The Express.
London, England, 1853-05-19 00:00:00

THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

(Pram the Dairy Netts.)
TUE Annual "Account" furnished by the Trustees
of the British Museum affords a painful confirmation
of the fears expressed by us last scar, concerning the
probable consequeeces of postponing tire necessary
and easy and economical enlargement of the building.
Of course the pressure of space is felt more or
lees by all the departments of that establishment, for
all the collections are, or ought to be, of a progressive
character. But it is in the Library—the Depart-
meet of Printed Books—that the want of space is
operating with incomparably the most injurious
effect. The Parliamentary grants, for some years
past, have actually been relaxed by the authorities,
because there has been no room for the location of
the purchases. Sir Rouen PEEL'S grant of tea
thousand a year for ten years, for the purchase of
books, was found to be too much of a good thing.
[ Government was requested to be kind enough to
diminish its favours by half. Last year only five then-1
sand were asked for, and to our astonishment WW
find that the warn required for printed books for the
year 1853-4 is only 2,5001. Tho manuscript
department, in which there is yet some space lett,
asks 3,3001. for the same year, although that
collection is of altogether minor public importance;
and the bookbinders estimate for the department of
printed books during the present year is 7,5001., or
2,5001. more than Met year—a fact which proves
clearly enough, if other proofs were wanting, that it
is only deficiency of space which prevents the ex-
pansion of the Library at the liberal rate demanded
by the intellectual needs of the nation.
The cure for the evil is easy and cheap. It is to
adopt the excellent plan proposed for covering in the
useless interior quadrangle with domes and arches
of glass, whereby space would be at once provided
for half a million additional volumes and a new
reading-room, as splendid and commodious as the
present one ie mean and inadequate. This plan has
been vigorously advocated by the head of the depart-
ment, who is likely to know as well as any one what
the requirements of the department are. He has
urged the ruinous consequences of delay, and the im-
possibility of ever thoroughly making up the vast
arrears into which the library is now falling, Year by
year ; he has pointed out the serious insalubrity of
the crowded, and—not ill-ventilated, but totally un-
ventilated apartment, at present used by hundreds ell
the most valuable lives in England; he has shown
the necessity, in a library of such enormous size as
ours, of having the reading room in the midst of the
collection, instead of being, as now it is, at one of its
extremities, and, therefore, at the distance of a consi-
derable
fraction of a mile from large masses of the
contained literature ; but in vain. And
what has been one of the first of the
long series of results which must accrue
from this neglect, on the part of Government, of a
matter of such vital importance to one of the highest
of the national interests ? Our readers will be some-
what startled upon learning that, while the call for
sources of enlightenment has been increasing at an
unprecedented rate, the Museum Library, the only
important public library we have, has been gradually
failing into disuse. Eighteen years ago, when the
population of London was scarcely halt what it is at
present, the visits to the reading-room were only
one-seventh fewer than they are now; and, in the
Fear 1852 those visits were actually 6,300 fewer than
in the year 1850. The immense diminution of laeti
year in the number of visitors to the general collec-
tion as compared with 1831 is, of course, to be ac-
counted for by tho prodigious influx of visitors daring
the year of the Great Exhibition, whichconcentrated
into one season the visits that would otherwise have
been spread over many years; but this cause could have
no such operations upon the students in the Library,
as is shown by the similar case of the visits of stu-
dents, on private days, to the Department of Anti-
quities. These visits, in 1851, were 6,086, and last
year they rose to 6,983.
We have little doubt that the delay of Govern-
ment in sanctioning the necessary enlargements of
the Library is to bo attributed to the uncertainty
which at present exists as to the future destination
of the collection of antiquities. Should this collec-
tion be removed, and added to the collection of the
National Gallery, wherever that may bo located,
there will be a vast space left empty on the base-
ment floor of the British Museum, and this space
will probably be almost wholly at the service
of the Printed Book Department. But, so far
