In the interval, he had had a great opportunity, the first glimpse of which needs must have dilated the heart of so genuine a lover of antiquity. The publication of an improved edition of the _Monasticon Anglicanum_ of DODSWORTH and DUGDALE ought to have made a new epoch in British archæology. But the opportunity was lost. In those days, there was no encouragement for such labours at the Treasury; no enlightened promoter of them at the Rolls House. The control of the new _Monasticon_ passed into the hands of mere tradesmen. Neither of Mr. ELLIS’S co-editors ever buckled to the work. ELLIS himself became simply the servant of the associated publishers, who had no aim whatever beyond turning a golden penny out of the traditional prestige of Sir William DUGDALE’S name, and out of the standing advertisement that the _Monasticon_ was indubitably one of those books ‘which no gentleman’s library ought to be without.’ Heaps of crude, untranslated, and unelucidated information were thrust into the book, against the editor’s own clear conviction of his duty, and in spite of his remonstrance. ‘We must retrench,’ was the one answer to all editorial recommendations of real improvement. And meanwhile the publishers were actually netting fair profits from a long list of confiding subscribers. What might well have been a ‘broadstone of honour’ to English literature became its glaring disgrace.[24] No one would more gladly have striven for a better result—had the power lain with him—than would Sir Henry ELLIS. As to his nominal co-editors, they did almost nothing, from first to last. To far better result did ELLIS labour upon his successive editions of _Hall_, _Hardyng_, _Fabyan_, and _Polydore Vergil_, among our chroniclers, and of BRAND’S _Observations on Popular Antiquities_, of DUGDALE’S _History of Saint Paul’s Cathedral_, and of NORDEN’S _Essex_, among the standard illustrations of our archæology and topography. But his most enduring contribution to historical literature is, beyond doubt, his _Original Letters, illustrative of English History_, the publication of which began in 1824, and was completed in 1846. That work alone would suffice to keep his name in honourable memory for a long time to come. At the British Museum he had a considerable advantage over his predecessor in the Principal-Librarianship. He enjoyed the assistance, almost from the first, of an abler staff, in more than one of the departments, than Mr. PLANTA had commanded during the earlier years of his administration. [Sidenote: LABOURS OF SIR H. ELLIS AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM.] And an improved order of service had been established before Mr. ELLIS’S rule began. In this way appliances lay already under his hand which facilitated the work of progress, when—more especially—a strong demand for improvement came from without, as well as from the action of the Trustees themselves within. [Sidenote: STATE OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM STAFF AT THE TIME OF THE DEATH OF MR. PLANTA.]