The Act then proceeds to declare that, ‘Whereas, all arts and sciences have a connexion with each other, and discoveries in natural philosophy and other branches of speculative knowledge,’ for the advancement whereof the Museum was intended, may, in many instances, give help to useful experiments and inventions, ‘therefore, to the end that the said Museum may be preserved and maintained, not only for the inspection and entertainment of the learned and the curious, but for the general use and benefit of the Public,’ it is enacted by Parliament that the sum of twenty thousand pounds shall be paid to the Executors of Sir Hans SLOANE, in full satisfaction for his said Museum. In this Statute, also, the preceding original Act for the public establishment of the Cottonian Library (12th and 13th of WILLIAM III, c. 7), together with the subsequent Act on that subject (5th ANNE, c. 30), are severally recited, and it is declared as follows:— [Sidenote: FURTHER PROVISIONS OF THE ACT OF INCORPORATION.] First, ‘Although the public faith hath been thus engaged to provide for the better reception and more convenient use of the Cottonian Library, a proper repository for that purpose hath not yet been prepared, for the want of which the said Library did ... suffer by a fire;’ And secondly, ‘Arthur EDWARDS, late of Saint George’s, Hanover Square, in the county of Middlesex, Esquire, being desirous to preserve for the public use the said Cottonian Library, and to prevent the like accident for the future, bequeathed the sum of seven thousand pounds’—after the occurrence of a certain contingent event—for the purpose either of erecting, ‘in a proper situation, such a house as might be most likely to preserve that Library from all accidents, or—in the event of the performance by the Public, before the falling out of the contingency above mentioned, of that duty to which it already stood pledged by Act of Parliament, then—for the purpose of purchasing such manuscripts, books of antiquities, ancient coins, medals, and other curiosities, as might be worthy to increase the Cottonian Library aforesaid;’ to which end the same public benefactor further bequeathed his own library. In order therefore to give due effect, at length, both to the primary donation of Sir John COTTON, and to the additional benefaction made thereto by Major Arthur EDWARDS, Parliament now enacted that a general repository should be provided for the several collections of COTTON, EDWARDS, and SLOANE, and that Major EDWARDS’ legacy of money should be paid to the Trustees created by the new Act, in accordance with the provisions heretofore recited in Sir Hans SLOANE’S codicil of 1749. [Sidenote: THE SERVICES OF MR. SPEAKER ONSLOW IN THE FORMATION OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM.]