Page:Library Construction, Architecture, Fittings, and Furniture.djvu/155

Rh rooms at Marlborough House during the temporary location there of the Vernon Gallery, and probably the general appearance was much the same. In both cases elegant rooms en suite were applied to purposes for which they had never been intended; the pictures could not be well seen, and the books can only have been accommodated at a sacrifice of the space and convenience which they might have enjoyed in chambers constructed under other conditions. It must be acknowledged that no great multitude either of books or of readers was contemplated, the accommodation provided in the reading-room on the basement, described as a very comfortable room, being for only twenty readers, the actual daily attendance rarely exceeding ten or twelve. It would be interesting to learn in what proportion and under what principles the allotment of space was made, whether the several departments were satisfied, and whether frequent readjustment was found necessary. The materials for such research probably exist among the ma-^ of Museum official papers, which must some day be made public in the form of a calendar, which will be pronounced one of the most valuable contributions ever made to the history of literature, science, and archeology.

For long after the establishment of the library in Montague House the annual additions to it were so limited that a fair idea of its original extent may be derived from the first catalogue of its contents, published in 1787 in two volumes folio. It is true that thirty thousand Civil War tracts had been