A delicate circumstance connected with his family circle seems to have combined with this regretted interruption, by increasing illness, of his precautionary measures and intentions (the secure fulfilling of which lay near his heart), to make him uneasy and anxious. [Sidenote: THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE WOODHOUSE BEQUEST.] He sent for a legal friend, Dr. ZAMBELLI; told him of his plans, and also of his fears that they might be—in the event of his sudden death, and he felt that death was fast coming—obstructed. ZAMBELLI told him that the person to whom his purpose and wishes ought to be communicated, without delay, was undoubtedly the British Consul-General, Mr. SAUNDERS. In joint communication with both of them, a deed of gift was prepared. ‘Having been engaged,’ said the donor, ‘in numismatic pursuits, ... and being desirous that the Collection of Coins _and other Antiquities_ so formed by me, should be dedicated to national purposes, I give,’ and so on. No inventory, however, had been made when the donor died, on the twenty-sixth of February, 1866. Before WOODHOUSE’S death, Mr. Consul-General SAUNDERS put a guard round the house; and, immediately after the event, sent away all the household, taking official possession of the whole of the effects, in the manner usual in cases of undoubted _intestacy_.[47] He then, according to his own statement, set about ‘selecting such portions’ of Mr. WOODHOUSE’S property as ‘seemed’ (to him and to a clerical friend of the collector) ‘_suitable_ for the British Museum.’ Most naturally, when the intelligence came to the Museum, it was thought by the Trustees that Mr. SAUNDERS had both very seriously exceeded, and very gravely fallen short of, his obvious official duty. ‘Selection’ was felt to have been superfluous in respect to any and every item, of every kind, belonging to the donor’s museum. Just as plainly, the instant forwarding of the whole, on the other hand, was a peremptory obligation upon the British Consul. Eventually (and by the zealous exertions of Sir A. PANIZZI and of Mr. Charles NEWTON, respectively, on behalf of the Trustees) conclusive evidence was placed before Lord STANLEY (the now Earl of DERBY, and then, it will be remembered, Foreign Secretary of State) that Mr. Consul-General SAUNDERS had divided the Woodhouse antiquities into _two_ portions, and had then proceeded to allot the smaller portion to the British Museum, and the larger to the ‘heirs-at-law’ of the deceased. Nor is it yet quite certain that such division was _all_ the division that occurred.