Any attempt at times to preserve an _incognito_ was unavailing—a rather undesirable fact which he soon discovered, as his person was well known. However, on the 9th of October, 1852, a report from Panizzi was read at a committee, when the thanks of the Trustees were accorded to him for his exertions.
Many special cases of the actions which Panizzi brought against publishers are worth recounting, but as their details are necessarily very similar, and, as to the general reader such repetitions would not be of any interest, the biographer contents himself with making special allusion to the most troublesome opponent who ever entered the lists against Panizzi, this was Mr. Bohn, the publisher, and bitter were the denunciations hurled at Panizzi’s devoted head in the course of the hearing of seventeen distinct summonses before Mr. Jardine, the Magistrate, by Mr. Ballantine, the counsel for Mr. Bohn. _Harsh_, _vexatious_, _tyrannical_, were a few of the adjectives which dropped from the lips of that learned gentleman. Mr. Bodkin appeared for the British Museum Authorities, and finally, Mr. Jardine, with encomiums on the personal worth of both the disputants, considered nominal penalties with costs sufficient to meet the exigencies of the case.
On the 2nd of February, 1853, appeared in _The Times_ a letter from Panizzi, to which our readers are referred, but which is too lengthy to give _verbatim_ here. In this letter he says:—“I knew that the Act had been extensively evaded, and I felt that I ought to endeavour to enforce it better,” and again, “I determined to proceed with as much forbearance as I should find consistent with a due performance of my duty.” He then refers to the fact that “publishers are bound to send their publications to the Museum without receiving previous notice of their omissions of so doing,” and addresses the warning in the shape of a circular prepared by the Solicitors of the Trustees as a proof of their courtesy to those who considered themselves hardly dealt with. If publishers refused to comply with the law, what alternative had Panizzi but to enforce compliance? Was he to purchase the books, or how was he to procure them? He states, and states justly too, “I have no right to spend public money in encouraging non-compliance with the law.... All I get is blame. If the books are not in the Library, I am found fault with, and I am found fault with if I use the only means I now have of procuring them.” Then he cites the increase in the delivery of books, &c., 13,934,[M] in 1852, against 9,871 in 1851, which certainly shows that his labours were not only necessary, but by no means bare of practical results.