on his own previous knowledge of my character and services, the Archbishop was pleased to declare his determination to appoint me, with the understanding that if at any future time infirmity should render me unfit for my trust, I should resign. You, my Lord, and the Speaker, have refused to concur in the appointment, and have placed my subordinate officer, Mr. Panizzi, a Foreigner, who has been here some years less than myself, over me, and at the head of our national library. Being convinced that when the nomination to offices in the British Museum was intrusted by the country to men themselves holding high offices in the State, it was on the implied condition that they would either acquit themselves of their duty by an attention to its internal management, or abstain from active interference if they were conscious of having given no such attention. I feel that I owe it not merely to myself, but to my fellow-countrymen, to protest against your present decision, to call publicly for an inquiry into the mode in which my duty in the Museum has been performed, and into the particulars of what I have done, which may be ascertained by means of our monthly reports, and to demand for what reason a person in an inferior station has been preferred to me, in opposition to the only one of the three nominators who regularly inspects the minutes of the establishment, and is at all likely to have an intimate and accurate knowledge of its concerns, and to be capable of forming a just judgment concerning them. I am, &c., H. F. CARY.’” In justification of Panizzi, Hallam’s opinion of his fitness for the post is given:— “Wimpole Street, July 6, 1837 My dear Sir, [Illustration: Henry Hallam]