panizzi also had a long-term dispute with historian thomas carlyle. while carlyle worked on his , he had complained in a magazine article that "a certain sub-librarian" had not been very helpful to him, restricting access to uncatalogued documents held by the british museum. panizzi never forgot the slight and when carlyle, now working on the biography of cromwell, requested the use of a private room at the library for his researches, the request was denied. despite high-level complaints, carlyle lost the argument; and he and his supporters opened their own independent subscription library, the london library.