I was myself present at an interview (in Lambeth), when the most urgent influence was used with Mr. Hawes to induce him to attack Mr. Panizzi’s original appointment as an ‘Assistant-Librarian’; and I heard him express a strong approval of it, on the ground of the obvious qualifications and abilities of the individual officer—though himself sharing the opinion that in such appointments Englishmen should have the preference. Footnote 27: It was in the old rooms in the Court-yard of Montagu House that Charles Lamb enjoyed the last, I think, of his ‘dinings-out.’ A few days after his final visit (November, 1834) the hand of Death was already upon him. Cary, before writing the well-known epitaph, wrote some other graceful and touching lines on his old friend. They were occasioned by finding, in a volume lent to Lamb by Cary, Lamb’s bookmark, against a page which told of the death of Sydney. They begin thus:— ‘So should it be, my gentle friend, Thy leaf last closed at Sydney’s end; Thou too, like Sydney, wouldst have given The water, thirsting, and near Heaven.’ Footnote 28: It is necessary that I should state, with precision, the sources of the information conveyed in the text. I rely, chiefly, on three several sources, one of which is publicly accessible. My main knowledge of the matter rests (first) upon the _Minutes of Evidence_ taken by Lord Ellesmere’s Commission of 1848–1850; (secondly) upon conversations with the late Mr. Edward Hawkins, held in July and August, 1837, not long after the appearance of Mr. Cary’s letter in _The Times_; (thirdly) upon a conversation, on the same subject, with which I was honoured by Sir Henry Ellis in 1839. Footnote 29: I believe that his earliest contribution consisted of some articles entitled ‘Notes of a Reader,’ published in 1830, in a periodical (long since defunct) called _The Spirit of Literature_. These were written and printed long before Mr. Watts became a correspondent of the _Mechanics’ Magazine_, as mentioned in the text. Footnote 30: In _Minutes of Evidence_ (page 596) printed erroneously ‘_reasonable_.’ To the brief extract, for which alone I can here afford space, were appended, in the original Report, many pertinent amplifications and illustrations. Some of these are given in the _Minutes of Evidence_ above referred to. Footnote 31: The ‘successor’ referred to is Mr. Winter Jones, then Keeper of Printed Books, now Principal-Librarian of the British Museum. Footnote 32: Birch, _Ancient Pottery_, vol. i, pp. 209, 210. Footnote 33: