by Sir Henry Ellis and the Rev. U. H. Baber, was published in 1813-1819. So great have been the additions to the collection since the publication of that catalogue, that the interleaved copy of it in which the new entries have been made in manuscript by the officers of the museum, has expanded into sixty-seven folio volumes. To supersede this obsolete catalogue, and also the private catalogue of the king's library, which is not accessible to the public, a completely new catalogue of the whole collection of books in the museum has for some time been in progress, under the superintendence of Mr Panizzi, at present chief of the printed book department. The work has advanced, however, at a provokingly slow rate; letter A, in one volume folio, is all that has yet been published; and as those employed in the work of cataloguing have not yet reached the middle of the alphabet, many years must elapse ere the whole shall be complete.

THE READING-ROOM.

Two of the largest apartments of the library of printed books have been specially fitted up as a reading-room for the use of the public. In these apartments, which are accessible by a private entrance at the back of the museum, a number of persons of both sexes are daily engaged—from ten to four in winter, and from ten to seven in summer-in reading, consulting books, copying manuscripts, making extracts, &c. &c. Ink and pens are provided; on the writing-desks are book-holders, paper-cutters, &c.; the chairs are comfortably stuffed; and all that the reader is required to bring with him or with her is his or her own manuscript book. Seated in this room, the reader has at his command the whole collection of printed books or manuscripts belonging to the museum. He has but to write the name of the work or manuscript wanted, with the marks attached to it in the catalogue, upon a printed ticket, appending also his own signature, and the day of the month; and in a few minutes after he has presented this ticket to the proper attendant, the book or the manuscript will be brought to him. There is no limit either as to the number of works he may order. Some readers may be seen with piles of volumes beside them, occupying half the table at which they sit; others with but a single volume, which they hold in their hands. Each book or manuscript, however, must be written for on a separate ticket. Sometimes, when the book or manuscript wanted is particularly valuable, it is not brought to the reading-room, but the person who wishes to consult it is taken, for greater security, to the room where it is deposited. The reader may copy as many extracts as he chooses from any book or manuscript, but no

entire manuscript can be copied without the special permission of the trustees. Before the reader leaves the Reading-Room, he must return all the books or manuscripts to an attendant, receiving back the corresponding tickets; every reader being considered responsible for every book or manuscript he has ordered so long as the ticket remains uncancelled. Under no circumstances is a reader permitted to take any book or manuscript out of the Reading-Room. A proposal has indeed been made, that in cases where there are duplicates of any work in the museum, readers should be allowed, under certain conditions, to take one of the copies home with them as from a circulating library; but there is as yet no law of the museum to that effect.

From this brief account of the Reading-Room of the British Museum, it will be seen of what vast advantage it is to the literary public. There is not a person in London engaged in literature, probably not a person professedly so engaged throughout the whole kingdom, that has not, or may not have, occasion to pay a visit to this wonderful place. Here occasionally may be seen our authors and authoresses of greatest note glancing over rare books, making brief extracts, and hastening to be off; and here, more habitual and regular visitors, may be distinguished the young student reading professionally, the humble copyist driving his pen mechanically over the paper, and so earning his scanty and laborious livelihood; or, lastly, the conscientious writer of history, deep in the business of research. There are, indeed, some drawbacks on the ideal perfection of this metropolitan institution (for so it may deservedly be named) for the benefit of the national literature. In the first place, however admirable the order that is kept in it, one cannot proceed with his work so satisfactorily in so crowded a room as in the quiet of his own study. One reader by you annoys you with his 'bassoon nose;' another with his whisperings to himself; a third with his clanking heels; a fourth with his wo-worn look. Some persons, too nervously sensitive to such impressions, have never been able to sit an hour in the Reading-Room with comfort. Again, it is not unfrequent, when one orders a book, to find that it is 'on hand,' or 'at the binder's.' But the greatest subject of complaint among readers is the present imperfect state of the catalogue, in consequence of which it is often very difficult to find a book, even when it is in the library. The Grenville Library, for example, is not yet accessible to the public through any synopsis of its contents; and all new books, without exception, have to lie on the shelves for several years before they are allowed to be entered in the Reading-Room catalogue as open for perusal. This last regulation is decidedly the one that ought first to be abrogated. That the Reading-Room of

the British Museum ought not to be made a place where people might go to read the new novels and periodicals as they came out, is certainly true; but that, as at present, an important book should not be accessible to a reader till it is a year or two old, is scandalous. The argument, that such a restriction is necessary, as a protection to the right of publishers, who would otherwise sell fewer copies of a new book, is absurd, and will not bear a moment's consideration.

