Watts’s elastic system of numbering the presses, the books destined to occupy them were removed from their previous locality without the alteration of a single press mark. They consisted, for the most part, of acquisitions made since 1845, the date when Panizzi’s quoted report on the deficiencies of the Library was laid before the House of Commons. The ground floor of the Reading-Room was occupied by 20,000 volumes especially selected to serve as a Reference Library. These were partly chosen, and the whole were admirably catalogued by Mr. Rye, then Second Assistant-Keeper, who also drew the coloured ground plan of the Reading-Room, and superintended the placing of the volumes. Several picked Assistants worked extra time under him for many days, and the task was only completed just in time for the opening of the room. The galleries were filled with periodicals, and all the books above and below were bound, or, at least, gilt and furbished, with an especial view to decorative effect. It only remained to provide for the management of the Room by the appointment of Mr. Watts as Superintendent. “The readers,” wrote Mr. Winter Jones in 1859, “have thus placed at their disposal, for six hours every day, the services of a gentleman whose intimate acquaintance with the Museum collections, extensive knowledge of the literature of his own and foreign countries, and acquirements as a linguist rarely to be met with, render him peculiarly fitted to carry out the chief object of the Trustees.” This description, which has already been drawn out to a length rather exceeding our original intentions, but which the interest of the subject somewhat justifies, may appropriately be concluded with a notice of the last ornaments added to the Reading-Room:— Here is a bust of Panizzi, by Baron Marochetti, placed over the principal entrance; an admirable likeness, but, whatever its merits, the position in which it was to have been placed met at the time with strenuous opposition on the ground of convenience even from Panizzi himself. “B. M., May 14th, 1856. “My dear Sir Henry, I had the curiosity to go and see where it was proposed to place my bust, I need not say that the condescension of the Trustees in permitting it to be exhibited anywhere is as gratifying to me as the mark of regard which prompted my fellow-labourers in the Printed-Book Department to subscribe for that work; I am, therefore, much flattered by the suggestion of the Building Committee, but my personal feelings and gratification ought not to prevail over the public convenience, and on this ground I earnestly beg of them to reconsider that suggestion.