The history and traditions of the Reading-Room at the British Museum have been so faithfully and minutely recorded by others that it would be unpardonable to overcrowd our space in this work with too full a description of them. Since the year 1758, a Reading-Room has always been attached to the Museum, and the original apartment was, by all accounts, especially comfortable and even luxurious. Though small, it seems to have been sufficiently large to meet the requirements of those early days of its existence. We read of this pleasant corner room in “the basement story, with one oak table and twenty chairs,” so small as to be fitted for only twenty readers, yet it was seldom patronized to the extent of its full capabilities. In one respect it must have been truly paradisiacal, for it opened into a delightful garden in which, as tradition has it, the presiding deity was accustomed to walk, although not in the cool of the evening. This gentleman, Dr. Templeman, afterwards Secretary to the Society of Arts, seems, notwithstanding, to have found his duties sufficiently onerous. After eight months’ incumbency, “he takes the opportunity of reminding the Committee that he begs to be relieved from the excessive attendance of six hours’ continuance each day, for it is more than he is able to bear,” and on March 13, 1760, he records with a chuckle “Last Tuesday, no company coming to the Reading-Room, Dr. Templeman ventured to go away about 2 o’clock.” Not above twenty readers were admitted monthly during the first few months, and when the novelty of the institution had worn off, even this average declined to ten or twelve. It is true that among these appear the names of Johnson, Gray, Hume and Blackstone. Nor were the regulations patterns of liberality. The statutes directed that notice should be given in writing the day before to the officer in attendance by each person “what book or manuscript he will be desirous of perusing the following day; which book or manuscript in such request will be lodged in some convenient place in the said room, and will from thence be delivered to him by the officer of the said room.” From the delightful garden with which it communicated, and its almost rural surroundings; from the illustrious names of those ornaments of the silver age of our literature who frequented it, and in the excellence of whose works one almost seems to discover traces of quiet ease of study, such as this resort must have afforded, it is with mingled feelings of regret and envy that we turn to our own time and lament that the world of readers and writers should have arrived at such monstrous dimensions and such unmanageable proportions.