221 



LIBRARIES. 



LIBRARIES. 



imperial library at Paris, which in other respects is not rich in the 

 literature of Holland. The largest collection of Dutch books anywhere 

 assembled is in the library of the " Society of Dutch Literature " at 

 Leyden, of which a valuable catalogue has been published. There is 

 good reason to suppose that the British Museum contains the largest 

 collection to be met with anj where out of Holland, and that it does 

 not yield to any library in Holland in this respect, except that of 

 Leyden. The game language, called Dutch in one country and Flemish 

 in the other, is, with small variations of dialect, common to Holland and 

 Belgium, but neglect of the national language in Belgium, and the 

 aversion which has often prevailed between the two countries, has 

 prevented either from paying sufficient attention to the literature of 

 the other, while at the Museum neither has of late years been 

 neglected. 



The ancient language of the North, which still flourishes in Iceland, 

 and wag by common consent till lately denominated Icelandic, produced 

 in the middle ages a body of literature, much of which has, since the 

 invention of printing, been given to the press in Iceland, in Denmark, and 

 lately in Norway, while much more still remains in manuscript. The 

 recently founded library of Reikiavik, the capital of Iceland, contains 

 less of this printed literature than may be found in the British Museum, 

 which had the advantage of receiving from Sir Joseph Banks a col- 

 lection made during his visit to Iceland, and comprising some of the 

 rarest volumes, acquired from the library of Half dan Einarsson, the 

 historian of Icelandic literature. To this have been added a collection 

 offered to the Museum by the learned Icelander, Finn Magnusson, 

 and of late years everything of interest that has appeared in this 

 very curious branch of letters. The older literature of Denmark has 

 never yet been much sought after beyond the boundaries where the 

 language is spoken. In its own country the collection made by 

 Hjelmsterne, and presented to the royal library of Copenhagen in 1807, 

 made the first approach to completeness. The Danish department in 

 that library was then made a separate one, and the object of particular 

 care ; and about that time it might have been expected with some 

 confidence that it would be the most complete collection of a national 

 literature made by any nation in Europe. Danish was then spoken by 

 no one beyond the dominions of the King of Denmark ; his authority, 

 though paternal, was despotic, and the law to deliver a copy of every 

 book in his dominions to the royal library was so peremptory, that at 

 first five copies were required. The prospect soon vanished. Norway 

 wag separated from Denmark in 1814, and took almost imme- 

 diately to perplexing Europe by calling the language it speaks 

 Norwegian, though the same idiom prevails at Copenhagen and 

 Christiania, with some slight difference of pronunciation, which a 

 patriotic Norwegian sedulously exaggerates. Of course the library of 

 Copenhagen lost its claim to Norwegian books, and can, like other 

 libraries, only receive them by present or acquire them by purchase. 

 At the same time the Norwegian literature, since the separation of the 

 countries, has become of more importance, though still of such small 

 extent that it has been asserted that the expenditure of a few pounds 

 a-year would procure a copy of everything issued in Norway. The 

 British Museum received with the library of George III. a valuable 

 collection of Danish books, which has of late years been carefully in- 

 creased ; and it proliably at present surpasses every library out of 

 Hnavia iu its stores of the literature of Denmark and Norway. 



Sweden, like Denmark, has had no foreign competitor for its earlier 

 literary treasures. In Schroeder's work on the earliest productions of 

 the Swedish press, the books he enumerates are extant hi a very small 

 number of copies, and those copies are almost all described as existing 

 in Sweden. In that country, as formerly in England, the principal 

 library is not in the capital, but hi the chief university that of Upsal ; 

 and thi.s collection, which far surpasses that of Stockholm, but is itself 

 inferior not only to the royal library of Copenhagen but to the university 

 library of that city, contains a large number of Swedish books ; but 

 has, like other university libraries, never been directed with a view to 

 embracing a complete collection of the national literature. Sweden 

 too, like Denmark, has suffered in this century a dismemberment. 

 The conquest of Finland by Russia took from it a country in which, 

 though the language of the uneducated classes was Finnish, the 

 language of the educated was Swedish.' Runeberg, the most popular 

 poet now living in the Swedish language, is by birth and residence a 

 Finlander, and has never been in Sweden. Few Swedish libraries are 

 extant out of Scandinavia, except in parts of Germany-and Russia 

 which were formerly Swedish provinces, and none of these are probably 

 so extensive as that now in the British Museum. 



literature of Hungary is almost entirely a growth of the latter 

 part of the 18th century, and of the 19th. The language, a branch of the 

 Tartar stock, was revived, when sinking into decay, by the exertions of 

 Kazinczy.and by the attempt of the emperor Joseph to suppress it. It 

 has now become the object of enthusiastic affection on the part of those 

 who speak it, and who were congratulated on their possessing such a 

 noble organ of thought and poetry by the great linguist Mezx.nfaiiti. 

