How to See the British Museum in Four Visits | Page 2

the trustees of this institution published their "Statutes and Rules
relating to the Inspection and Use of the British Museum." This
instructive document may now serve to illustrate the darkness from
which, even now, we are struggling. Those visitors who now consider it
rather an affront to be required to give up their cane or umbrella at the
entrance to our museums and galleries, will be astonished to learn, that
in the early days of the museum, those persons who wished to inspect
the national collection, were required to make previous application to
the porter, in writing, stating their names, condition, and places of
abode, as also the day and hour at which they desired to be admitted.
Their applications were written down in a register, which was
submitted every evening to the librarian or secretary in attendance. If
this official, judging from the condition and ostensible character of an
applicant, deemed him eligible for admittance, he directed the porter to
give him a ticket on the following day. Thus the candidate for
admission was compelled to make two visits, before he could learn
whether it was the gracious will of a librarian or secretary that he
should be allowed the privilege of inspecting Sir Hans Sloane's
curiosities. If successful, his trouble did not end when he obtained the
ticket; for it was provided by the trustees that no more than ten tickets
should be given out for each hour of admittance. Accordingly, every
morning on which the museum was accessible, the porter received a
company of ten ticket-holders at nine o'clock, ushered them into a
waiting-room "till the hour of seeing the museum had come," to quote
the words of the trustees. This party was divided into two groups of
five persons, one being placed under the direction of the under-librarian,
and the other under that of the assistant in each department. Thus
attended, the companies traversed the galleries; and, on a signal being

given by the tinkling of a bell, they passed from one department of the
collection into another:--an hour being the utmost time allowed for the
inspection of one department. This system calls to mind the dragooning
practised in Westminster Abbey, under the command of the gallant
vergers, to the annoyance of leisurely visitors, and of ardent but not
active archaeologists. Sometimes, when public curiosity was
particularly excited, the number of respectable applicants for admission
to the museum exceeded the limit of the prescribed issue. In these cases,
tickets were given for remote days; and thus, at times, when the lists
were heavy, it must have been impossible for a passing visitor in
London to get within the gateway of Montague House. In these old
regulations the trustees provided also, that when any person, having
obtained tickets, was prevented from making use of them at the
appointed time, he was to send them back to the porter, in order "that
other persons wanting to see the museum might not be excluded."
Three hours was the limit of the time any company might spend in the
museum; and those who were so unreasonable or inquisitive as to be
desirous of visiting the museum more than once, might apply for tickets
a second time "provided that no person had tickets at the same time for
more than one." The names of those persons who, in the course of a
visit, wilfully transgressed any of the rules laid down by the trustees,
were written in a register, and the porter was directed not to issue
tickets to them again.
These regulations secured the exclusive attendance of the upper classes.
The libraries were hoarded for the particular enjoyment of the worm,
whose feast was only at rare intervals disturbed by some student
regardless of difficulties. To the poor, worn, unheeded authors of those
days, serenely starving in garrets, assuredly the British Museum must
have been as impenetrable as a Bastille. We imagine the prim
under-librarian glancing with a supercilious expression upon the names
and addresses of many poor, aspiring, honourable men--men, whose
"condition," to use the phrase of the trustees, bespoke not the gentility
of that vulgar age. In those days the weaver and the carpenter would as
soon have contemplated a visit to St. James's Palace as have hoped for
an admission ticket to the national museum.
These mean precautions of the last century, contrast happily with the
enlightened liberty of this. Crowds of all ranks and conditions besiege

the doors of the British Museum, especially in holiday times, yet the
skeleton of the elephant is spotless, and the bottled rattlesnakes
continue to pickle in peace. The Elgin marbles have suffered no
abatement of their marvellous beauties; and the coat of the cameleopard
is with out a blemish. The Yorkshireman has his unrestrained stare at
Sesostris; the undertaker spends his holiday