WANLEY had already recorded a previous visit in which HANBURY had delivered ‘for my Lord OXFORD’S use, a small but curious parcel of old letters,’ adding: ‘I believe he expects a gratuity for them.’ On the last day of December he received another parcel; and on the 4th January, 1725, he again writes: ‘Mr. HANBURY gave me another parcel of letters written to Sir Robert COTTON.’ Without endorsing the violent diatribe of Lord OXFORD (the second of the Harleian Earls) against HANBURY’S successor—as the almost wilful destroyer of part of the Cotton MSS.—it must be admitted that there is conclusive evidence that neglect of duty on Dr. BENTLEY’S part was a moving agent in the disaster. Under his nominal keepership the practical duties of Cottonian Librarian were discharged by an industrious and otherwise meritorious deputy, David CASLEY. [Sidenote: THE PROJECT OF 1707 FOR UNITING THE COTTONIAN, ROYAL, AND ARUNDEL, LIBRARIES.] There were many projects for making Sir Robert COTTON’S noble collections, both in literature and antiquities, the foundation of a ‘British Museum,’ before a feasible and successful project was hit upon. [Sidenote: Sloane to Charlett, 7 April, 1707. (Bodleian Library, Oxford).] It is curious to note that one of these schemes embraced, as the groundwork of the projected national Museum, the collections of Sir Robert COTTON, of Prince HENRY, and of Lord ARUNDEL; and that some particulars of the plan were narrated—to a country correspondent—by Sir Hans SLOANE, almost fifty years before his own conditional bequest gave occasion and means for the eventual union of the collections so spoken of with the vast gatherings of all kinds, in literature and in science, to the procuring of which so large a portion of his own useful and laborious life was to be devoted. When that occasion came, two of the then Cottonian Trustees framed a Petition to Parliament in which they expressed their acknowledgments for ‘seasonable and necessary care’ of the Cotton Library. They alleged that it had remained ‘almost useless’ to the Public, during many years, for want of a fixed and convenient building to receive it; that it had been exposed to many dangers by frequent removals, and had once run the hazard of ‘a total destruction by fire.’ If, said they, the loss which the Public then sustained proved to be less than had been feared, the Public owed the obligation ‘to a great member of this House’ [of Commons] ‘who powerfully interposed and assisted in its preservation.’ The allusion is to the Right Hon. Arthur ONSLOW, the then Speaker, who afterwards became one of the first Trustees of the Museum established by the Act of 1753. [Sidenote: Petition of Samuel Burroughs and Thos. Hart; MS. in Cottonian ‘Appendix’ (B. M.).]