British Museum

“ It is not only in shops that we in England have to learn how to "dress our windows." But at any rate, no one will deny that we have of late made enormous advances in the art.
Nevertheless, the beauty and grandeur of the British Museum collections, beauty on which I have already touched in the Bloomsbury chapter, impress us in spite of fog, and grime, and dull London galleries. And the feeling for the suitable arrangement and disposal of our artistic treasures grows upon our directors year by year. ”

“ Most of the objects which it contains have no affinity with those which are contained in the other parts of the Museum, nor is the collection worthy of this country for its extent, nor yet, owing to its exceptional character, is it brought together in a methodical and instructive manner. Occupying but a secondary place in the British Museum, it cannot obtain either the space or the attention which it might obtain, were it not surrounded and cast into the shade by a vast number of splendid and interesting objects which have irresistible claims to preference. ”

“ It has been, and doubtless for some centuries to come will be, a matter of regret that the unrivalled collection called the British Museum has not, after the incalculable labour bestowed, and the vast sums of money spent upon it, found a home more worthy of its invaluable contents than the present building. Of this huge pile—an irregular oblong—but little appeals to the eye, less to the power of discussion. The Eastern and Western Wings still remain partially exposed to view in all their normal hideousness of yellow brick, unadorned by aught save a few meagre mouldings. ”

“ The British Museum is a very wonderful place, so wonderful that few people understand what they see there. They wander along the corridors looking vaguely at the cases of precious and rare objects on every side; they are impressed by the size of the place, but they do not come to the Museum with the idea of looking for anything particular, and they go away without learning anything. No one man, however clever, could understand about all the things that he will find there ”

“ If I venture to give instances of fault from the British Museum, it is because, on the whole, it is the best-ordered and pleasantest institution in all England, and the grandest concentration of the means of human knowledge in the world. ”

“ No question connected with the improvement of the British Museum has, from time to time, more largely engrossed the attention, either of Parliament or of the Public at large, than has the question of the Buildings. ”

“ Every visitor to the Reading Room of the British Museum who is guided by the mere light of nature persists in styling the catalogue "the index": their promotion in public consideration has accordingly kept pace with that of their humbler allies, or rather exceeded it, for if not starting originally from a point quite so depressed, they have attained one much more exalted. ”

“ The visitor, however, cannot leave the British Museum, having wandered over it and examined its various curiosities, without getting something from his journey. It is full of suggestive matter, which, with a little direction, may be turned to useful account by large classes of the people. ”

“ What a pity it is that all our National collections of pictures, of statues, of antiquities, of objects of Natural History, should be shorn of half their value from the meanness of the various buildings in which they are exhibited to public view, and from the confused manner in which they are huddled together. We have, in London, but one room which is really worthy of the purpose to which it is devoted, and that is the new Reading-room of the British Museum. This, indeed, is a magnificent apartment—a credit to the country, and a great boon to all men engaged in literary pursuits. ”

“ When it happens that the spirit of the Earl meets his rank and his duties, we have the best examples.... These are the men who make England that strong-box and Museum it is; who gather and protect works of art, dragged from amidst burning cities and revolutionary countries, and brought hither, out of all the world.... When I saw that, besides deer and pheasants, these men have preserved Arundel Marbles, Townley Galleries, Howard and Spencer Libraries, Warwick and Portland Vases, Saxon Manuscripts, Monastic Architectures, and Millenial Trees, I pardoned their high park-fences.’ ”

“ The regulations for the admission of the public have fairly kept pace with the progress of those liberal ideas to which the collection is greatly indebted, and of which it is a monument. It will be interesting for the visitor of to-day, to contrast the rules by which he is admitted, with those that fettered his ancestors of the eighteenth century. In the year 1759, the trustees of this institution published their "Statutes and Rules relating to the Inspection and Use of the British Museum." ”

“ The British Museum was founded precisely at that period of our history when the distinctively national, or governmental, care for the interests of literature and of science was at its lowest, or almost its lowest, point. As regards the monarchs, it would be hard to fix on any, since the dawn of the Revival of Learning, who evinced less concern for the progress and diffusion of learning than did the first and second princes of the House of Hanover. ”

“ Cotton may be regarded as the English ‘proto-collector,’ in a point of view other than that which concerns the British Museum. No Library in the United Kingdom can, I think, shew an integral ‘Collection,’ still extant, the formation of which—as a Collection—can be traced to an earlier date than that of the collection of the Cottonian Manuscripts.
Whether the British Museum shall continue to be the great national repository for Science, as well as for Literature and Antiquities, is a question which is fast ripening for decision; and it is one which ought to be interesting to all Britons. ”

“ As an organized establishment, the British Museum is but little more than a century old. The history of its component parts extends over three centuries. That history embraces a series of systematic researches,—scientific, literary, and archæological,—the account of which (whatsoever the needful brevity of its treatment in these 14pages) must be told clumsily, indeed, if it be found to lack a very wide and general interest for all classes of readers—one class only excepted. ”

“ The British Museum is a truly equalising place, in the deepest and most spiritual sense. And it gives the lie, too, to that common slander, “that the English are not worthy of free admission to valuable and curious collections, because they have such a trick of seeing with their fingers ”

“ British Museum.The British Museum ranks in importance before all the great libraries of the world, with the single exception of the Bibliotheque Rationale at Paris, and far excels the latter institution in the systematic arrangement and accessibility of its contents. Recent changes have some what limited its former universality of character, but it still remains the grand national repository of literature and archaeology. The library consists of over 1,550,000 printed volumes and 50,000 manuscripts. ”