 The number of works published in the language in 1795 was 22, and 

 . no !* than 010. The fine library of Count Francis Szcchenyi, 

 which was given in 1 802 as the foundation of a national museum at Pesth, 

 has since grown to a colli-i -lion which was stated in 1859 to contain 

 "i volumes, of win It Hungarian books, and 20,000 of 



the remainder were books relating to Hungary. These numbers are no 



doubt much exaggerated, but the catalogue of the original collection 

 which was printed at Szechenyi's expense before the donation was made 

 shows that he had amassed with uncommon care and success almost 

 everything that related to the history, the topography, and the lite- 

 rature of the country. If the collaction has been continued on the 

 same scale, as it probably has been, it must present as complete a speci- 

 men of what a national library should be as exists in Europe. In the 

 British Museum there is a fine collection of books on Hungarian topo- 

 graphy and history, and also of books in the Hungarian language, which 

 may be called an abridgment of the Szechenyi Museum. The Hunga- 

 rian refugees who arrived in London after the failure of the revolution 

 of 1848, must have been agreeably surprised to find arrived before them 

 all their best authors and most distinguished periodical publications, in 

 an abundance which showed that the frequent complaint of Hungarian 

 patriots was not in this instance justified that Hungary had not been 

 overlooked or forgotten. 



The success of other languages has led the Wallachians recently to 

 attempt a national literature, which was commenced w thin the laat 

 twenty years by the translation of some popular Fren h novels into 

 Wallachiau or " Roumauic," by a native princess. r i !,is not very 

 promising beginning has been followed up by a host of other trans- 

 lations, and by a few original efforts, some of which appear to have 

 merit. The political importance which has been lately attained by 

 Wallaehia and Moldavia has given rise to a flood of pamphlets and 

 political writings ; and the peculiar position of the Wallachian as a 

 solitary Romanic language in the east of Europe, has lent it an interest 

 that otherwise would scarcely belong to- it. Most of the original publi- 

 cations in Wallachian are in the British Museum. 



The Servian language has far other claims to notice in its beautiful 

 and spirited ballads, which have attracted from their first appearance 

 the admiration of all literary Europe. The Servian literature is collected 

 with care in the libraries of other Slavonic countries, but there appears 

 to be no public library at Belgrade. 



The ancient connection of Bohemia with England by the marriage 

 of Richard II. to a Bohemian queen, led to the introduction of the 

 doctrines of Wickliffe from the university of Oxford to the university 

 of Prague, and so to the cultivation of the national language in the 

 struggle which ensued with the Catholic clergy. Bohemia was the 

 first of the Slavonic languages which had a printed literature ; but, 

 after the defeat of Bohemian Protestantism in the -Thirty Years' 

 War, that literature was also attempted to be suppressed. A Jesuit 

 father of the 17th century, is branded 'with infamy as having for 

 many years collected Bohemian books for the purpose of destroying 

 them, an attempt in which he had no common share of success. As 

 in the" case of Hungary, the Bohemian language was sinking into 

 apparently irrecoverable decay, and yielding the ground it had for- 

 merly occupied to German, when this tendency was arrested by the 

 exertions of native scholars, and for some years past the language 

 has been growing more and more into literary cultivation. One of the 

 chief measures taken by the national party was the establishment 

 of a " Bohemian Museum " at Prague, to contain among other things 

 a collection of Bohemian literature. Bohemian is not like Hungarian, 

 an isolated language ; and the recent Panslavistic movement has called 

 tittention to Bohemia and its literature in other Slavonic countries. 

 The library of St. Petersburg was enriched in 1852 by the purchase 

 of the library of Jungmann, the author of the great Bohemian 

 dictionary, and the historian of Bohemian literature. The student of 

 the language will find a good collection of Bohemian books of recent 

 date, and some curious ones of an older date, in the British Museum. 



The literature of Poland has been remarkably unfortunate. It had 

 a period of cultivation almost contemporary with our Elizabethan age, 

 but its early productions rival in scarcity those of Bohemia, for though 

 they were not made the object of systematic persecution, the in- 

 difference of the Poles to literary treasures has been so marked, that 

 most of their ancient books have been gradually consigned to destruc- 

 tion by mere carelessness and wantonness. When Zaluski in the 18th 

 century, brought together his immense library, one of his principal 

 objects was to amass everything that related to Poland, and it is stated 

 that 20,000 of his volumes had reference to this subject, though the 

 whole number of books in the Polish language in his library was less 

 than 5000. Many of the books in this collection were unique, and to 

 form a second collection approaching to it in completeness was out of 

 the question. When, therefore, the whole Zaluski library was carried 

 off, as has been already stated, to St. Petersburgh by the Russians, the 

 Poles sustained not only a great but an irreparable loss. On the second 

 occasion of the seizure of the Polish libraries in 1833, the Emperor 

 Nicolas was, it appears, considerate enough to direct that books in 

 Polish and books on medical subjects should be permitted to remain 

 in Warsaw. The Polish emigrants have since established a Polish 

 library in Paris, and Prince Adam Czartoryski, the same from whom the 

 Russians took the library 'of Pulayy, presented to the British Museum 

 in 1 833, a small collection of seventy or eighty Polish volumes. A few 

 years afterwards, the movement commenced for increasing the Museum 

 library, and it has now the richest collection of Polish literature out of 

 Poland and Russia. To judge from the occasional complaints of 

 Warsaw journals as to the defective literary communication between 

 that capital and Posen and Cracow, it is not improbable that Polish 

 books from the three literary centres of the Polish language under 



