been said (by the same acute thinker who has just been quoted) in better words than any of mine:—‘The great works that were wrought by men of former times; the great fabrics that were raised by them; their mounds and embankments against the powers of evil; their drains to carry off mischief; the wide fields they redeemed from the overflowings of barbarism; the countless fields they enclosed and husbanded for good to grow and thrive in; ... all this they [mainly] achieved _for Posterity_.... [Sidenote: J. & A. Hare, _Guesses at Truth_, vol. ii, p. 13.] Except for Posterity; except for the vital magnetic consciousness that while men perish, Man survives, the only principle of prudent conduct must have been, “_Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die_.”’ The pages which follow have been written in the belief that they afford—whatever the defects of their Writer—useful illustrations of this great and pregnant truth. To him it has not been given to work ‘_for Posterity_,’ otherwise than as a Chronicler of some of the workings of other men. But he owns to a special delight in that humble function. Its charm,—to his mind,—is enhanced, on the present occasion, by the very fact that so much of the work now about to be narrated is the work of men who only rarely have been labouring with other means, or with other implements, than those which were personal to themselves, as individuals. In the chief countries of the Continent of Europe—on the other hand—great national Museums have, commonly, had their origin in the liberality and wise foresight either of some sovereign or other, or of some powerful minister whose mind was large enough to combine with the cares of State a care for Learning. In Britain, our chief public collection of literature and of science originated simply in the public spirit of private persons. 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. As regards Parliament, the tardy and languid acceptance of the boon proffered, posthumously, by Sir Hans SLOANE, constitutes just the one exceptional act of encouragement that serves to give saliency to the utter indifference which formed the ordinary rule.