By Clifford W. Holgate. 223 
Of one thing we are assured, Canon Jackson’s papers are in 
existence, and in safe keeping ; so that the Society has no occasion 
to re-echo the sigh which Aubrey utters in the preface to his 
Wiltshire Topographical Collections, speaking of the disappearance 
of valuable material collected by Mr. William Yorke, of Bassett 
Down, and Judge Robert Nicholas, of Roundway :—“ ’Tis pitie that 
those papers shoulde fall into the mercilesse hands of woemen, and 
be put under pies.” 
Ture VALUE OF THE WorK TO THE SALISBURY FrEE Pusiic Liprary. 
There is another reason why I specially wish to call attention to 
the undertaking of this work at this time. It is just a year ago 
since the ratepayers of Salisbury adopted the Public Libraries’ Acts, 
this being the second occasion on which the subject had been brought 
to the test in the city, and the Library, opened in December, 1890, 
is, I believe, the first of the kind, under the Acts, founded in 
Wiltshire, and, though its funds are very small, I feel sure that the 
institution now once started will never be given up. 
One of the chief departments, I consider, in a public library 
should be the collection of local literature, whether locally printed, 
or illustrative of the locality, and more especially ought pains to be 
spent on making such a collection complete in the public library of 
_ the capital of the county, and, in this case, in so interesting a city 
as New Sarum. 
I hope, then, that the Public Library in Salisbury will acquire in 
process of time the finest and most complete collections illustrative 
of the history and topography of the county of Wilts anywhere in 
_ existence, aud thus do for the southern part of the county what the 
Library of the Society at Devizes is doing already for the north. 
It seems to me that the publication of a bibliography of Wiltshire 
may help the way to a more speedy fulfilment of the wants of the 
Salisbury Public Library, and of the Library of the Society at 
_ Devizes, and give people a knowledge of the books which such 
libraries should contain, and take care of, for the benefit of the 
‘county; for, though no doubt it would be much easier from the 
bibliographer’s point of view to have all the works relating to the 
Q 2 
