At that date the Department of Printed Books was under the charge of the Rev. Henry Hervey BABER (the eminent editor of the ‘Alexandrian MS.’ of the Septuagint). He was assisted by Mr. Henry Francis CARY, the translator of DANTE, and also by Mr. WALTER, who had been one of the Librarians of King GEORGE THE THIRD, and who, in 1831, was succeeded by Mr. Antonio PANIZZI. In the Department of MSS. Mr. ELLIS’S Assistant-Keeper, the Rev. Josiah FORSHALL, had succeeded to the charge, and the new Keeper had the able assistance of Sir Frederick MADDEN, whose labours for the improvement of his department are well known to scholars. The Antiquities were confided to Mr. Edward HAWKINS; the various Natural History Collections to Messrs. KÖNIG and CHILDREN. The Botanical Department was, as I have shown at the close of the preceding Book, just about to be reorganized (almost to be created) by the transfer of the Collections of Sir Joseph BANKS, and with them of the services of their distinguished Keeper. Taken altogether, such a staff as this was of threefold efficiency to that with which Mr. PLANTA had started at the beginning of the century. Mr. ELLIS enjoyed an additional advantage from the great familiarity with the whole service of the Museum which he had acquired during his labours as Secretary from the year 1814. The secretarial duty had been combined with the functions of keepership during thirteen years. Great punctuality, a conspicuous faculty for method and memory, and very courteous manners, were qualifications which are not always, or necessarily, found in union with conspicuous industry. In him they were combined. Nevertheless, he narrowly escaped losing the merited reward of long and assiduous labours. For he had a formidable competitor. [Sidenote: THE CANDIDATURE OF MR. H. FYNES CLINTON.]