LIBRARIES. 





al the Jliwum. DO ! a man than Sir RobeH Peel, who 

 tud biawelf been Colonial Secretary, once Interposed hi* veto to pre- 

 mnt OM innovation u( coUeotinf oolooUl Mwnapav. Neither at the 

 Mnwurn nor at the KM* India Houee, i there collection of the 

 Kagiuh MWtpaprr. published in India, though at the Iinlu House a 



of 'the native newxpapen wa. procured at the suggestion of 

 the late librarian. Professor Wibon, the eminent Sanscrit scholar. A 

 plan for collecting eU of m* the American newspapera has never, we 

 beitove. bean seriously entertained, the notion of assembling them 

 too nearly approaches that formerly advocated by Dr. Anderson, 

 of Glasgow, the ingenious editor of the ' Bee,' who wished to collect 

 and PIUSUITB everything whatever in print every shop-bill, every 

 placard for a lot article, isroed throughout Great Britain. The number 

 i* now **fa*** to be upwards of 4000. Sets of the leading American 

 newspaper* are of course deairable for the rest. An ingenious idea, put 

 hi practice by Mr. Charles Knight some yean ago, with regard t. . the 

 lower periodicals of London, would seem to be the most advisable 

 plan to adopt with these multitudinous journals. He sent round on 

 a particular day to collect one specimen of every periodical sheet 

 that issued from the press on that day or nearest to it, and was thus 

 snahlod to draw concliuions as to the character and tendency of the 

 whole body of contemporary periodical literature. A collection of the 

 Ant number of every American newspaper and periodical issued in 

 1801, would be an interesting and a suggestive exhibition. 



The same arguments that hold good for the preservation of news- 

 paper*, apply, and sometimes with additional force, to other varieties 

 of transient literature to that most ancient and most despised species 

 of periodical publication the Almanack to the Director}-, of which 

 the annihilation U carried on with such vigour, that it may be questioned 

 if complete set of the ' London Directory ' exists in London. But 

 van in the most respected forms of periodical publication, the long 

 continuance of their success, in point of time, renders their presence 

 onerous in point of space. As no English newspaper has, like some 

 of it* Dutch, German, and Swedish contemporaries, lasted over two 

 hundred yean, so no English magazine has, like the French ' Mcrcure,' 

 ever extended to more than a thousand volumes ; but the sets of the 

 Monthly Review,' and the ' Critical Review,' and the ' Universal 

 Magazine,' and the ' Scot's Magazine,' to mention none but those which 

 are defunct, are too voluminous each of them for libraries of ordinary 

 size, while the combination of all of them, and of hundreds more, 

 in some one locality, is as necessary for use as it is difficult of accom- 

 plishment. In fine, all those who have hod experience of making 

 research in any department of knowledge whatever, have found reason 

 to complain that the stores of English literature in the British Museum, 

 ample as they seem, and as in many respects they are, ore still too scanty 

 by far, and that much that is attainable remains to be attained. 



The English is not the only language of the British Islands ; and 

 apart from the interest which must always attach to the Welsh as the 

 early speech of at least part of the country before an Anglo-Saxon set 

 foot on it* soil, that language may claim to be one of the oldest 

 of modern Europe, and it has been cultivated to a high pitch of 

 refinement by a small community, overborne by on overwhelmingly 

 powerful neighbour. It is singular that the literary cultivation of the 

 country has never developed itaelf in the direction of bibliographical 

 collection* ; for the concentrated diligence of a few years, combined with a 

 moderately liberal expenditure, would probably have sufficed to assemble 

 a complete collection of WcLth printed literature, the possession of which 

 might have conferred celebrity on a local society or a local magnate. 

 Nothing of the kind appears to have been done on a scale approaching 

 completenes* ; and the largest WeUh collection now known is that of 

 the British Museum, with which the scanty libraries formerly belonging 

 to the Welsh School, and the Cymmrodorion Society, have been incor- 

 porated. So little doe. its existence appear to be known in Wales, 

 that we find, in the Life of the Rev. Thomas Price,' an eminent 

 Welsh scholar, tome bitter complaint* of the total neglect of 

 literature at the British Museum, at a time when more attention was 

 paid to it there than anywhere else. Compared with Welsh, the 

 literature of Gaelic and Irish in excessively scanty ; but Gaelic has to 

 boast of one name, Owian, which is famous throughout Christendom, 

 though the Gaelic poems printed under his name are of course no 

 more genuine than the English no-colled translations, which are 

 in reality the originals. The best collection of book* in Irish i 

 in the Orenville library at the British Museum, amid probably as exten- 

 sive a collection of IrUh books in English as i* anywhere to be found ; 

 bat both Gaelic and Irish are languages to which more attention might 

 be paid with advantage. There is a complete bibliography of Gaelic 

 books in Reid* Bibliotheca Scoto-Celtica,' which might 'serve aa a 

 ..- 



In every great public library formed with a view of affording means 

 for the acquisition of sound and .uUUnti.il knowledge, the foreign 

 books will far outnumber the native. One of the so-called dead 

 language, wa* for ages after it* death the language of all living literary 

 Eorop.,aodtbetrir,, contained In it are in consequence remark- 

 abU for quantity well a. for quality. Since the revival of literature, 

 though different languages have predominated at different time., and 

 MM which have abone have had interval* of obacurity, the number of 

 language, in active cultivation ha. constantly been on the increase 

 After UM invention of printing, Italian was the first vernacular language 



' I'pxluce work, of remarkable genius, and even before the in- 

 of printing it had already hod a time of flourishing and a time of decay. 

