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1.1 BRA i: IKS. 



LIBRA 



Museum they will be reckoned at 96, while we are told on goot 

 authority that at the library at St. Petersburg they are counted as 

 3200, making a difference in the returns of the same annual set 

 more than 3100, and in the returns for the whole collection of patents 

 of more than I'l.iKKi volumes. 



Another great European library is frequently said to contain more 

 than 800,000 volumes the collection at Munich, but in that case the 

 statement will not bear the slightest investigation. Dr. Petxholdt, in 

 his excellent ' Handbuch der deutschen Bibliutbeken,' gives the 

 numbers thus, out of which the total is composed 



16,000 Manuscripts 



13,000 Early printed Books 

 250,000 Printed Work, 

 100,000 Dissertations 

 300,000 Pamphlets 



These numbers added together give 679,000 only, but it will be 

 observed that as one of the Hems is 250,000 mrh, it may be alleged 

 that as there are so many works in two or twenty, or even a hundred 

 volumes, the difference may thus be made up. Two of the other 

 Hems however are 100,000 dissertations, and 300,000 pamphlets. 

 Taking these at 40,006 volumes altogether, according to Balbi's rule, 

 and deducting the 16,000 manuscripts, the library at Munich is at once 

 reduced to 424,000 volumes. 



The third, if not the second, great library in Europe is now that of 

 the British Museum. In a previous article in this Cyclopaedia [BRITISH 

 MCBIUM] some of the steps have been pointed out by which it has 

 emerged to importance in the course of the last quarter of a century 

 from a position of inferiority, not only to the libraries of Vienna and 

 Berlin, but to those of Munich and Copenhagen. The number of 

 volumes in the library was officially stated in 1868 at 550,000, and the 

 numbers added since must have carried it over 600,000. These num- 

 bers are arrived at by counting the volumes as they come from the 

 hands of the hinder, not as they go to him ; reckoning a pamphlet 

 bound separately, however insignificant, as one volume, and also 

 reckoning a three-volumed novel as one volume only, provided the 

 three volumes are, as they generally are at the Museum, actually 

 bound in one. 



This system of counting is hardly satisfactory, for it makes the 

 numbers vary in cases where the books remain the same. A volume 

 of old pamphlets sent to the binder to be taken to pieces goes one 

 volume and comes back a dozen, while 300 volumes of novels return 

 shrunk to a hundred. If a congress of librarians were ever to take 

 place in Europe, as it did a few years ago in America, one of the first 

 things for them to settle would be the method of counting libraries. 

 If every separate work under 100 pages were to be considered a 

 |>aniphlet, if ten of such pamphlets were counted as one volume, and if 

 in other cases the divisions made by the printer and not the binder 

 were taken as a guide, a better comparison of the extent of libraries 

 would be practicable, and the British Museum would probably be 

 found to stand till higher than it now appears to do, even in point of 

 numbers. The rank of a library, however, does not entirely depend on 

 its number of volumes, however important on element that may be. 

 The Zaluski library, though in 1789 it outnumbered that of the Kings 

 of France, could not have approached it in point of value. The first 

 book printed in English by Caxton, one of the treasures of the 

 Museum, sold Jthe hut time a copy came to auction for over 10007., 

 while a hundrai thousand dissertations, now in the Advocates' Library 

 at Edinburgh, were bought for less than a farthing each. There can 

 be no doubt that in numbers, and also in intrinsic value, the hundred 

 thousand dissertations far surpass the ' Recuyell of the historic of 

 Trove,' but a library which aims at universality must aim at possessing 



Under all circumstances, it appears remarkable that this idea of a 

 complete or universal library, so long and so generally current, should 

 never have approached to a more thorough realisation. Of all insti- 

 tutions of public magnificence, that of a great library is at the same 

 time the most useful sod the least expensive. A few years ago a single 

 picture by Paul Veronese was bought for the National Gallery for 

 18,0007. The highest sum that has ever been voted by the House of 

 Commons to the British Museum for the purchase of printed books 

 for a whole year is 10,0007. There can be little doubt that if 10,0007. 

 a-year had been voted uninterruptedly for the purchase of books for 

 the last fifty years, and had been judiciously expended, the nation 

 would now be in possession of the finest and completes! library the 

 world has ever seen, and perhaps of a finer and completer than the 

 world will now ever see. 



Such a library should, if anywhere, be in London. A great deal 

 depends on the locality in which a library is placed. That of 

 the kings of France was once kejrt, at Blois, and for a long time 

 afterward, at Fontainebleau. It was one of the good deeds of 

 Henry IV. to remove it to Paris, and one of the good deeds of 

 Louin XIV. to leave it there, instead of removing it to Versailles. 

