being still allotted for receiving persons gratis." Upon this resolution the House divided, when the proposition was lost, but

only by the very small majority of three, fifty-three being in favour of it, and fifty-six against it. The practice of admission by tickets continued in force for thirty-six years afterwards.*

In the year 1810, the first step towards the present system was made by Mr. Planta, the Principal Librarian, who recommended that the Museum should be opened for public inspection from ten till four o'clock on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in every week except in the Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide week, on thanksgiving and fast days, and during the months of August and September; and that all persons who applied on those days between the hours of ten and two should be immediately admitted. But even then, and for many years afterwards, the presence of a few hundred persons in the building was considered to call for special precautions to secure the preservation of order.

This fear of the public has long ceased. Now all are admitted who present themselves, the only condition being that they shall be able to walk into the building. Visitors are not only ad

* The celebrated John Wilkes took a just view of what the Museum, and especially the Library, ought to be when, on a petition being presented to the House from the Trustees, on the 28th of April, 1777, praying for a grant of money, he made the following remarks:-"It seems to me, sir, highly expedient that the Trustees of the British Museum should not only be enabled adequately to fulfil the objects of their public trust by making what is already collected as useful as possible to the nation, but still further to extend the laudable purposes of their Institution. The British Museum, sir, is rich in Manuscriptsthe Harleian Collection, the Cottonian Library, the Collection of Charles I., and many others, especially on our own history; but it is wretchedly poor in printed books. I wish, sir, a sum was allowed by Parliament for the purchase of the most valuable editions of the best authors, and an Act passed to oblige every printer, under a certain penalty, to send a copy bound of every publication he made to the British Museum. Our posterity, by this and other acquisitions, might, perhaps, possess a more valuable treasure than even the celebrated Alexandrian Collection; for, notwithstanding that selfishness which marks the present age, we have not quite lost sight of every beneficial prospect for futurity. Considerable donations might likewise, after such a sanction of parliamentary approbation, be expected from private persons, who in England, more than in any country in the world, have enlarged views for the general good and glory of the State." On this occasion, Edmund Burke moved that, instead of 3000l., the sum asked by the Trustees, 5000l. should be granted for the service of the Museum. This motion was lost, but it showed the interest taken in the Institution by men of enlightened minds even at that early period of its existence.

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mitted freely, but their attention is directed to those objects which possess the greatest interest by printed guides, which are sold at prices in many instances not sufficiently high to cover the cost of preparation. These efforts to popularize the Institution are fully appreciated: 43,000 holiday folk have recently passed through the building in one day without the slightest injury to the collections.

One of the last acts of the Trustees, before the Museum was opened for the purposes of inspection and study, was to make arrangements for the reception of students. On the 8th of December, 1758, the Trustees ordered "that the corner room in the base story be appropriated for the reading-room, and that a proper wainscot table, covered with green bays in the same manner as those in the libraries, be prepared for the same, with twenty chairs of the same kind with those already provided for the several departments of the house." On the 22nd of the same month, Dr. Peter Templeman, the translator of Norden's Travels in Egypt, and who afterwards became the secretary to the then newly-incorporated Society of Arts and Commerce, delivered in his appointment as "Keeper of the Reading Room or Rooms in the British Museum." The appointment of such an officer had been ordered on the 23rd of the June preceding, the Trustees wisely foreseeing the importance of the Reading Room, and the necessity of providing for its efficient superintendence.

A corner room in the basement story, with one oak table and twenty chairs, forms a very striking contrast with the Reading Room of the present day, but it was not so bad as the indulged reader of modern times may imagine. A glass door opened from this Reading Room into the garden of Montagu House, which was well cultivated and planted with goodly trees, and between which and Hampstead nothing intervened to obstruct the prospect or poison the air.* We may smile now at the twenty

* "After the establishment of the Museum in Montagu House, Mr. [afterwards Sir William] Watson was very assiduous, not only in the internal arrangement of subjects, but also in getting the garden furnished with plants, insomuch that in the first year of its establishment in 1756 it contained no fewer than 600 species, all in a flourishing state.”—Pulteney's Sketches of Botany, 1790, vol. ii. p. 310.