LIBRA. 



LIBRARIES. 



i 



| or -** agreement with the crown. The men of Cornwall fine 



to SOOO nark* ami SOO marks for 20 |lfrjs (Minuted at 10 marks 

 mrk for a eharter (or duaflorasting the county and choosing their own 

 Jm j|ft The men of Brough fine in 20 marks and 5 mark* for a 

 palfrry. for a market on Sunday, and a fair for two day*. The men of 

 Laiinftnn fine in i marks for changing their market from Sunday to 

 Thumb?. Mean d U Pommeraie Inea in 5 mark* " that the nun of 

 Udford may not bar* a better liberty than the men of Exeter." Alanus 

 d Munbi fine* in 100 mark* and 3 good palfreys for a charter of 

 xsmption from suit at county oourta and hundred-courts for his life. 

 Thomas of York, ton of Olivet, fines in one huntsman (unum ftigatorem) 

 that he mar be alderman in the merchant's guild at York. Agnes, the 

 widow of Walter Clifford, fines in one good palfrey to n v ner manor 

 of Witham in Kent, and that the men of the said manor, being her 

 man, be acquitted of shim, and hundreds, and suits to the county 

 courts and aids of sheriff! and biliffr. and for the king's letters-patent 

 thereof. The burnaMS of Shrewsbury fine in 20 marks and one palfrey 

 that no one shall buy within the borough new skins or undressed cloth, 

 unloai be be in lot (in lotto), and assessed and taxed with the burgesses. 

 [SCOT AXD Vm.} 



Many of these franchise* baring been found to interfere with the 

 regular and speedy administration of justice, the extension of them by 

 fresh grants was frequently the subject of very loud complaints on the 

 part cif the Commons in parliament, who represented them as preju- 

 dicial to the crown, an impediment to justice, and a damage to the 

 people. It appears by the Parliament Roll, that Edward I., towards 

 the close of his reign (in 1306), declared that after the grant which he 

 had made to the Earl of Lincoln for hi* life, of the return of writs 

 within two hundreds, he would not grant a similar franchise as luu'j as 

 kf tiral to any except his own children, and directed that the declara- 

 tion should be written in the Chancery, the Gardrobe, and the 

 Exchequer. And in 134", IMward III., in answer to a strong remon- 

 strance, promised that such grants should not in future be made without 

 good advice. 



The form in which the crown granted views of frank-pledge [LKKT] 

 and other franchises may be seen in the charters granted by King 

 Henry VI. to Eton College, and King's College, Cambridge. (5 ' Rot. 

 Part..' 51, 97.) 



A person exercising a franchise to which he has not a legal title may 



be called upon to show cause by what authority he does so, by a writ 



of gmo-iearramlo, or an information in the nature of a quo-tcarranto. 



M.ITIOX ; g ro. \VARR AN TO.] And parties disturbed in the lawful 



exercise of a francise may recover damages against the disturber in an 



LIBRA (the Balance). In the older Greek writers the Scorpion 

 occupies two constellations of the ZODIAC, or rather the body of the 

 animal occupies one, and the claws, chela (xr\\ai), another. We say 

 this, because though the chela were certainly a part of the Scorpion, 

 yet they are often mentioned (as by Aratus, for instance) by them- 

 selves, as if they formed a distinct constellation. The word aula had 

 sereral significations ; so that it may have been by simple mistransla- 

 tion that the Romans (according to Hyginus, Virgil, Ac.) gave the 

 name of Libra to the part of the heavens in question, and drew back 

 the claws of the Scorpion to make room for the scales. 



Lilira is surrounded by Scorpius, Ophiuchus, Virgo, Centaurus, and 

 Lupus. It/i star is the vertex of an isosceles triangle, of which 

 Arcturus and Spica (a Virginia) are at the extremities of the base. Its 

 principal stars are as follows : 



No. in Catalogue 



Xo. In CtUlofns of BritUb 



Cbsnetsr. of Flanutetd. AMociition. Mspiltade. 



9 4805 2 

 1 : . 4 

 y - 4850 3 

 f 27 5084 2 

 ( *2 .'-: 4 



3 5138 4 



43 5176 4 

 n 44 r.liio 4 

 X 45 5251 4 



44 5257 4 

 4 *& 6290 4 



LIBRARIES. The word library \ used to denote a collection of 



collectinn U 

 pabce. The . 

 Latin itself a _. 

 Ukcn f rom the O 



or small, and also the repository in which that 

 whether a few shelve* or a room, a house or a 

 term is derived from the Latin language, but in 

 to usually expressed by the word ' bibl, 



The Greek phrase thus adopted by tin- Romans 

 bas paswd from them not only into every language of the Romanic 

 family, but Into almost every other cultivated language but our own, 

 for trang.ly enough, though repeated attempts have been made to 

 naturalis* K. it bas never taken root In the English vocabulary, which 

 is not usually so fastidious. 