“ Without, however, presuming to be an art critic, and without being so enthusiastic as some in favour of ancient art, we cannot pass through the courts of the British Museum without being struck with the massive grandeur and classic beauty of some of the ideal creations of those men who have left us such a comprehensive syllabus, as it were, of primeval civilization. ”

“ Yesterday I went out at about twelve, and visited the British Museum; an exceedingly tiresome affair. It quite crushes a person to see so much at once, and I wandered from hall to hall with a weary and heavy heart, wishing (Heaven forgive me!) ”

“ He founded and munificently endowed Professorships of Art at each of the ancient Universities, and at University College in London. To the British Museum he gave the splendid bequest about to be described, which had been selected with exquisite taste, knowledge and judgment, and which, under such rare conditions of purchase, had cost him more than twenty-five thousand pounds. |The Slade Museum of Antiquities. ”

“ The British Museum is a huge repository of material. In scope it is universal. Its purpose is accumulation, preservation, and the aid of research by accredited persons, upon its own premises. Its service is purely responsive. ”

“ Sir Henry Ellis’s report on the Historical MSS. at Pomard. Immediately on his return to Paris, Sir Henry wrote thus to the Archbishop of Canterbury:—‘The Collection is indeed a most extraordinary one of its kind, and would be a treasure in the stores of the British Museum, or of any other public Collection, though, perhaps, for a reason which will presently appear, some of the Trustees may think a public library of France would be its most appropriate repository. ”

“ If we take into the account the variety, as well as the intrinsic worth, of the additions thus made to human knowledge; above all, if we duly estimate the value of those links of connection 667between things human and things divine, which are the most essential characteristic of some of the best of these acquisitions, it may well be said that the annals of no museum in the world can boast of such an enrichment as this, by the efforts of the travellers and the archæologists of one generation. And all of these explorers are—in one sense or other—Britons. ”

“ Trying to give the British Museum a thorough examination is somewhat of a formidable undertaking; for it requires several visits to get even a superficial view of its valuable contents. The space of seven acres of ground is occupied by the buildings, which cost over a million pounds sterling, while the curiosities, relics, antiquities, and library cannot be estimated in a money value. ”

“ Religion tames the savage; Paganism makes him a crouching sensualist; the Egyptian sees a God in the stars of heaven; and then the mathematician, the musician, the poet, and the painter set to work, and these prophets of mysterious beauties realise civilised mankind. The visitor enters the museum, after ascending a noble flight of steps, by a massive carved oak door, into a fine entrance hall, the ceiling of which is highly coloured, and the general decoration of which is Grecian Ionic. ”

“ The fame of his library and of his museum of antiquities continued to spread farther and wider. He had many agents on the Continent who sought diligently to augment his collections. His correspondence with men who were busied in like pursuits both at home and abroad increased. Much of it has survived. On that interesting point at which a glance has been cast already, its witness is uniform. He was always as ready to impart as he was eager to collect. ”

“ Crowds of all ranks and conditions besiege the doors of the British Museum, especially in holiday times, yet the skeleton of the elephant is spotless, and the bottled rattlesnakes continue to pickle in peace. The Elgin marbles have suffered no abatement of their marvellous beauties ”

“ There is scarcely, in the whole British Museum, a less satisfactory book than his catalogue of the Royal library. Thus, the student is hampered by the want of a guide, and must hew paths for himself through the luxuriant growth and accumulations of many centuries. In point of mere size, the Royal library ranks third among the four great collections acquired by the British Museum at the time of its foundation—the Harleian numbering 7639 MSS. ”

“ London, in that point of view, was below both Naples and Paris, if not also below Munich. It now ranks above them all; possessing two thousand six hundred vases, as against two thousand at Paris, and two thousand one hundred at Naples. [32]
Another department, lying in part nearer home—that of British, Mediæval, and Ethnological Antiquities—has been almost created by the labours of the last twenty years. The ‘British’ Museum can no longer be said to be a misnomer, as designating an establishment in which British Archæology met with no elucidation. ”

“ In conclusion I must express my deep sense of obligation to the authorities connected with the Tower of London, the Wallace Collection, the British Museum Manuscript Department, the South Kensington Museum, the Rotunda at Woolwich, the Edinburgh Castle Museum, the United Service Institution, the Armourers’ Hall, &c., for the kind facilities they have willingly and promptly afforded for sketching, photographing, and examining the various exhibits preserved in those institutions. ”

“ There is a confused notion in the existing public mind that the British Museum was partly a parish school, partly a circulating library, and partly a place for Christmas entertainments.
It is none of the three, and, I hope, will never be made any of the three. But especially and most distinctly it is not a “preparatory school,” nor even an “academy for young gentlemen,” nor even a “working-men’s college.” A national museum is one thing, a national place of education another ”

“ The Nation has done almost nothing for the Library....
‘Considering the British Museum to be a National Library for research, its utility increases in proportion with the very rare and costly books, in preference to modern books.... I think that scholars have a right to look, for these expensive works, to the Government of the Country....
‘I want a poor student to have the same means of indulging his learned curiosity,—of following his rational pursuits,—of consulting the same authorities,—of fathoming the most intricate inquiry,—as the richest man in the kingdom, as far as books go. ”

“ Still let all who enter our museum, go there with the resolve to accomplish something by their visit. Even in the common concerns of life; in the petty matters that wear away the brain at last; in the market-places of the world, this insight is not without its effect. The heart is humbled as the eyes open to the grandeur of the scheme, and to the consequent littleness of individual manhood ”