Then the visitor, passing again through the vestibule (_A_) and great saloon (_B_), entered the rooms _K_, _L_, and _M_. _K_ contained the minerals and fossils of Sir Hans SLOANE’S collection; _L_, the shells; _M_, the plants and insects. Thence he passed into _N_, which was devoted to the bulk of the SLOANE Zoological Collection, and into _O_, containing artificial and miscellaneous curiosities. Descending to the floor beneath, by the secondary staircase between _N_ and _O_, the visitor then entered the small room _P_, which contained the magnetic apparatus given by Dr. Gowin KNIGHT, and the rooms, _Q_ and _R_ devoted to the reception of the greater part of the Royal Library, restored by HENRY, Prince of Wales, and augmented—but with extreme parsimony—by several of the Stuart monarchs, whose additions to the shelves were, indeed, much oftener made of books given, than of books bought. He then passed into SLOANE’S Printed Library, which occupied the whole of the spacious and handsome suite of rooms _S_, _T_, _V_, _W_, _X_, and _Y_, and (passing through the Trustees’ Room _Z_,) entered the room _A A_, containing the EDWARDS Library; ending his tour of inspection in the room _B B_, in which was arranged the remainder of the old Royal Library, the main portion whereof had been seen already in _Q_ and _R_. [Illustration: _Rough Diagram, showing Ground Plan of the original British Museum of 1759._ ] When the combined Museum and Libraries, thus arranged, were first opened to the inspection of the curious Public in 1759, the collections enumerated in the Foundation Act of 1753 had, it is seen, already received some notable increase by gifts. [Sidenote: EARLY HELPERS IN THE FOUNDATION AND GROWTH OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM.] The first donor was the House of Lords, by whose order the historical collections of Thomas RYMER, royal historiographer, and editor of the _Fœdera_, were given to the Trustees, immediately after their incorporation. [Sidenote: 1755–57.] Then followed, in 1757, the gift of the Royal Library and that of the Lethieullier Antiquities from Egypt. [See Chapter II.] The next donor, in order of time, was a Jewish merchant, and stock-broker, of humble origin, but of princely disposition. [Sidenote: 1759. DA COSTA’S HEBREW COLLECTION.—HISTORY OF THE COLLECTOR.] Solomon DA COSTA was one of the many men who have done honour to commerce not merely by its successful prosecution, but by the conspicuous union of mercantile astuteness with noble tastes and true beneficence. [Sidenote: _Correspondence of Thomas Hollis._] His talents for business enabled him to make a hundred thousand pounds—which in his day was more, perhaps, than the equivalent of four hundred thousand in ours. He had made it, says a keen observer, who knew the man well, ‘without scandal or meanness.’ When wealth made him independent, he spent his new leisure, not in luxury but in hard labour for the poor.