the institution of
late years, from parliamentary grants and the interest of private
legacies, have been about L50,000. The number of visitors to the Museum
is immense. In the year 1848 they amounted to 897,985, being an average
of about 3000 visitors per day for every day the Museum is open. On
special occasions there have been as many as thirty thousand visitors on
a single day.

This noble institution may be said to have originated in the bequest of
Sir Hans Sloane, who, dying in 1752, left his immense collections of
every kind to the nation, on the condition of paying L20,000 in legacies
to different individuals; a sum considerably less than the intrinsic
value of the medals, coins, gems, and precious metals of his museum.
This bequest included a library of 50,000 volumes, among which were 3566
volumes of manuscripts in different languages; a herbarium of 334
volumes; other objects of natural history, to the number of
six-and-thirty or forty thousand, and the house at Chiswick, in which
the whole was deposited. The Harleian collection of manuscripts,
amounting to 7600 volumes, chiefly relating to the history of England,
and including, among many other curious documents, 40,000 ancient
charters and rolls, being about the same time offered for sale,
parliament voted a sum of L30,000, to be raised by lottery, and vested
in trustees, for the establishment of a National Museum. Of this money,
L20,000 were paid to the legatees of Sir Hans Sloane, L10,000 were given
for the Harleian Manuscripts, and L10,000 for Montague House as a
receptacle for the whole. Sloane's Museum was removed thither with the
consent of his trustees. In 1757, George II., by an instrument under the
great seal, added the library of the kings of England, the printed books
of which had been collected from the time of Henry VII., the manuscripts
from a much earlier date. This collection was very rich in the
prevailing literature of different periods, and it included, amongst
others, the libraries of Archbishop Cranmer, and of the celebrated
scholar Isaac Casaubon. His majesty annexed to his gift the privilege
which the royal library had acquired in the reign of Queen Anne, of
being supplied with a copy of every publication entered at Stationers'
Hall; and in 1759 the British Museum was opened to the public.[21]

The value of the library has been greatly enhanced by magnificent
donations, and by immense parliamentary purchases. In 1763, George III.
enr