10 FEBRUARY 1917, Page 20

The British Museum Library. By Gertrude Burford Rawlings. (Grafton and

Co. in net.)—This is an attractive and scholarly account

of the rise and progress of the library. Cotton's collection, given to the nation in 1700, was the foundation. The Harleian Library and the Sloane collections, purchased with Montagu House out of the pre- meds of a lottery in 1703, enabled the British Museum to make a good start. George IV. presented tho King's Library in 1823, and Smirks) began to erect the present buildings. Panizzi, as Keeper of the Printed Books from 1837 to 1856, reorganized the system, built the Reading Room, and doubled the size of the library, so that, instead of being seventh on the list of European libraries, it became second only to the Bibliotheque Nationale, which it, has now outdistanced. Some of the principal treasures are well described.