22S 



LIBRARIES. 



LIBRARIES. 



228 



Paris, that language having been a peculiar favourite of the French 

 missionaries ; and there is a small collection in the British Museum. 

 The largest assemblage of Japanese'books at present in Europe is that 

 at Leyden, brought by Siebold from Japan ; but there are others at 

 Vienna and Paris, and a few volumes, probably soon to be augmented, 

 in our own national library. 



After leaving China and Japan, it is necessary, in order to find 

 another Asiatic nation, the main body of whose literature exists in 

 print, to pass to the western extremity of Asia, and for the chief seat 

 of its printing-presses to look still further westward in Europe. It is 

 from the island-convent of St. Lazzaro, near Venice, that the chief 

 supply of books is gent forth to the Armenians, the " Jews of Christen- 

 dom." The same order of literary monks as flourishes at Venice, the 

 Blechitarists, have now founded branch establishments in Vienna and 

 Paris, at which the press is in full activity. They issue not only 

 editions of the ancient Armenian historians, Moses of Chorene and 

 others, but translations of the most popular and useful works from the 

 European languages Rollin's 'History' and Busching's ' Geography,' 

 the ' Paradise Lost ' and the ' Night Thoughts," ' Robinson Crusoe ' and 

 ' Uncle Tom's Cabin.' In some antagonism to the Roman Catholic 

 Armenians of Venice, who are attached to ancient Armenian, the 

 American missionaries at Smyrna and elsewhere support Protestantism 

 in modern Armenian ; and a few books in the language find their way 

 from the press at Calcutta. Of the Venetian publications, there are 

 probably sets in many European libraries, and the Museum has one 

 which is believed to be complete in all but translations, and includes a 

 large selection of these. 



The literature of Sanscrit, the ancient language of India, was first made 

 known beyond its ancestral precincts by the researches of Englishmen. 

 The names of Wilkins, Colebrooke, and Wilson, will always receive the 

 veneration of scholars for their inestimable labours as pioneers in a 

 field of study BO ancient in one sense, so novel in another. Scarcely 

 half a century has elapsed since the publication of Wilkins'a Grammar, 

 and the discovery of the Sanscrit language has changed the basis of 

 philology. A language which eighty years ago was not known to a 

 single European, now counts its professors and students at Oxford 

 and Berlin. Active however as the press has been, both in India and 

 Europe, to reproduce some of the chief productions of Sanscrit 

 literature, the main body of that literature must still be sought 

 not in libraries of printed books, but of manuscripts. There are 

 now collections of some value at BerUn and Oxford, and even at 

 Copenhagen and Paris, but the collection bequeathed by Colebrooke 

 to the East India House at London, is the finest in Europe, and has 

 been a magnet of attraction to Sanscrit scholars, similar to that pre- 

 sented to Hebrew scholars by the Oppenheimer collection at the 

 Bodleian. The Sanscrit manuscripts at the Museum are less than 130, 

 at the East India House more, it is believed, than 3000 volumes, and 

 each volume there, on an average, contains four or five tracts. The 

 best continental scholars are of opinion that without access to that 

 collection, the study of Sanscrit literature cannot be satisfactorily 

 pui-sued. The recent abolition of the East India Company has made 

 the fate of then- library a question for decision, and it is probable that 

 most scholars would wish to see it deposited in the British Museum, 

 were it not that the regulations of the Museum prevent the manu- 

 scripts from being taken from within its walls, while the regulations 

 of the East India library are in that respect more liberal than those of 

 any other English establishment. 



The languages of India, after the Sanscrit, more than twenty in 

 number, have, except the Hindustanee, little of literary interest, 

 as in most cases they contain hardly anything but translations, 

 whether of works from other oriental languages by natives, or 

 of the Bible by missionaries, or of medical and scientific works by 

 other Europeans, anxious to improve the native mind. Slender as 

 the individual importance of these productions may be, it is still 

 wonderful that so little attempt appears to have been made to collect 

 them, either hi India or England; for in the first place they are 

 certain to have some kind of philological value, and in the second they 

 are memorials of one of the most singular phases of society that has 

 ever existed. The English student of one of the languages, with a 

 view of qualifying himself for office in India, might be materially 

 benefited by finding assembled here a good collection of its literature. 

 The best of the kind in London are at the Royal Asiatic Society and 

 at the East India House ; but much still remains to be done. 



The languages of the Eastern Archipelago, the Javanese, the Bugis, 

 ainf others, and the omnipresent Malay, present points of interest ; and 

 since the time when Sir Stamford Raffles as governor of Java made 

 such vigorous inroads into the realm of ignorance, the Dutch have 

 awakened to wipe away that reproach which was formerly made to 

 th. 'Hi of neglecting studies to which they alone had easy access. 

 Within the last twenty years the Dutch scholars have cultivated the 

 languages of the Archipelago with equal zeal and success, and deserve 

 for their exertions in this matter, the thanks of literary Europe. Of 

 course it is in the Dutch libraries that manuscripts of them are to be 

 found in the greatest abundance; but in the British Museum there 

 is an admirable collection, made by Mr. Crawford, amounting to 

 about 150, and there are also the collections of Marsden at King's 

 College, and nf Leyden at the East India House. 



All the Mohammedan world, however, in India, in the Eastern 

 ARTS AKD SCI. D1V. VOL. V. 