The means of obtaining admission to the Reading-Room are sufficiently easy. The person who desires admission procures a note of introduction from any well-known individual—a merchant, a member of parliament, or such-like; this he forwards through the post to the chief librarian of the museum; who in return, if the recommendation is satisfactory to him, sends the applicant the necessary ticket. This ticket admits the holder for six months, and is renewable without farther trouble. The entire number of persons now on the library books, as entitled to the privilege of admission to the Reading-Room, is between 30,000 and 40,000; the average attendance per diem is 250.

APPENDIX B.

SINCE the foregoing pages were written, a few alterations have taken place in the arrangements of the museum. The following

indications will serve to make the visitor aware of the nature and extent of these changes :

ETHNOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT.-Here the changes consist almost entirely in the addition of a few miscellaneous objects to the Ethnographical Room. Among these are a model of part of Blackfriars' Bridge (on the floor); an Indian cabinet of ebony inlaid with ivory (side of Cases 12 and 13); the magic drum of an Iceland witch (Shelf III, Cases 18-19); a Mexican sacrificial basin, said to have been the sacrificial vase of the Temple of the Sun at Cuzco (Cases 36–37); a fishing-basket and a girl's sampler from the Navigators' Islands (Cases 66-67); and the prow of the canoe of the celebrated New Zealand chief Heki (above Cases 68-69). A few objects have also been added to the Egyptian Room, the Bronze Room, and the Etruscan Room.

NATURAL HISTORY DEPARTMENT.-In this department some additions not affecting the order of arrangement have been made in the Mineralogical, the Botanical, and the Palæontological or Fossil Sections. In Room VI of the Fossil Section, for example (which is now in a somewhat more orderly condition than it was a little while ago), there is to be seen a very interesting object— 'the cast of the skeleton of the megatherium; a genus of edentata established by Cuvier from the only species known-the Megatherium Americanum of Blumenbach (Megatherium Cuvieri of later writers). The bones from which the casts of the several parts are taken are preserved partly in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, and partly in Cases near the skeleton.' But the chief

alterations in this department, and indeed the only alterations in the museum that affect the arrangement or ordering of the Cases as described in the preceding account, have occurred in the Zoological Section. Even here, however, the changes are almost entirely confined to one of the apartments-that known as the Northern Zoological Gallery. This apartment, which was previously in a very confused state, being used as a kind of receptacle for superfluous radiata, articulata, mollusca, and vertebrata indiscriminately, has been refitted, and put into something like order; and though it still retains too much of the appearance of a stow-room for whatever could not be accommodated elsewhere, it is decidedly more pleasant to visit than it used to be. We shall describe the changes made here somewhat particularly :

Room I.-Here the Table-Cases stand as before; but in the contents of the Wall-Cases there is a difference. The collection of skulls of large mammalia formerly occupying the Wall-Cases to the left has been removed; and in lieu of it there is the collection of bats, formerly to be found in Room III of the same gallery. These have been transferred thus :-The bats of Case 24 in Room III now occupy Wall-Cases 1-3 in Room I; those of Case 25 in Room III occupy Wall-Cases 3-4 in Room I; those of Case 26 in Room III occupy Wall-Case 5 in Room I; and those of Cases 2629 in Room III occupy Wall-Cases 6-8 in Room I. Again, in the Wall-Cases on the right, we have, in addition to the collection of birds'-nests which formerly stood there, the curious collection of nests of insects transferred thither from the Wall-Cases of Room V in the same gallery.

Room II. Here the old arrangement is still continued, except that the ordering of the Cases is somewhat altered. Thus 'the lizards,' which formerly occupied Wall-Cases 1-7, now extend through Wall-Cases 1-10; 'the serpents,' formerly spread through Wall-Cases 8-19, are now collected in Wall-Cases 11-17, the first of which is devoted to the poisonous serpents; the 'tortoises and turtles,' formerly contained in Wall-Cases 20-23, now fill Wall-Cases 18-23; the 'crocodiles and amphisbænas,' formerly included in the single Wall-Case 24, are now contained in WallCases 24-26; and the 'batrachians,' formerly occupying WallCases 25-26, now occupy the lower part of Wall-Case 26. In the Table-Cases there is no difference from the old arrangement.

Room III. A very useful change has been made in the arrangements of this room. Instead of containing, as before, a miscellaneous collection of corals, glirine mammalia, and fish, the room has been converted into a kind of Museum in Museo, presenting at one view to the visitor a collection of the particular zoology of our own island. This is a highly creditable arrange