Joseph PLANTA was of Swiss parentage. He was of a race and family which had given to Switzerland several worthies who have left a mark in its national history. He was born, on the twenty-first of February, 1744, at Castasegna, where his father was the pastor of a reformed church. The boy left Switzerland before he had completed the second year of his age. [Sidenote: LIFE OF JOSEPH PLANTA, THIRD PRINCIPAL-LIBRARIAN.] He began his education at Utrecht, and continued it, first at the University of Göttingen, and afterwards by foreign travel—whilst yet open to the formative influences of youthful experience upon character—both in France and in Italy. It was thus his fortune to combine what there is of good in the characteristics of the cosmopolite with what is better in those of a patriotic son of the soil. It was Joseph PLANTA’S fortune never to live in Switzerland, as a resident, after the days of early infancy, but, for all that, he remained a true Swiss. And one of the acts of his closing years in England was to make a most creditable contribution to Helvetic history. Andrew PLANTA, father of Joseph, came to London in 1752. He was a man of good parts and of pleasing address. He established himself as pastor of a German congregation, and was also made an Assistant-Librarian in the British Museum. Afterwards, he was chosen to be a Fellow of the Royal Society and a ‘reader’ to Queen CHARLOTTE. That appointment brought with it, in course of time, a measure of Court influence by which young PLANTA profited. His youthful ‘_Wanderjahre_’ had inspired the growing man with a keen desire to see more of foreign countries. When the father’s favour at Court put him in a position to represent at head-quarters the youth’s fancy to see life abroad, and to state (as he truthfully could) that neither talent nor industry were lacking in his character, the statement obtained for Joseph PLANTA the secretaryship of legation at Brussels. There, he felt himself to be in an element which suited him; but his filial affection brought him back to England in 1773, in order that he might solace the last days, on earth, of his father. In that year the elder PLANTA died. It was also in 1773 that Joseph PLANTA became an Assistant-Librarian. In the next year he was appointed to succeed Dr. MATY in both of his then offices. At the Royal Society he succeeded him as Secretary; at the Museum, he succeeded him as an Under-Librarian—when the Doctor was made head of the establishment. His new post at the Museum brought to PLANTA the special charge of the Department of MSS.