from doing away with the necessity of a central
edifice in the inner quadrangle, this extension of the
Library throughout the four sides of the building
would render a great Central Reading-room quite
indispensable. In fact, this literary" Crystal Palace"
is a tning which will one day certainly come to pass.
The arguments for its erection are of that broad and
obvious nett= which will not admit of their being
ever altogether lost sight of. Let it then be raised
at once, and in time to preserve the Library from the
ruinous damage which must result from a few more
years of suspended growth, at a period when the
other public libraries of Europe are keeping pace
with the time, and when America is annually gather-
ing thousands and thousands of typographical trea-
sures, which, in right course, ought first to have
been offered to our own garners.
It may be objected that the four sides of the edifice
on the basement, together with the interior quad-
rangle, would be more space than the Library would
require for the next seventy or eighty years, at its
present rate of growth. If so, let the system of
Reading Rooms be constituted upon that liberal basis
which the abundance of space would then allow of,
and which the interests of learning require. One
public Reading Room is not sufficient. There ought
to be one, or perhaps two great apartments for
general use ; and several smaller rooms, of a compara-
tively private nature, for such cases as the authorities
might consider exceptional. Again, ought there not to
be an apartment especially devoted to evening readers?
There was some talk of this a year or two ago, and
we trust that this most important object will not be
lest sight of, when the great alterations in the Mu-
seum, which are inevitable sooner or later, come to
be made. An evening reading-room would be aa
unspeakable boon to multitudes of persons whose
oceupations engross them during the whole time at
present at the disposal of the Museum readers, and
it is probable that, for security against fire, and
other reasons, it would be advisable that the evening
and day reading-rooms should be separate apartments.
Of course, as a rule, the evening reader would not
belong so much to the class of students as those
whose presence at the Museum during the business
hours of the day proves that their business is litera-
ture. A different set of works of reference might be
found desirable for persons whose reading would most
probably, be of a light and somewhat desultory kind.
Again, if we may judge from an occasional walk
through the halls at present occupied by the library,
the Museum officials meant overstocked with private
working apartments. We feel convinced, indeed, that
M. PAN tut and Sir F. MADDEN and their subordinates
would not lose themselves in, or be in any way the
worse for, the "ample room and verge enough" which
we are contemplating as being at their disposal. It
must be remembered that there are already books
enough packed in a long low apartment that lies, un-
known to the public, alongside of the King's
Library, to make an apartment as large as that mag-
nificent hall look handsome at once. So that, although
in reality there might, as there ought, to be a great
superabundance of space for many years to come,
that superabundance would not be sufficient even now
to confer an appearance of incompleteness upon
a library of the eplendid dimensions hero con tem
plated.

GOVERNESSES' BENEVOLENT INSTITUTION.-- ,e
tenth anniversary festival of this charity was celet.N..ed
yesterday at the London Tavern, tho Earl of lisrrowby,
president of the institution, in the chair. The objects of
the charity are the relief of governesses in temporary diffi-
culty, the granting of annuities to aged govere,sses, the
securing of deferred annuities to governesses' upon their
own payments, a home for the disengaged, fret, registration
a college with classes and certificates of qualification, and
an asylum for the aged. The claims of the charity were
very ably urged by the chairman and the Rev. 1). Laing,
the Honorary Secretary, and it appeared from their state,
ments that its progress had been most satisfactory, that
there were seventy-seven annuitants, including the inmates
of the asylum at Kentish-town, who were not dependent
on transient funds, but were receiving their annuities from
invested capital. The benefits of the home had been ex-
tended to a number of governesses, and the system of re-
gistration had obtained engagements for 803 persons seek-
los them without any expense to themselves, and on the
who's from 2,000 to 3,000 governesses have received mate-
rial ail and assistance. The proceedings of the evening
were higNy satisfactory to the interests of the institution,
and subscriptiOn: to the amount of neirly 1,2001. were
received.