And he adds:—‘If money had been forthcoming, the number of manuscripts acquired during the last fifteen years might have been more than doubled. The collections that have passed into other hands, namely, Sir Robert CHAMBERS’ Sanscrit MSS.; Sir William OUSELEY’S Persian; BRUCE’S Ethiopic and Arabic; MICHAEL’S Hebrew; LIBRI’S Italian, French, Latin, and Miscellaneous; BARROIS’ French and Latin; as well as the Stowe Collection of Anglo-Saxon, Irish, and English manuscripts, might all have been so united. The liberality of the Treasury becomes very small when compared with the expenditure of individuals. Lord ASHBURNHAM, during the last ten years, has paid nearly as large a sum for MSS. as has been expended on the National Collection since the Museum was first founded.’ [Sidenote: GROWTH OF THE PRINTED DEPARTMENT UP TO 1851.] The causes which at this period again tended somewhat to slacken the growth of the Printed Collection have been glanced at already. But during the fifteen years from 1836 to 1851, it had increased at the rate of sixteen thousand volumes a year, on the average. When the estimates of 1852 were under discussion, Mr. PANIZZI stated, ‘that till room is provided, the deficiency must in a great measure continue, and new [foreign] books only to a limited extent be purchased.’ The grant for such purchases was therefore, in that year, limited to four thousand pounds. In a subsequent report, Mr. PANIZZI added, ‘that he could not but deeply regret the ill-consequences which must accrue by allowing old deficiencies to continue, and new ones to accumulate.’ From the same report may be gathered a precise view of the actual additions, from all sources, during the quinquennium of 1846–1850. The increase in the printed books, therefore, although it had not quite kept pace with Mr. PANIZZI’S hopeful anticipations in 1852, had actually reached a larger yearly average, during that last quinquennium, than was attained in the like period from 1846 to 1850.