 The great library of England was for two ccnturic at < Ixf.ird. where it 

 was founded amid universal acclamation in clone neighbourhood to 

 numerous college libraries, at a time when there was no public library 

 whatever in the capital. Of all places iu the world, London would 

 anwar to be the most appropriate for the seat of a great permanent 



and universal library. Talleyrand is reported to have said that I'.iris 

 was the capital of Europe, and London the capital of the globe. No 

 other capital stands in such direct and constant communir.-itkm with 

 all the ends of the earth, no other has such a vast resident population, 

 and no other, except Paris, in visited by such an immense variety of 

 strangers. An institution not far from its centre is within easy reach 

 of two millions and a half of persons. Shielded by its sea from tin- 

 Continent, England has for ages been the asylum of foreign refugees, 

 and is the safest asylum in Europe for persecuted books. It in 

 remarkable that while England is as distinguished for its opposition 

 to centralisation, in many important respects, as France is for its 

 attachment to that form of rule, the two countries exchange their 

 characteristics in the very cose in which the advantages of centralisa- 

 tion are the most capable of proof. Paris boasts of several public 

 libraries, of which some are almost rivals of the principal ; and a 

 reader who wishes to study a particular language may possibly find 

 the grammar of it in one collection, the dictionary in another, 

 and the chrestomathy in a third. In London, the one great library 

 of the British Museum towers above all rivalry since its important 

 accessions of the last forty years; and while the first library of 

 London has more than 600,000 volumes, the second has hardly one 

 tenth of that number. 



Kvt-n when a collection aims at universality, there are of course 

 some points to which more importance will be attached than to others. 

 In a national collection the first object should be the national 

 literature. There is an admirable saying related of the Sjianisl. 

 Moratin the elder, that when he was once asked by a young fi-1 low- 

 countryman what authors he should study, he replied, " Spanish and 

 Greek, Spanish and Latin, Spanish and Italian, Spanish and French, 

 Spanish and English." The spirit of the saying should serve as a 

 guide to the librarian who is fortunate enough to have the selection of 

 the purchases for a large national and universal library. 



It has been already remarked, that owing to the altered circum- 

 stances of recent years some of the opportunities of forming a coni]>lct<> 

 collection of valuable literature which have been allowed to escape, 

 will probably never recur. It is to English literature in particular 

 that this remark applies, and a glance at the history of the principal 

 attempts to embody it in libraries will confirm the view. 



At the time that the Bodleian library was founded at Oxford in 

 1602, there would have been little comparative difficulty in forming a 

 complete collection of the literature of the English language. In the 

 preceding century, during and after the struggles of the Reformation, 

 many English books had been printed abroad, at first by the liefoi 

 and then after the Reformers' triumph, by the Catholics, but nil of 

 them had been intended for the market at home, and circulated here. 

 Almost all the remaining literature of the language was issued at 

 London, and by the members of the Stationers' Company, and the 

 transfer to the Bodleian of the privilege of the Stationers to receive a 

 copy of each book entered at their hall, seemed to ensure that a coin- 

 Mete collection of English literature should in future exist. The 

 irilliant prospects of the Bodleian in this respect were detr.>y< -d )>jk 

 lie remarkable shortsightedness of the founder, Sir Thomas K 

 ' I can see no good reason," he wrote to the first librarian, Dr. James, 

 ' to alter my opinion for excluding such books as almanacks, plays, and 

 an infinite number that are daily printed of very unworthy matters 

 and handling, such as methinks both the keeper and under-kc. j.i r 

 should disdain to seek out to deliver to any man. Haply some plays 

 nay be worth the keeping, but hardly one in forty. For it is not alike 

 n English plays and others of other nations, because they are most 

 esteemed for learning the languages, and many of them compiled by 

 men of great fame for wisdom and learning, which is seldom or 

 never here among us." Nothing can be added to the force of the 

 simple remark that this passage was written by a contemporary 

 if Shakspere. Of course the opinion of the librarian was obliged 

 o bend to "the will of the founder, and it would be difficult to 

 estimate the damage that has been done to literature by thin un- 

 'ortunate decision of that illustrious man. For more than two cen- 

 iuries afterwards, it appears to have been the practice of the Bodleian 

 ibrarians to sell or destroy such books as they judged unworthy of a 

 ilace on their shelves, and this unhappy example was followed in other 

 ibraries. In Hyde's catalogue of the Bodleian, published in 1674, the 

 only collection of Shakspere's plays is the folio of 1664 ; and the only 

 separate play is a ' Hamlet,' published after the Restoration. Though 

 he dramatist was known to be the favourite of " Eliza and our 

 lames," and also of King Charles, who held court at Oxford, neither 

 the first nor the second folio was deemed worthy of a place on the 

 shelves of the University. But when, more than a century after- 

 wards, the tide had so changed that one of the chief glories of the 

 iodleian was in the M alone library of Shaksperian literature, presented 

 o the University by his brother ; and when, in Ifi41, Marlowe's play 

 of the 'Contention of the Houses of York and Lancaster,' a single 

 >no of the mass rejected by I'" ><] !.. \\.is bought by the Bodleian 

 ibrary for 1317., a lesson was read which ought to sink deeply into 

 hi' mindx. not only oi tin- I;. -11. i.ui, but nil other librarians. 



A complete contrast to Sir Thomas Bodley was presented by one 

 rho was probably his contm|x>rary for a part of his life, George 

 'homawm, a bookseller of St. 1'aul's churchyard, who at the commence- 

 nent of the great civil strife in 1010, was struck with the happy idea 



