Readers who can call to mind even mere fragments of that superabundant evidence which tells of the neglect throughout much of the Tudor period of the public archives of the realm, can feel little surprise that Sir Robert COTTON should have been able to collect a multitude of documents which had once been the property of the nation, or of the sovereign. Those who are most familiar with that evidence ought to be the first to remember that, under the known circumstances of the time, the presumption of honest acquisition is stronger than that of dishonest, whenever conclusive proof of either is absent. English State Papers had passed into the possession not only of English antiquarians, but of English booksellers—and not a few of them into that of foreigners—before COTTON was born. Other considerations bearing on this matter, and tending as it seems in a like direction, belong to a later period of Sir Robert’s life. There is, however, a very weighty one which stands at the threshold of his career as a collector. Almost the earliest incident which is recorded of COTTON’S youthful days, is his concurrence in a petition in which Queen ELIZABETH was entreated to establish a Public and National Library, and to honour it with her own name. [Sidenote: ATTEMPT OF COTTON AND CAMDEN TO ESTABLISH A NATIONAL LIBRARY.] Its especial and prime object was to be the collection and preservation, as public property, of the monuments of our English history. The proposal was not altogether new. It was a much improved revival of a project which Dr. John DEE had once submitted, in an immature form, to Queen MARY. It was the reiteration of an earnest request which had been made to Queen ELIZABETH by Archbishop PARKER, at a time when COTTON was still in his cradle. The joint petition of COTTON and CAMDEN met with as little success as had attended the entreaties of those who had taken the same path before them. [Sidenote: _Petition, &c._ (undated) in Cotton MS. Faustina, E. V, ff. 67, 68.] The petitioners were willing to bind themselves, and others like-minded, to incur ‘costs, and charges,’ for the effectual attainment of their patriotic object, on the condition of royal patronage and royal fellow-working with them in its pursuit. When COTTON, upon bare presumptions, is charged to be an embezzler of records, this Petition comes to have a very obvious relevancy to the matter in question. The relevancy is enhanced by the fact that two, at least, of those who had (at various times) concurred in promoting its object, gave to the Library of their fellow-labourer in the field of antiquity, manuscripts and records which, had the issue of their project been otherwise, they would have given to the ‘Public Library of Queen ELIZABETH,’ in express trust for their fellow-countrymen at large.