ll
greater and more unlooked for changes of sentiment and belief before the
present century shall have closed.

It is just fifty years since 'the Father of Record Reform,' as he has
been justly called, received his patent creating him Master of the
Rolls. Although as far back as the year 1800 a Commission was issued for
the methodizing and digesting the National Records, and for printing
such calendars and indexes as should be thought advisable; and though
during the next twenty-seven years many works of supreme interest and
importance were printed at the public expense, the enormous extent of
our National Records were known to few, and the difficulty of consulting
them, (dispersed as they were through a score of different depositories)
was enough to deter all but the most resolute enquirers. It was Lord
Langdale who first set himself to reduce the chaos of our archives into
something like order. When the old Record Commission expired in 1837, it
was by Lord Langdale's influence that the Public Record Act was passed
on the 14th of August, 1838, whereby the Records named therein were
placed under the custody of the Master of the Rolls for the time being,
and hereupon a new era began. Nevertheless it was not till July 1850
that a vote was obtained from the Treasury for the erection of a
national depository, wherein our vast archives should be assembled under
a single roof, and not till 1855 that the magnificent _Tabularium_ in
Fetter Lane was opened for the reception of our muniments.

Lord Langdale died in April 1851;[1] he was succeeded in the Mastership
of the Rolls by Lord Romilly, then Sir John. A happier choice could not
have been made. To Lord Langdale belongs the credit of carrying out the
grand scheme for consolidating the various collections of documents,
which, as we have said, had up to this time been widely dispersed, and
the very existence of the larger mass of which was known only to a few
experts. To Lord Romilly we owe it that the great original sources of
English History so assembled have been rendered accessible to any
student who desires to consult them; and it is to him, too, that we are
indebted for the issue of that unrivalled series of 'Chronicles and
Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland, from the Invasion of the Romans
to the Reign of Henry VIII.,' which has laid the foundation for a
science of history firmer and deeper and wider than before was believed
to be even attainable.

Great men are