MtlKS. 



LIBRA H IKS 



jail1a,s. Hi authors, when they came forward to contest the palm, 

 toed eo equal ground ith thmw they had to encounter. A hundred 

 sad fifty mile, fn-m l...nd.-n there waa in the meantime a Welah 

 population to whom Shakansr* and Byron were idle names. 



The sodden rise ami rapid progress of American literature made it 

 iv for any library, intended to embrace the whole wealth of the 

 j 'language, to extend its plan and enlarge its sphere. Popular as 

 books of American origin became ia England, to such an extent in 

 be* that many of them formed part of the ordinary stock of booksellers' 

 bops in country towns, it waa chiefly through reprints that they circu- 

 lated ; and there were hundreds of volumes published in the United 

 HUtus of which probably not one copy was sent for sale to England. 

 Histories of American country towna.'genealogies of American families, 

 biographic* of American local celebrities, reports of American lego] 

 nsysaiuni. and so on, are books for which few men can find space in their 

 libra/we ; but it ia easy to see how to be able to consult a c. >py 

 books, in particular oases, may be all-important to particular persons, 

 and is always of value to those who compile or who cater for the public. 

 An American genealogy will often throw light on the history of an 

 English family; an American law-case may involve the acquisition 

 or loss of property to English residents ; the historian of the contests 

 between England and America, or of our religious sects, or of our 

 vis and manufactures, may often find something in American topo- 

 graphy or biography bearing on his subject ; to say nothing of the 

 general interest attaching for its own sake to a nation so con- 

 spicuous in the eyes of the present world, and so important in all 

 speculations of the future. This object has not been lost sight of by 

 those who have had the selection of books for purchase for the British 

 Museum ; and indeed it is the opinion of competent judges that a 

 more complete collection of American literature has been amassed 

 there in the course of the last twenty years, than exist* in any 

 library of the United States. 



The marked success of America, in literature, of course encourages 

 the confident hope, already justified by more than one brilliantexamplc, 

 that other communities sprung from the English stock will, when the 

 first cares of colonisation and settlement are over, give equal proofs 

 of literary ambition and literary powers. In the meantime the pro- 

 ductions of British America and Australia have already a strong 

 historical Talue of their own, and are certain to derive an additional 

 interest as the communities to which they belong advance in prosperity 

 and importance. The collection of their different productions in one 

 Tsst library would present a spectacle of interest to the whole world, 

 of urpansing interest and pride to all who belong to what has been 

 called the Anglo-Saxon race, whose triumphs in the field of literature 

 are at least as noble as in any other. 



The American movement in literature was followed by a movement 

 on that side of the Atlantic, still more unexpected on this, and which 

 indeed might well take Europe by surprise. The libraries of the 

 provinces now forming the United States had received, previous to the 

 declaration of independence, no scanty contributions from English 

 liberality. After the war of the revolution there was a time in the 

 new commonwealth when public libraries attracted little of the public 

 attention. Dr. ('banning, in a discourse in 1886, spoke of the Redwood 

 library, at Newport, Rhode Island, aa " yonder beautiful edifice, now 

 so frequented and so useful ss a public library, but once so deserted 

 that I spent day after day, and sometimes week after week, amidst its 

 dusty volumes without interruption from a single visitor." This state 

 of affairs has been completely changed in the course of the last forty 

 yean, the movement proceeding with accelerated rapidity, in the last 

 thirty, the hist twenty, and the last ten. Numerous collectors have 

 appeared who have expended large sums of money in the purchase of 

 libraries of standard European, but more particularly of standard 

 English, literature, and more especially of books relating, however 

 remotely, to America, Some of these collections have been since dis- 

 persed on the death of their possessors, and some have even returned 

 for sale to England. But several have been presented to public libra- 

 ries, and others, which have been unissued at Urge expense, have been 

 collected with the expressed intention of bequeathing them to public 

 use. The subscription libraries of America, of which the first was 

 founded at Philadelphia, by Franklin, in 1731, have grown numerous, 

 and been remarkably supported by donations of money from individual 

 members. On more than one occasion agents have been aent to 

 Europe with thousands of pounds, supplied from private funds, to be 

 expended in the purchase of books for public libraries ; and on whole 

 libraries occurring for sale in Europe, an individual baa advanced the 

 money to acquire them in a mass, and present them in a mass to some 

 public collection. The "State Libraries " belonging to several of the 

 hare, at the same time, been largely augmented at the public 

 A library of 80,000 volumes was collected in about four 



years, and has been opened to the pulilic in New Yrk. <>n tin- : 

 tion of Mr. Astor, a < i.h.-int. I - fortune in 



America, and by the donation* .if hi.- equally | .1 son. 



