MUSEUMS.

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foreign academies named in the will; and that should these alsodecline the offer, his executors should then be at liberty todispose of it, in such a manner as should appear to themmost eligible. .

“ Sir Hans Sloane died in the beginning of the year 1753:the offer, directed in his will, was immediately made to par-liament, and was accepted without hesitation. Before theexpiration of that year, an act was passed, which orderedthe payment of the stipulated sum to his executors, andvested the property of the museum in trustees, for the use ofthe public.” The library consisted of, in printed books andMSS. including prints and drawings, 50,000 volumes, witha great assemblage of other valuables, classed under theheads of coins and medals; antique idols and utensils;cameos, intaglios, seals, &c.; vessels and utensils of agate,jasper, &c.; anatomical preparations of human bodies, partsof mummies, calculi, &c.; quadrupeds, and their parts;birds, and their parts, eggs, and nests; amphibia; Crustacea;shells, echini, entrochi; insects, corals, sponges, zoophytes;stones, ores, bitumens; salts, &c.; volumes of dried plants ;mathematical instruments; miscellaneous artificial curiosi-ties; MS. catalogues of the whole museum, 38 vol. folio,and 8 quarto. To this large collection, forming a beginningfor a scientific repository, the same act directed that thevery valuable library, which had become public property,collected by Sir Robert Cotton , in the time of Elizabethand James I. and increased by his son Sir T. Cotton, in thesubsequent reign, should be made a part of the above Sloa-nian collection, and both form an intended national museum.The Cottonian library chiefly consisted of authentic docu-ments relative to the history, antiquities, laws, &c. of thiscountry and of Ireland , then consisting of 861 volumes, thecontents of which are collected in a preface to the catalogue,compiled by Dr. Smyth, published in 1696, and an enlargedone, printed in 1802, by order of his Majesty. Besidesthese MSS. there are also a considerable number of coins,Saxon, Roman, and British.

To these were added the very splendid library of MajorEdwards, consisting of about 2000 volumes of English ,French , and Italian books, bequeathed to the trustees of theCottonian library, with a sum of £7000, for erecting abuilding or repository, for the reception of both libraries,which had been vested in the public funds since 1769, theannual produce thereof h^d been expended in the purchaseof books, coins, &c. which had continually increased thecollection.