TWENTY-NINTH CONGRESS, 1845-47. 373 



thereon some of the remarks with which it was introduced 

 by its author, then a distinguished member of the other 

 branch, but no longer there to adorn its debates with the 

 gay flowers of his brilliant eloquence. 



He objected to limiting the cost of the library building to 

 one hundred thousand dollars ; seeing, as he reminded the 

 Senate, that the " largest class " of public libraries contain 

 from a quarter of a million to upwards of a half a million 

 of volumes. He said : 



" Twenty thousand dollars a year for twenty-five years are five hundred 

 thousand dollars ; and five hundred thousand dollars directly expended, not 

 by a bibliomaniac, but by a man of sense and reading, thoroughly instruc- 

 ted in bibliography, would go far, very far, towards the purchase of as good a 

 library as Europe can boast." — Speech of Senator Choate, January 8, 1845. 



He adds, a little further on, that " such a step taken, we 

 should never leave the work unfinished;" and that when 

 finished, it would " rival anything civilization has ever had 

 to show." 



He argues of the value and importance of such a library 

 after this wise : 



" I do not know, that of all the printed books in the world, we have in 

 this country, more than fifty thousand difi'erent works. The consequence 

 has been felt and lamented by all our authors and all our scholars. It has 

 been often said that Gibbon's History could not have been written here for 

 want of books. I suppose that Hallam's Middle Ages, and his Introduc- 

 tion to the Literature of Europe, could not. Irving's Columbus was writ- 

 ten in Spain ; Wheaton's Northmen prepared to be written in Copenhagen. 

 See how this inadequate supply operates. An American mind kindles with 

 a subject ; i£ enters on an investigation with a spirit and ability worthy of 

 the most splendid achievement ; goes a little way, finds that a dozen books 

 — one book, perhaps — is indispensable, which cannot be found this side Got- 

 tingen or Oxford ; it tires of the pursuit, or abandons it altogether," &c. 



And the Senator branches off, in his own brilliant style, 

 into a dissertation on the value and importance of such a 

 library : " a vast store-house," says he ; "a vast treasury of 

 all the facts which make up the history of man and of na- 

 ture;" * * "a silent, yet wise and eloquent teacher; dead, 

 yet speaking ; not dead ! for Milton has told us : ' a good 

 book is not absolutely a dead thing — the precious life-blood 

 rather, of a master spirit ; a seasoned life of man, embalmed 

 and treasured up, on purpose to a life beyond life.' " 



If the question were between a library and no library; 

 between books and no books ; the language thus employed, 

 fervid as it is, would be all insufiicient to shadow forth the 

 towering magnitude of the subject. John Fauat — if indeed, 

 to the goldsmith of Mentz the world owe the art of type- 

 setting — conferred on his race a greater boon than ever 

 before did living man. There is no comparison to be made 



