The existing constitution of the Board of Trustees of the British Museum has been on many occasions, and by several writers, somewhat freely impugned. More than once it has been the subject of criticism in the House of Commons. With little alteration that Board remains, in 1869, what Parliament made it in 1753. Obviously, it might be quite possible to frame a new governing Corporation, in a fashion more accordant with what are sometimes called the ‘progressive tendencies’ of the period. But I venture to think that the bare enumeration of the facts which have now been briefly tabulated, in this introductory chapter, gives a proof of faithful and zealous administration of a great trust, such as cannot be gainsaid by any the most ardent lover of innovation. Both the Collections given, and the Collections purchased, afford conclusive and splendid proofs that the Trustees and the Officers have alike won the confidence and merited the gratitude of those whose acquirements and pursuits in life have best qualified them to give a verdict on the implied issue. If, of late years, the public purse has been opened with somewhat more of an approach to harmony with the openhandedness of private Englishmen, that result is wholly due to unremitting effort on the part both of the Trustees who govern, and of the Officers who administer, or have administered, the British Museum. And, to attain their end, both Trustees and Officers have, very often, had to fight hard, as the later chapters of this volume will more than sufficiently show. CHAPTER II. =THE FOUNDER OF THE COTTONIAN LIBRARY.= ‘Est in hac urbe nobilis Eques, homo pereruditus rerum vetustarum et omnis historiæ, sive priscæ, sive recentis, studiossisimus, qui ex ipsis monumentis publicis et epistolis duarum reginarum Angliæ et Scotiæ veram eorum quæ gesta sunt, historiam didicit, et jam regis jussu eandem componit, digeritque in ordinem.’ CASAUBON to DE THOU (London, 5 Kal. Mart., 1611). _Epistolæ_, 373. _The Personal and Public Life of Sir Robert_ COTTON.—_His Political Writings and Political Persecutions.—Sources and Growth of the Cottonian Library.—The Successors of Sir Robert_ COTTON.—_History of the Cottonian Library, until its union with the Library of Harley, and with the Museum and Miscellaneous Collections of_ SLOANE.—_Review of some recent Aspersions on the Character of the Founder._ [Sidenote: BOOK I, Chap. II. LIFE OF SIR ROBERT COTTON.]