Life ant Character of Nathaniel Bai 27 
books from that library and to consult ikagioty them at pleasure. 
This inestimable advantage has made me deeply a debtor to the 
Salem Athenzeum; and I do therefore give to that Institution the 
sum of one thousand dollars, the income thereof to be for ever 
applied to thé promotion of its objects and the extension of its 
usefulness.” 
_ [have two remarks to make on this singularly interesting ex- 
tract. In the first place, it seems to me there was something like 
a special providence in the capture of that library, consisting: of 
such a peculiar class of books, by a Beverly vessel, and its 
brought into the port of Salem rather than any other port in fhe 
United States. Here was apparent design, the fitting of means 
to ends. The books came exactly to the place where they were 
wanted ; to the only place, probably, in the country where 
were wanted. They came, too, at the right time, just in 
to be used by. the person who could make the best possible us 
them, and to whom they were, above all computation, valuz 
and necessary. If this be not | an act = mp rape: L hardly 
know what is. = 
The good Dr. Kirwan eemeened; no doubt, over the loss of his 
books, and not least of all that they had become ‘so utterly mis- 
placed and. useless. . He probably thought that the vessel which 
contained them might as well have been wrecked on the coast of 
Africa, and the leaves of his philosophical works employed to 
adorn the heads and persons of the Caffres and Hottentots, a use 
to which we are told “The Practical Navigator’ was once put 
by the inhabitants of one of the South Sea islands.* But had 
the learned philosopher known that his lost library had Pr 
the intellectual food for the growth of one of the greatest scien- 
tific men-of his ee) he =e eer ae heteee 
to his loss. - win ate tyl gant Hee 
* «Tt happened that sinéag the few > aoticka saved from the hip, [the eprstag] 
Mentor, of New Be dford,] was a copy of ‘ Bowditch’s Navigator ;’ 
as little use as we can conceive any one thing to have been at that er, Ss “a 
ingenuity of the females, who also have their passion for ornaments, tore out the 
leaves of the book, and making them into little rolls of the size” ‘of one’s finger, 
wore them in their ears, instead of the tufis of ch they usually Pi 
to give additional attractions to their native ee ace erican Quarterl y Review 
of Holden’s Narrative, Vol. XX, p. %. 
t Since the above was written, I have "éernt that the F tieatbs into whose 
hands Dr, Kirwan’s library fell, offered to remunerate him for the loss which he 
had sustained. He however  dockubd receiving any compensation, and expressed 
himself gratified that his books had fallen into te good hands. 
poe 
