1. You have introduced regulations into the Library which are vexatious and unnecessary, and impede research by preventing literary men from consulting the Books with facility and comfort. 2. That the new Catalogue is improperly delayed; and that its plan is injudicious, if not impracticable, and therefore that the money spent on its compilation is wasted. With respect to "_Press-marks_" my objection is, as you cannot but know, not to their being inserted in the Catalogue, to be used if a Reader desires to identify a particular copy of a book, but _to your insisting, as a sine quâ non_ to the delivery of any book whatever,--no matter how well known it may be--that the applicant shall refer to the Catalogue, _and fill up five columns_ "LITERALLY," including the "Press-mark." I say this is vexatious and unnecessary. In one hundred out of one hundred and five cases, the Title itself, written from memory, ought to be, as (I repeat it) it was in the time of your predecessors, sufficient. If a particular edition is wanted, the applicant will not fail to specify it. If he has a doubt as to the title or edition, he will then refer to the Catalogue. But in my case, when I had copied both the Title and the Press-mark, I could not obtain the book, and you justify the neglect. I entirely deny that your system causes a quicker delivery of books. On the contrary, I declare from experience that the delay is now much greater than it was before you introduced your scheme. A Reader is still, sometimes, told that a book is not in the Library, though he may have used it only a few days before. Perhaps you may not have forgotten the Index to the Despatches of the Duke of Wellington, which you insisted with "characteristic" gentleness, was not in the Library, though I over and over again told you I had had it in my hands within a week.--I persisted, and the book was brought to me in ten minutes after your vehement assurances that it was not in the Museum! So much for the working of your system.[B] You say the fault in these cases is the applicant's, for not complying with all your regulations; and you coolly talk of their imputing "the effect of their own ignorance or carelessness to the Officers of the Museum." I answer, that the Officers of the Museum have no right to impose regulations which are vexatious and unnecessary; which give useless trouble, and cause great loss of time. The applicants may almost as reasonably be expected to copy the whole of the first and last pages of books, as what you require; and because an _unimportant_ mistake is made as to the date and size of a book, of which there is only one edition, and no similar Title in the English language, the salaried Officer of the Institution refuses, or rather justifies his subordinate in refusing the book, and thinks it decorous and proper to taunt him with "ignorance or carelessness."