e
famous Cottonian library, and a suitable repository provided for them
and the king's library, which had long lain neglected and exposed to
the injuries of the weather in the old dormitory at Westminster.
Accordingly, trustees and governors, consisting of the most eminent
persons of the kingdom, were appointed, and regulations established
for the management of this noble museum, which was deposited in
Montagu-house, one of the most magnificent edifices in England, where it
is subjected, without reserve, to the view of the public, under certain
necessary restrictions, and exhibits a glorious monument of national
taste and liberality. *

* The library of sir Hans Sloane consisted of above fifty
thousand volumes, including about three hundred and fifty
books of drawings, and three thousand five hundred and
sixteen manuscripts, besides a multitude of prints. The
museum comprehended an infinite number of medals, coins,
urns, utensils, seals, cameos, intaglios, precious stones,
vessels of agate and jasper, crystals, spars, fossils,
metals, minerals, ore, earths, sands, salts, bitumens,
sulphurs, ambergrise, talcs, mirre, testacea, corals,
sponges, echini, echenites, asteri, trochi, crustatia,
stellae marine, fishes, birds, eggs and nests, vipers,
serpents, quadrupeds, insects, human calculi, anatomical
preparations, seeds, gums, roots, dried plants, pictures,
drawings, and mathematical instruments. All these articles,
with a short account of each, are specified in thirty-eight
volumes in folio, and eight in quarto.

In the beginning of June the session of parliament was closed by his
majesty, who mentioned nothing particular in his speech, but that the
state of foreign affairs had suffered no alteration since their meeting.

The genius of the English people is perhaps incompatible with a state of
perfect tranquillity; if it was not ruffled by foreign provocations,
or agitated by unpopular measures of domestic administration, it will
undergo temporary fermentations from the turbulent ingredients inherent
in its own constitution Tumults are excited, and faction kindled into
rage and inveteracy, by incidents of the most frivolous nature. At this
juncture the metropolis of England was divided and discomposed in a
surprising manner, by a dispute in itself of so little consequence to
the community, that it could not deserve a place in a general his