These letters and conversations passed in the interval between the announcement that there would be a vacancy in the Museum staff and its actual occurrence. The Keepership became vacant on the twenty-fourth of June. On that day Mr. CARY made his personal application to the Archbishop. The Archbishop told him that objections were made to his appointment. CARY, immediately after his return, told his brother-officers BABER and PANIZZI what the Archbishop had communicated to him. ‘Then,’ said Mr. PANIZZI, ‘the thing concerns me.’ ‘Yes,’ rejoined CARY, ‘certainly it does.’ They all knew that applications for the vacant office from outsiders were talked of. Among these were the late Reverend Ernest HAWKINS and the late Reverend Richard GARNETT (who afterwards succeeded to the Assistant-Librarianship). And Mr. PANIZZI then proceeded to say to Mr. CARY: ‘You will not, now, object to my asking for the place myself, as there are these objections to you.’ CARY replied, ‘Not at all.’ Instantly, and in CARY’S presence, Mr. PANIZZI wrote thus to the Archbishop:—‘I hope your Grace will not deem it presumptuous in me to beg respectfully of your Grace and the other Principal Trustees to take my case into consideration, should they think it necessary to depart from the usual system of regular promotion, on appointing Mr. BABER’S successor. [Sidenote: Panizzi to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 26 June, 1837 (_Minutes of Evidence of 1850_).] I venture to say thus much, having been informed by Mr. CARY of the conversation he has had the honour to have with your Grace.’ The writer gave his letter into Mr. CARY’S hand, received his brother-officer’s immediate approval, and had that approval, at a later hour of the day and after a re-perusal of the letter, confirmed. Within the walls of the Museum, the general feeling was so strongly in favour of Mr. CARY’S appointment, despite all objection (and nothing can be more natural than that it should be so—‘A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind’), that the _public_ interest, in having an officer who would use the appointment rather as a working-tool than as a reclining staff, was, for the moment, lost sight of. Sir Henry ELLIS himself, when asked to give a formal testimonial of Mr. PANIZZI’S qualifications to be head of the Printed Book Department, answered: ‘If you told me that the Bodleian Librarianship was vacant—or any other outside Librarianship worth your having—you should have my heartiest recommendation. At present, you must excuse me;’ or in words to that effect. Edward HAWKINS, then Keeper of the Department of Antiquities, expressed himself (in the hearing of the present writer) to like purpose, when asked what his opinion was on a point which, at the moment, attracted not a little attention in literary circles.[28]