s to be
made to the collection--notably a number of valuable manuscripts which
had belonged successively to John and Charles Theyer--the greater part
of the increase may be ascribed to the operation of the Copyright Act,
which was passed in the fourteenth year of this reign, and enabled the
royal library to claim a copy of every work printed in the English
dominions. From the death of Charles until the library was given to the
nation by George II. in 1757 little interest was taken in it by the
kings and queens who reigned in the interval.

Although George III. was a man of somewhat imperfect education, he
keenly regretted the loss of the royal collection, and no sooner was he
seated on the throne than he began to amass the magnificent library
which has now joined its predecessor in the British Museum. In this
labour of love he was assisted by the sympathy and help of his Queen,
who, Dr. Croly tells us, was in the habit of paying visits, with a
lady-in-waiting, to Holywell Street and Ludgate Hill, where second-hand
books were offered for sale. The King commenced the formation of his
collection in 1762 by buying for about ten thousand pounds the choice
library of Mr. Joseph Smith, who for many years was the British consul
at Venice, and 'for seven or eight years the shops and warehouses of
English booksellers were also sedulously examined, and large purchases
were made from them. In this labour Dr. Johnson often assisted,
actively as well as by advice.'[2] It is said the King expended during
his long reign, on an average, about two thousand pounds a year in the
purchase of books. In 1768 he despatched his illegitimate half-brother,
Mr. Barnard, afterwards Sir Frederic Augusta Barnard, whom he had
appointed his librarian, on a bibliographical tour on the Continent,
during which so many valuable acquisitions were obtained for the
library, that it at once took its place amongst the most important
collections in the country, and after the death of the King, when the
books it contained were counted by order of a select committee of the
House of Commons, they were found to number 'about 65,250 exclusive of a
very numerous assortment of pamphlets, principally contained in 868
cases, and requiring about 140 more cases to contain the whole.' These
tracts, which number about nineteen thousand, have since been separately
bound. The manuscripts belonging to the library amount to about four
hundred and forty volumes, and there is also