TWENTY-NINTH CONGRESS, 1845-1847. 341 



vast and bloated book-gatherings that sleep in dust and cobwebs on 

 the library shelves of Eui'opean monarchies. Up to a judicious selec- 

 tion of thirtv, lifty, a hundred thousand volumes, if you will, how 

 vast — yea, how priceless — is the intellectual wealth ! From one to five 

 hundred thousand, what do we gain? Nothing? That would not be 

 true; a goblet emptied into the Pacific adds to the mass of its waters. 

 But if within these limits we set down one book out of a hundred as 

 worth the monej^ it costs, we are assuredly making too liberal an 

 estimate. 



T pray j'ou, sir, not to stretch these strictures beyond their precise 

 application. I am not one of those who judge slightingly the learning 

 of the past. We find shining forth from the dark mass of ancient lit- 

 erature gems of rare beauty and value, unequaled, even to-day, in 

 purity and truth. But then, also, what clouds of idle verbiage! What 

 loads of ostentatious technicalities! It is but of late years that even 

 the disciple of science has deigned to simplify and translate; formerly 

 his great object seems to have been to obscure and mj^'stify. The 

 satirist, in sketching an individual variety, has aptly described the 

 species, when he says: 



The wise men of Egypt were as secret as dumraies, 



And even when they most condescended to teach, 

 They packed up their meaning, as they did their mummies, 



In so many wrappers, 'twas out of one's reach. 



But there are such noble enterprises as those of Gibbon and Hallam, 

 valuable to all; doubly valuable to the moralist and statesman. And 

 in regard to such it is argued that if one of our own scholars, fired 

 with generous ambition to rival the historians. of the Old World, enters 

 on such a task, he may find that a dozen, or perhaps a single book, 

 necessary for reference, '*can not be found this side of Gottingen or 

 Oxford." Suppose he does, what is the remedy? A very simple one 

 suggests itself: that he should order, through an importer of foreign 

 books, the particular work which he lacks. To save him the trouble 

 and expense of so doing, the friends of the mammoth library scheme 

 propose — what? That we should begin b}' expending half a million 

 of dollars, which would ''go far toward the purchase of as good a 

 library as Europe can boast;" 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." 



It is prudent before we enter this rivalship to count its cost. 

 Without seeking to reach the 700,000 volumes of the Parisian library 

 let us suppose we trj^ for the half million of volumes that form the 

 boast of Munich, or fill up the shelves of the Bodleian, Our librarian 

 informs me that the present Congressional Library (certainly not one 

 of the most expensive) has cost upwards of $3 a volume; its binding 

 alone has averaged over a dollar a volume. The same works could be 