 S]i:iin followed, in tin- age of I'liailox V. Toward* the close 

 16th century England had its Elizabethan age. Th<- liili eenliiry 

 produced Richelieu and Loui* XIV. for France. It was Richelieu who 

 first definitively formed the project of the dethronement of Latin as 

 the general language of serious learning, and the establishment of I 

 in it* place. His plans had singular success for a period, and French 

 is still the most general medium of intercourse in Europe ; but the 

 great effect has been, not the introduction of a living language in the 

 place of the dead one, but the general adoption of each living language 

 as a literary medium by those who speak it. This system has been 

 becoming more and more general since about the year 175". 

 the Germans may be said to have abandoned Latin for German. At 

 present there are at least six European languages in cultivation 

 Danish, Swedish, Russian, Polish, Bohemian, Hungarian which a 

 century ago might have been neglected with impunity by the literary 

 student. Russian might always have been expected to rise into 

 importance as the plans of Peter the Great took effect ; but Bohemian 

 ami Hungarian were then regarded, even by those who spoke them, 

 as likely to pass away in a course of gradual decay. 



It may be of advantage to take a rapid survey of all these literatures 

 in succession, with a view of ascertaining what large collections of 

 them have been formed, either on their own soil or in the great 

 libraries of Europe, and more especially in that of England. 



The three dead languages which have been the great objects of 

 study hod, till the recent revival of the separate kingdom of Grt-f 

 particular spot where they might claim in modern times a "local 

 habitation and a name." The literature of the Hebrew language has 

 been, like the Hebrew nation, scattered over the world. A language 

 which has been dead since the, Babylonian captivity, which hod long 

 ceased to be spoken when the New Testament was written, is cultivated 

 with sufficient energy in the 19th century to supply materials for a 

 modern bibliographical periodical, published at Berlin the ' Hebroische 

 Bibliographic.' The first book printed in Portugal, and the first book 

 printed in Turkey, was a Hebrew Pentateuch, and it was probably also 

 the first printed in several Mohammedan countries, where the art was 

 permitted for the reproduction of the Bible, though forbidden fur the 

 reproduction of the Koran. Jewish literature is not, however, confined 

 to comments on the Bible, and is of far more extent than has often been 

 supposed. Mr. Wilson Croker, on his examination before the royal com- 

 missioners on the British Museum, expressed his belief that there were 

 no books in print exclusively Hebrew without a Latin explanation of 

 some sort. There were at the time more than 4000 of that description in 

 the British Museum, comprising not only editions of the Bible and 

 commentarine, but Jewish plays and Jewish epics. The fate of Jewish 

 libraries has been singular. The two largest now in existence are said 

 to be those formed by Rabbi David Oppenheimer in the 1 7th century, 

 and by Mr. Michael of Hamburg in the 19th, of which the first and 

 largest is now in the Bodleian library, and the second in the British 

 Museum. Formed in Germany, and both preserved at Hamburg, they 

 have both been transferred to England, and Oxford is now become in par- 

 ticular the place of pilgrimage to Jewish bibliographers. The collection 

 at the Museum is being constantly augmented with accessions from 

 quarters from which no other accessions come from presses in the 

 Crimea, among the Karaites, from obscure villages in Russian Poland, 

 from Africa, and from Turkey. The number of volumes in the 

 Museum collection was stated by its librarian, Mr. Zedncr, in the 

 ' Hebraische Bibliographic ' for 1859, to be 7480. 



Still more full of life than the Hebrew is the Greek literature, 

 tracing its illustrious course through the long ages from the foundation 

 of the first public library in Europe by Pisistratus at Athens, before 

 the war with Xerxes, to the foundation of the library of the university 

 of Athens in our own time, after the rescue of Greece from the Turkish 

 yoke. Till the 19th century few Greek books could be printed on the 

 soil of Greece, and those few were in the modern Greek a language 

 into which the ' Iliad ' itself had been translated before the fall of 

 Constantinople. Of the books printed in ancient Greek in different 

 ports of Europe in the four previous centuries, there are many good 

 collections extant. These books were always esteemed of value ; they 

 were eagerly sought after for great libraries at an early period ; in the 

 18th century they brought high prices from scholars ami bibliomaniacs, 

 and were looked upon as the choicest of the early produ. 

 art of printing. There is an excellent collection of them in the British 

 Museum. There is in the same library a collection, less valuable and 

 more rare, of books in modern Greek, brought together by I...- .1 (JniM 

 ford, the warm friend of the Greeks and founder of tin university of 

 When his library was sold, at hi* death, this collection wa.s 

 acquired in a mass by the Museum ; and though it is by no means 

 complete, it contains perhaps more than air. i the works 

 described in the bibliography of Iken .id l'ap:ido|>iilos. Theae books 

 are curious for tracing tin- lii 017 "t ih-- b.-u-kw.-ird Ft.-i.u-i "t (lie 

 modern language, which lias been becoming every year more and i 



An immense anil iui|>nrtant portion of every library worthy of the 

 inie nnint be immed I >y works in the Latin language. l'.\ those who 

 declaim againut the Htudy of Latin, as a sacrifice ot 

 the acquisition of a mere knowledge of the literature ol tho heath. -n 