Congress appropriated a 1.111.1. . f mom than IWUMXU., ksfl t" the ' 

 States " for the increase and diffusion .if knowledge am. my men." to the 

 foundation of an establishment called the Smithsonian Institution, ..f 

 which a library was . t rm a I In M anxachusetts, 



law was passed, in IS.Vi, i-., n ... 4 in towns, 



and on* baa been set on foot and |>encd in Boston which baa been 



in Europe. Two American writers, who have each published a volume 

 of statistics on the subject, have thrown over it a somewhat ludicrous 

 air, by giving the name of |.tililic libraries to the c. books 



belonging to Sunday-school* an.) common uch. 

 hundred volumes, to which an Kuglishman won). I a Huh- t! 

 seriously applying the term as to our common circulaii 

 collections in our coffer-shops. Professor Jewett. in -tates 



the number of public libraries in the r n.t. ,1 States as lo.l'.m, ; 

 volumes in them as 3,753,964 ; and Mr. Rhees, in 1850, raises the 

 number of public libraries to 60,890, containing 12,720,686 volumes. 

 Striking off at a blow 48,000 of these public libraries, of which 

 In-long to Sunday-schools, and 18,000 to common schools, the remainder 

 will still excite our surprise. The effect of their existence has been to 

 send an American agent to almost every important sale of books that 

 occurs in England, and to every bookseller's shop, and to raise con- 

 siderably the price of standard English literature not of the present 

 day. 



A movement analogous to that in America has already developed 

 itself at an English colony in Australia, in which the rapid wealth 

 flowing from gold-digging has been turned to the creation of libraries 

 as well as railways. In the city of Melbourne, in the ]>n>vince of 

 Victoria, founded in lx;7. there are already a library of the Supreme 

 Court, a library of the University, a library of tho.Legislatm 

 finally, a public library, supported at the public expense, ion: 

 1 856, and counting in 1869, 25,000 volumes. At Sydney there is also 

 a university with its library, and we have already heard of Caxtona 

 that have been recently purchased in London, whose ultimate destina- 

 tion is a public library at the Antipodes. 



These movements do honour to all who take part in them, and 

 cannot be viewed by on English lover of books and literature without 

 feelings of the warmest sympathy and admiration not unrainglud with 

 a wish that the example they display may soon be followed in countries 

 where perhaps it ought to have been set. These sentiments of 

 gratification would be unmingled if, in Great Britain and Ireland, there 

 were two or three libraries possessed of a complete collect 

 English literature. It is unfortunately the case that as yet there is 

 not one. The danger is therefore evident that, under these circum- 

 stances, such a collection may possibly never exist 

 books as are unique, or only extant in a small number of copies, 'and 

 are not yet secured in our public libraries, may be lost to them for 

 ever. The first edition of the ' 1'il.nrim's 1'rogresi',' whiel 



!y from the second, i* now i-o scarce that Mac.-iulay, in his life 

 of Hun van, speaks of it as no longer extant, and in fa copies 



an- known to exist. Were one of these in the library "f the i 

 Museum we might not only hear with indifference, but with pleasure, 

 .I her is at New York. 



It is quite possible that, ere many yearn tiglish 



scholar, who is in search of a rare English book, may be referred for it, 

 not to Oxford or to Althorpc, but to Washington, or isco, or 



the Antipodes. When. Kw than tv.. . rawed grant 



was given to the library of the HriUsh Museum, it was not v 

 moment too early, and on the liberality of the House of I'onunon-i t.i tin; 

 M useum for the next twenty years, and the way in w 1 

 is made use of , it will probably depend whether an English !1 

 such as might have been ith comparative case ; 



niug of the century, shall ever exist at all That it should exist 

 interest of all who enjoy the common inheritance the Kngliah 

 language, no less than the interest of the Kn_-li.-li n. 



In speaking of collections of books, the word " books " may be used 

 in .1 limited or on extended sense. A pamphlet is scarcely considered, 

 in common usage, cnt'tled to be called a book. It would be thought 

 by many that a complete collection of English literature had 

 formed when the jurisprudeutial department was such as may be found 

 at our Inns of Court ; the medical, such as exists in the College of 

 Surgeons; the Chun h of I'.ir.-land theology, nuch as at tSion (' 

 and BO on, going through all department*. A collection resembling 

 this was probably . I by Sir Th.uiu.- ' 



plays he assumed, as we have seen, that lie was only rejecting trash. 

 All men now smile r, because we tin.l thai in ;-<i doing he 



rejected the plays of Shakspere, but many who smile would fully agree 

 with more recent curators of tl i in rejecting novels. In fact, 



there was no public library in Kngland in which such work- 

 admitted, at the beginning of the present century, and the biblio- 

 maniacs who gave high prices for Lodge's 'Rosalind,' and i 

 ' Euphuea,' would probably have looked on the proposal to collect the 

 novels of Mrs. liadcliffe or Charlotte .Smith with ineffable scorn, 

 now the new school of bibliographers is probably in a minority, which 

 maintains that books like these should be carefully collected, pro- 

 and catalogue I. The Kr.iun.lH upon wln'.-h they rot 

 books arc general I;. I Notion/ in K> dill:. 



if it ha|i|K-n t.. b.- wanted, as :. no\.-| il. 

 .hands some years -...lyV hand.- it \ 



liable and hi, 



publication, a sen n ..i ' \\ . long 



11 a copy turned up in private hands. We have been 

 told that at the library "f the British Museum, a 

 novel* of a certain period was long a desideratum, 1 1 nrteen 



