Британский музей Лондона

Chapter II . Museum collection

The British Museum actually includes several museums of completely different profiles. It includes the Museum of Archeology and Ethnography, a library, a collection of prints and drawings, and the Natural History Museum, which spun off from the main collections back in 1881 and occupies an independent, large building in South Kensington. Behind this listing are countless cultural monuments exported by the British from various countries, found during archaeological excavations, and acquired from private collections. The British Museum houses a huge collection of ancient Egyptian art, especially rich in monumental sculpture; famous reliefs of Assyrian palaces; unique complexes of Greek sculpture, including the Parthenon marbles, the creation of Phidias, one of the most outstanding masters of Ancient Greece, as well as reliefs and statues that decorated the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, which the Greeks called one of the seven wonders of the world. The most valuable collections of Mexican masks, bronze and stone statues from India and Ceylon are kept here; unique, original bronze reliefs and sculptures created by masters of Equatorial Africa five or six centuries ago. The library of the British Museum enjoys well-deserved fame. The walls of the library's reading room have seen outstanding scientists from all over the world, famous historians, poets, and researchers in various fields of knowledge. For three decades, Karl Marx was a regular reader of the library. During his stay in London, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin worked here.

Chapter III . Library

Let us first consider the library of printed books and the manuscript department, and then say a few words about the other collections of the museum.

Library The British Museum is considered, after the Paris
National, the richest in the world, but in terms of order and perfection of catalogs it can be put in first place. She owes both of these mainly to the already mentioned Pavizzi, who was the first to draw attention to the observance of the long-standing parliamentary resolution requiring the free delivery to the library of every book published in Great Britain.
In general, the library currently has almost 2,000,000 volumes, including better collections than anywhere else in the world; Thus, the literature of the North American States is better represented in the library than in New York itself; remarkable collections of books in Hebrew (12,000 tons), Chinese (27,000 tons) and various oriental languages (13,000); The collection of works written in Slavic dialects is quite rich (10,000). Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the library is its catalogs. The catalog, arranged by author's name and occupying 2,000 volumes, is arranged in such a way that the printed title of a newly arrived book can be inserted in its proper place. Then, in 1882, it was begun to compile an alphabetical catalog of titles; This catalog had already included about a million titles when its compilation was suspended due to raised doubts about the possibility of bringing this enterprise to completion. Some words in this catalog are printed in separate copies and thus serve as excellent special bibliographies. In addition, catalogs of periodicals (6 parts and index) and academic publications (5 parts and index) were printed separately. Further we note: “List of books of reference in the readingroom of the British-Museum” (1871), “List of bibliographies, classified catalogues and indexes in the readingroom of the British-Museum” (1881) - catalogs of reference books and bibliographic publications, which, in the amount of 20,000 volumes, are located in the reading room of the library and are made available to readers. A catalog of Jewish books was published in 1867, followed by a catalog of books in Sanskrit in 1876, Chinese in 1877, and Bengali in 1886.
The manuscript department was made up of a number of collections purchased from various private individuals or bequeathed by these latter. At the same time, some collections have been preserved in the form in which they entered the library, while the remaining manuscripts (this includes, by the way, such collections that, due to their insignificance, do not deserve to be specially highlighted) are combined into one whole. All manuscripts are catalogued, and we have catalogs of two kinds: inventory catalogs of collections and other manuscripts and special inventories of manuscripts of a certain kind, isolated from the collection of the manuscript department (about these catalogs, see Meyer's article in the "Revue critique", September 22, 1884) . Of the collections included in the manuscript department, the following are especially remarkable: 1) Elephant Manuscripts, numbering 4100. 2) Cotton Manuscripts, numbering 900, all related to the history of England and in many respects constitute, in many respects, a supplement to the Record office manuscripts. 3) Harley's manuscripts, numbering 7539; For letters and documents in the Harley collection (numbering 14,236), there is a special lithographed inventory. The surviving diary of his librarian Vanley is important for the history of the formation of Harley's library. 4) The Library of the Ancient Kings of England (Old Royal), donated by George II, contains remarkable collections of manuscripts of Archbishop Cranmer, Henry, Prince of Wales, etc. There is a handwritten addition to its old catalogue, compiled in 1832. 5) Collection of legal manuscripts ( number 499), purchased from the lawyer Francis Gargreve, in 1813 for 8,000 pounds. erased: 6) So-called. Lansdowne collection (1245 hands), acquired in 1807, contains the papers of Lord Burleigh, Elizabeth's first minister and many other statesmen. 7) Library Th. Burney's (524 manuscripts), consisting mostly of classic manuscripts, was acquired in 1818; the index to it was written together with the index of the Arundel collection (see No. 10), 8) King's collection (not to be confused with the above-mentioned Oldroyal coll.), consisting of 446 volumes of manuscripts; its catalog, compiled in 1841, has not yet been printed: 9) Collection of the so-called "mss. Eggerton", the number of which currently exceeds 3000. This collection began in 1825, when Lord Egerton bequeathed to the B. museum a collection of 607 different manuscripts and 906 charters and an annual annuity of 12,000 francs for the acquisition of new manuscripts. 10) The so-called “Arundel collection” is part of the collection that belonged to Howard, Earl of Arundel, who devoted his entire life (1593 - 1646) to collecting manuscripts; unfortunately, his collections, after the death of the collector, were scattered to different places; Some of the manuscripts were divided in 1681 between the Royal Society and the College of Arms. And only in 1834 did the first of these institutions transfer to the British Museum those 550 hands that fell to its share. 11) Manuscripts of Lord Asbernham, who in 1863 sold to the museum one of the four collections that belonged to him, namely the Stowe-collection, of the most varied content; some of them have already been described.
As for the rest, not included in the mentioned collections of manuscripts, charters and documents (additional collection, additional charters), they maintain a special careful inventory: “Catalogues of additions to the mss. in the British Museum” (the number of manuscripts included here reaches 35,000; those that are purchased with funds bequeathed by Lord Edgerton are also described here); In addition, in the reading room there is a lithographed inventory of charters and documents (additional charters) in 10 volumes - their number also reaches 35,000. Manuscripts, with the exception of especially valuable ones and charters, are made available to students in the general reading room. For studying especially valuable manuscripts and acts there is a special room where there is a wonderful systematic catalog of manuscripts. It consists of 110 volumes, on the leaves of which are pasted titles taken from all other, both printed and manuscript catalogs of the British Museum; Each volume of this catalog is dedicated to a particular subject, for example. Volume 15 is devoted to state papers, volumes 109 and 110 - seals (Index of seals). Some of the volumes of this catalog have already begun to appear in print. In addition to the catalog collections, there are also the following, which cover homogeneous manuscripts in all the collections of the manuscript department: a catalog of Oriental manuscripts of Syrian, Ethiopian, Persian and Spanish. Here same Can attributed : "Index to the pedigrees and arms contained ., in the genealogical mss. in the Brit. Mus." And "Catalogue of romances in the dep. of mss. in the British Museum"; see _ notes Riot police O Greek manuscripts British museum in "Bibl. de l'Ecole des Chartes" (1884).