And then he added a remark which (long years afterwards) Sir Richard Colt HOARE profited by, and made a source of profit to our National Museum. ‘I am told,’ said JOHNSON, ‘that scarcely a village of Italy wants its historian. And it will be of great use to collect, in every place, maps of the adjacent country, and plans of towns, buildings, and gardens. By this care you will form a more valuable body of geography than could otherwise be had.’ On that point—as, indeed, on all the points about which he gave advice—JOHNSON’S counsel bore excellent fruit. The ‘body of geography’ contained in the Georgian Library has never, I think, been surpassed in any one Collection (made by a single Collector) in the world. It laid, substantially, the foundation of the noble assemblage of charts and maps which now forms a separate Department of the Museum, under the able superintendence of Mr. Richard Henry MAJOR, who has done much for the advancement of geographical knowledge in many paths, but in none more efficiently than in his Museum labours. Like good counsel was given to BARNARD by the great lexicographer, in relation to the gathering of illustrated books. He told the King’s Librarian that he ought to seek diligently for old books adorned with woodcuts, because the designs were often those of great masters. [Sidenote: JOHNSON’S REMARK ON MODERN ILLUSTRATED BOOKS.] When to this remark the Doctor added the words: ‘Those old prints are such as cannot be made by any artist now living,’ he asserted what was undoubtedly true, if he limited that high praise to the best class of the works of which he was speaking. But his words carry in them also an indirect testimony of honour to GEORGE THE THIRD. If, in the century which has passed since Samuel JOHNSON discussed with Frederick BARNARD the wisest means of forming a Royal Library, a great stride has been made by the arts of design in Britain, a share of the merit belongs to the patriotic old King. He was amongst the earliest in his dominions to encourage British art with an open hand. He was not only the founder of the Royal Academy, but a most liberal patron to artists; and he did not limit his patronage to those men alone who belonged to his own Academy. If for a series of years the Royal Academy did less for Art, and did its work in a more narrow spirit of coterie than it ought to have done, the fault was not in the founder. And, of late years, the Academy itself has, in many ways, nobly vindicated its foundation and the aid it has received from the Public. Towards the foundation of the Academy, GEORGE THE THIRD gave, from his privy purse, more than five thousand pounds. To many of its members he was a genial friend, as well as a liberal patron.