Archipelago and elsewhere, looks for its treasures of literature to one 

 of what are emphatically called " the three languages" the three great 

 idioms of Western Asia and of Northern Africa the Arabic, Persian, 

 and Turkish. The literature of the Arabic of the language which 

 was once not only that of Mecca and Cairo and Fez, but of Cordova and 

 Granada, is now fallen from its high estate. The Mohammedans are 

 paying the penalty of that obstinate aversion to printing, which might 

 almost be considered a part of their religion. The process as practised 

 in China, was described by a Persian historian, who was contemporary 

 with the Crusades; but the description of printing by Rashid- 

 ed-din, remained itself in manuscript till printed at Paris in the 

 19th century. The art was introduced into Spain more than twenty 

 years before Boabdil was driven forth from Granada; but the first 

 book printed in that city was two years after his expulsion. For 

 centuries after, in Mohammedan countries, the art was contemptuously 

 left to Jews and Christians. The increasing preponderance of the 

 Franks has at last brought about some change, and Arabic books are 

 now printed at Constantinople, at Boulak, near Cairo, at Algiers, and 

 in India. While the French at Algiers print much of the old Arabic 

 literature, the Mohammedans at Boulak chiefly issue translations 

 from the French, of treatises on tactics, mathematics, and medicine. 

 Of Arabic libraries the chief are in Cairo ; but there and elsewhere the 

 Arabic libraries of the present day represent the literature of classic 

 Arabic, as the monastic libraries of the middle ages represented 

 the classic literature of Greece and Rome. The Arabic historian, 

 Ibu Aby Tay, affirms, as M. Quatremere tells us, that in the old library 

 of Cairo there were 1200 copies of the history of El-Tabari, a statement 

 that reminds the modern English reader of the 2000 or 3000 copies of 

 Macaulay's History, and M'Clintock's Voyage, in Mudie's circulating 

 library. Every copy of the Arabic of El-Tabari had disappeared and 

 the book was only known in its Persian translation, till a portion of the 

 Arabic was recently discovered in Europe. A similar history will 

 have to be told of many an Arabic classic, which now probably only 

 exists in the great libraries of the Franks. At Paris, at Leyden, at 

 Oxford, at St. Petersburg, and at Vienna, there are large collections, 

 and that at the British Museum is of considerable importance. Sims's 

 useful ' Handbook to the Museum ' gives the number of manuscripts 

 as 1060. 



While Arabic is to the Mohammedan what Latin is to the Catholic 

 nations, the more easy and familiar Persian takes rather the place of 

 French, and was long to India what the French was to Germany. In 

 the library of Tippoo Sahib, which was chiefly composed of that taken 

 by his father Hyder AH by force of arms from the Nabob of Cheotore, 

 it was found upon its transference to the East India House, after the 

 fall of Seringapatam that the number of Arabic and Persian works was 

 nearly 2000, and a few works in Hindustanee and other languages 

 completed the library. Stewart, who published the catalogue, expressed 

 his surprise at the number of the volumes; but the library of the 

 king of Oude, which was catalogued by Dr. Sprenger in 1848 at 

 Lucknow, was far superior in numbers though inferior in condition, 

 being devoured by rats and white ants. At Lucknow, the invention of 

 Senefelder had found more favour in Oriental eyes than the invention of 

 Gutenberg. Twelve lithographic presses were at work iu the town 

 before some arbitrary caprice of the king of Oude put a cheek on 

 their activity. More Persian books have been printed and lithographed 

 in India than in Persia itself, where a printing press has however been 

 established hi Teheran, which issues a newspaper. Of the three 

 editions of the greatest of Persian poets, Ferdusi, two were printed at 

 Calcutta by Englishmen, and the other at Paris by a German ; bat 

 most of the treasures of Persian literature are still to be sought in 

 manuscript. Fine libraries of Persiau are to be found at Paris, at 

 St. Petersburg (where the collection of oriental manuscripts in the 

 library of the Academy is supposed to be the finest in Europe out of 

 Paris), and at Leyden, Oxford, and London. Tippoo Sahib's library is 

 now in the East India House, and the number of Persian manuscripts 

 at the Museum is given as 1082. 



The Turkish language, though far from being of such general 

 literary importance as Arabic and Persian, is abundant in poets, and 

 rich in historians, whose narratives are more generally interesting as 

 describing the Turkish collisions with the more civilised nations whom 

 they unhappily conquered. Its relative importance is well represented 

 by its numbers iu the British Museum, in which it counts less than 

 three hundred manuscripts, while Arabic and Persian are, as we have 

 seen, each over a thousand. Printing was partially established in Con- 

 stantinople at the commencement of the 18th century, and after a long 

 interval of interruption, again in the 19th. The libraries at Constanti- 

 nople appear to represent the extreme of decentralisation. There are 

 no less than forty of them, and the number of books in each varies 

 according to Von Hammer, from 21)00 to 2500, so that the aggregate 

 number of volumes is about 100,000, of which of course the greater 

 part are not only duplicates but triplicates and endless repetitions. 

 Zenker in his ' Bibliotheca Orientalis,' published at Leipzig in 18it5, 

 aims at giving a catalogue of all the books in the Arabic, Persian, and 

 Turkish languages, printed cither in Europe or Asia, and, eveu 

 including translations, the number of which he has succeeded in col- 

 lecting notices is only 1859. 



In our literary journey round the world we have been compelled to 

 pass almost insensibly from printed books to manuscripts. Those 



