This obligation cannot be thought to be a grievance to authors and publishers, when we reflect to what an extent authors, and therefore publishers, are dependent on the resources of these Libraries. What work of research could be produced without the aid they give? We benefit by the generosity of our forefathers; we are only asked to hand on the torch and help to do for posterity what antiquity has done for us. A money grant, however satisfactory to the Libraries, would not accomplish the same public end, namely, the preservation of the literature of the time, independently of the particular tastes or predilections of the successive librarians. Even in the case of very expensive works, of which only a small number of copies is issued, publishers take the obligation into account, and the result is a relatively slight increase of price not felt by the purchasers of such works. The number of printed books in the Library in 1792 was about 46,000. In 1844 it had risen to 96,000, a large part of the increase being due to the acquisition of the Fagel Library. When the books were last counted (August, 1891), the printed books numbered 222,648, the MSS. 1,938, giving a total of 224,586. It should be remembered that we count volumes, not separate publications, hence a volume containing say thirty pamphlets counts only as one book. Many of the older volumes contain two or more books of considerable size bound in one. * * * * * This may suffice for the history of the Library: I now proceed to speak of its contents. If precedence is given to antiquity, the first objects to claim our attention are the Egyptian papyri. These were presented by Lord Kingsborough about 1838, and a catalogue of them was published by Dr. Edward Hincks. One of these is very finely embellished with pictures representing the history of a departed soul; several resemble the corresponding pictures in the papyrus of Ani, of which a fac-simile was recently published by the British Museum. Some of the pictures wanting in this (our) papyrus are supplied in others of the collection, such as the weighing of the soul, the ploughing, sowing, and reaping in the fields of Elysium.