The homely rooms in the Court-yard of the Museum allotted to the Assistant-Keeper of the Printed Book Department were soon the habitual resort of a cluster of poets. The faces of COLERIDGE, ROGERS, Charles LAMB,[27] and (during their occasional visits to London) those of SOUTHEY and of WORDSWORTH, became, in those days, very familiar at the gate of old Montagu House. COLERIDGE had always loved CARY, and when the charms of long monologues, delivered at the Grove to devout listeners, withheld him from visits, the correspondence between Highgate and Bloomsbury became so frequent and so voluminous, that he is said to have endeavoured to persuade Sir Francis FREELING that all correspondence to or from the British Museum ought to be officially regarded as ‘On His Majesty’s Service,’ and to be franked, to any weight, accordingly. But those love-enlivened rooms were, in a very few years, to be darkly clouded. CARY lost his wife on the twenty-second of November, 1832, and almost immediately afterwards—so dreadful was the blow to him—‘a look of mere childishness, approaching to a suspension of vitality, marked the countenance which had but now beamed with intellect.’ [Sidenote: _Life of H. F. Cary_, by his Son, vol. ii, p. 198.] Such are the words of his fellow-mourner. Part of Mr. CARY’S duties at the Museum now necessarily fell, for a few months, to be discharged by Mr. PANIZZI, who, in the preceding year, had been appointed next in office to CARY. The circumstances of that appointment have been thus stated by the eminent Prelate who made it:— [Sidenote: CIRCUMSTANCES OF MR. PANIZZI’S FIRST APPOINTMENT IN 1831.] ‘Mr. PANIZZI was entirely unknown to me, except by reputation. I understood that he was a civilian who had come from Italy, and that he was a man of great acquirements and talents, peculiarly well suited for the British Museum. That was represented to me by several persons who were not connected with the Museum, and it was strongly pressed by several of the Trustees, who were of opinion that Mr. PANIZZI’S appointment would be very advantageous for the institution. [Sidenote: _Minutes of Evidence taken before the Select Committee on the British Museum_, 28 June, 1836, p. 433.]Considering the qualifications of that gentleman, his knowledge of foreign languages, his eminent ability and extensive attainments, I could not doubt the propriety of acceding to their wishes.’