The Press.
London, England, 1858-05-22 00:00:00

490

practical importance. We must observe, how-
ever, that as Mr. Hosking could not hope to
reverse the present state of things, he would
have done better to let the Trustees alone. Our
opinion about the authorship of the design may
be altered. But, even if he is found to be ever
so much in the right, we shall not pull down the
reading-room or make use of the King's Library,
and therefore the latter point should have been
suffered to rest. As it is, he has left the Trus-
tees, for their own sake, no choice but to make
common cause with his adversary.
As regards the alleged plagiarism, the case of
course stands differently. Few things occasion
greater mortification and injury than the with-
holding of that credit which is justly due to
original inventors of any sort, and therefore few
rights bught to be more jealously guarded. One
would not rashly rob of his fame even " the
" great Twalmley who invented the new flood-
"gate-iron," much less the designer of the
magnificent building now in question. And,
therefore, we have given Mr. Ilosking's evidence
all possible attention. This has not been a very
easy task. He has done his best to put himself
out of court by the style and tone of his writing,
and it is difficult to say whether his grammar or
his temper be the worse. Poets are not the only
irritable race; and gentlemen of Mr. Hosking's
profession are remarkable for a knack of allusive
and ironical remark, of which Mr. Albert Smith's
Engineer is perhaps the most striking example,
but from which "parties," as he would say, of
higher pretension are by no means free. The
following passage is neither very conciliatory,
nor very much to the point:—
An exhibition of a new kind was opened to the curious
public in the exhibition season of the year 1837.
The British Museum had from year to year for many
years presented itself in a state of transmutation, from
gay old Montague-house, with its gardens behind, and
its paved courtyard, flanked by ranges of domestic
offices, aril inclosed by a lofty wall, with close
carriage-gates, in front, into a quasi counterpart of
the Poet Office in St. Martin's-le-Gran!, and like
the Post Office expanding laterally as occasion seemed to
demand, and as space permitted. lint the building was
never obtrusive. It sought no admiration for itself, and
obtained none. Its sole object seemed to be, modestly to
perform its duty as a storehouse and conservatory of
matters having intrinsic value.

The above is an ungenerous sneer at the archi-
tect of the Museum, whose work has both
" sought" admiration and " obtained" it. Mr.
Hosking proceeds :

On the occasion now referred to, however, the British
Museum threw open its doors to exhibit, and to claim
admiration for, a something that had grown up within
itself, but vet not belonging to it,—a bit of finery out of
place! A cupola-covered saloon had been built within
the bowels of the Museum, for the purposes of study and
research by those whose objects require strict seclusion, and
from whose place of study the general student,—the
common observer—must, therefore, be for the future ex-
cluded Common observers were invited, once for all, to
admire that from which they were to be ever after shut out :
and to make the lesson which a walk through the saloon
was intended to produce the more impressive, there was
provided for sale, and sold for a penny, in the Entrance•
hall of Vie building, a small pamphlet, which bears strong
internal evidence of having emanated from the innermost
recesses of the Museum, and must consequently be received
as an authority. It contains a plan of the gaily•painted
and rib•gilded saloon, and gives particulars from which the
observer may learn not only to admire and to wonder, but
t, be grateful.

The passages we have italicised—in fact,
the whole paragraph—are singularly puerile
and captious. Why is "finery" (i.e., orna-
ment) out of place in a reading-room ? If
common observers are to be shut out from a place,
there is the more reason why they should have
one opportunity of admiring it. And if they
were not to be shut out, there could be no reason
to " invite" them, because they could always
come if they liked it. The "gaily-painted and
rib-gilded saloon" is meant for a sneer, but it is
both pointless in itself and contradicted by the
following sentence a few lines further. After
describing the room, the author says :
The result is a very noble chamber, which in itself well
dePerves much of the admiration it has obtained,—the
gilding upon the ribs of the concave coiling relieving, in
some degree, the stunted height and squat proportions
which the relative dimensions indicate.
As a specimen of Mr. Hosking's grammar,
take the following :

In like manner with Mr. Panizzi,—T—having had the
honour, so far back as November, 1819, to submit to the
Trustees a project for making a good addition to the
British Museum as a building, which they declined at the
time, but subsequently adopted, with a difference, indeed,
not at all to the advantage of the building, or of the public
la the use of the buildin—or of the public purse,—a pro.