Of late years the study of libraries-their formation, arrangement, 

 maossj*a*>t. and history- baa been raised to the dignity of science 

 KchreUinger hi Oernwn, Molbech in Danish, Constantin Hesse in 

 Preach, hT written respectively on " Bibliothckwimwwchaft," " Biblio- 



thckvidenskab," and " Bibliothpconomie," a branch of knowledge for 

 which no English term has yet been invented. In spite of the pro- 

 scription of " bililiothoiiiie," some phrase like " bibliothecology " will 

 probably ere long find its way into > iries, to keep company 



with " ecclesiology," and other modern innovation*, A m<> 

 representing the German phrase in English is likely to be required, 

 as the science itself has found so much favour in German eyes, that 

 a periodical was commenced in 1840, which still continues to l*> pub- 

 lished expressly for the purpose of reviewing books that touch in 

 Dr. Petzholdt's ' Anzeiger fttr Literatur der BibliothekwUsenschaft.' 

 In addition to the circumstances which have always operated to 

 great libraries objects of interest to enlightened men, the position 

 of libraries in general has been remarkably altered in the course of 

 the present century, and more especially in the course of the last forty 

 years. The operation of the causes which produce these results is 

 rapidly progressive, and the subject appears likely to increase in interest 

 with every succeeding year. 



The existence of a library of some kind must date back nearly as for 

 as the existence of writing. The book which is emphatically 

 "the book" the Bible is itself a collection of books of different 

 kinds: poetry, prophecy, and history of ditlcrent age", from th- 

 of Moses to the time of Malachi. In Greek its name is not the i 

 but the 'Bibles'; and in the middle ages it was often called ' tin- 

 Library,' ' the Bibliotheca.' It probably constituted among th- 

 Hebrews the whole library of the Synagogue. Its first 

 the Septuagint, was expressly written to enrich a larger lihrar\ 

 great collection of books which, founded by Greeks on the soil of 

 Egypt, was destined to become the greatest and mo.-; : lection 



of all antiquity. The book which was first introduced to the A 

 drian library of the successors of Alexander the (Great, as an 

 curiosity, became in the course of centuries the book of the religion 

 of Egypt rtill, as we shall see, that noble library finally perished after 

 its varied fortunes of nine hundred years, by command of the Moham- 

 medan caliph, who condemned all books as useless or injurious but the 

 Koran. That library must then have embraced thousands of volumes 

 which were a comment on that early translation for which the 

 was indebted to its founders. At this moment the royal library of Slutt- 

 gard contains 8700 editions of the Bible, and that of the British and 

 Foreign Bible Society in London, is almost entirely a collect!' 

 a very imperfect one, of the translations and comments on that single 

 volume. 



As one book thus becomes connected with, and even essential to, the 

 understanding of another, so whole libraries of books stand in the same 

 relation. The library just mentioned, that of the Briti -h 

 Bible Society, contains, as we learn from Mr. George Itullcn's valuable 

 catalogue, translations of the Scriptures into upwards of 150 lan- 

 guages, many of them languages in which no other book exists. The 

 library is thus of essential importance, not only to the biblical but to the 

 philological student. At the sime time the investigator into languages 

 is unable to make full vise of the treasures it i ideas he has 



also access to a large collection of gramm library 



of entirely a different description. It is evident that it" a biblical and 

 a philological library existed in diU'ei-cnl parts of the .- ime city. 

 nected with each other, a great service would be rendered to the 

 frequenters of both by bringing them under tin- 

 ing them accessible at the same times. The < ^'ht remain 

 precisely the same, the expenses of management might by the bl< mlun; 

 of the two into one be easily reduced, but the advantage.- would be 

 great, and they would be mutual. The biblical student and the 

 missionary might make use of the dictionaries to study the Hebrew 

 and Arabic and Tahitiau Bibles, the philological student might make 

 use of the Bibles to study the Hebrew and Arabic and Tahitian 

 languages. 



The benefit to be drawn from the amalgamation of libraries. 

 from decreasing, seems to increase, the farther th.i 

 carried. It is both theoretically and pr.ietic.dly ii 

 any strict limitation to the hounds of air, 



the instance of the Biblical student, how many sciences fall within his 

 range. The ecclesiastical la I "i> the Scriptures, and in 



every church and country there arc dillercnt forms of ecclesiastical law. 

 The history of the Church is inextri.al.l I with the ' 



of every Christian state. The geography of the Holy Land has been 

 for ages a theme of research, and the natural history of the Set i 

 another. Church architecture i* one of the most pi i ins of 



the art, painting has had it* hi|;h.-i. triumphs in 

 all those sciences, arts, and .-in. lie^, whole libraries have ! 

 and there in hardly a book of those libraries which the student of any 

 of those subject* may not h: nsult.. If a missionary, 



the field of his in^nii . widely rxlvwh 



missionary to Mohammwlan countries ought to be acquainted \\ 

 Koran, to India with the Vedas, to China with the book- of the Budd- 

 hists and the work of Confucius and Laou-Tszc. The historian of 

 Christian missions, the. historian of religion in general, should have 

 some knowledge of all the creeds of tlrj heathen. 



It would seem to follow from these considerations that the ui 

 whole libraries is as essential for the purposes of study as the 

 bringing togct her of single books, and that it should be an object with 

 all who wish to cultivate the progress of knowledge, to favour the 



