LIBRARIES. 



LIBHAHIKs. 



who would make a general survey of the published literature of the 

 l, TU ur world lour osnturi** after th* invention of printing, must still 

 exsawd their view beyond the circle of printed book*. This state of 

 than faraiabe* an additional rmann for th* arrangement which has 

 been so generally adopted in libraries, of either keeping the manuscript 

 and printed book* together if the collection ia small, or merely dividing 

 tarn if th* ouUeotioa ia large, into two separate department* kept in 

 the ***** building. 



Bom* of the most ancient content* of manuscript libraries are among 

 th* moat recently discovered. Th* 19th century ha* already distin- 

 guished iteelf beyond all preceding centuries by ita success in making 

 th* boundarir* of th* past recede. While geologist* claim to delve into 

 the early history of th* earth, the archieologista of art have unearthed 

 th* sculptures and paintings of Egypt and Assyria, and the arcbicolo- 

 gsstsj of literature have decyphend Egyptian hieroglyphics and arrow- 

 headed inscriptions. Amid the treasures of the Britiah Museum are 

 V>t hieroglyphic*! manuscript* on Egyptian papyrus, and what ha* been 

 called the " library of clay " of the king* of Assyria, disinterred from 

 under pyramids and from buried palace*. In the saloons of Great 

 Ruasell Street there i* now lodged a mass of inscribed earthen cylinders 1 

 in the arrow-headed character, from which Rawlinaon and Norris hope 

 to decipher chronicles and leases, religious books, and grammars. 

 Less ancient indeed than these, but still of very remote antiquity, are 

 th* Syrian manuscript*, acquired between 1841 and 1847, from the 

 monasteries of the desert of Nitria, about 1000 in number, and ranging 

 in date from A.D. 411 to A.D. 1292. 



Th* ancient manuscripts of the languages of Greece and Rome in 

 their rlrH 1 periods have been th* ornament of libraries from the 

 Urn* of the revival of literature to the present. They have served 

 their most important purpose by aiding scholars to form standard 

 text of classical authors whose works, once only existing in perhaps two 

 or three copies, have now passfid through innumerable editions, and 

 are found wherever literature is- known. It has been remarked that 

 the purity and intelligibility of an author's text ore generally in exact 

 proportion to the number of ancient copies of his writings that have 

 bun discovered and collated. The manuscripts themselves remained 

 after this use had been made of them, interesting monuments of the 

 part, still more venerable than the earliest editions of printed authors, 

 but regarded as having in a measure " done their work " until the 

 reading of palimpsests by Miebuhr and Mai, in the earlier part of the 

 19th century, threw a new interest over the contents of old libraries, 

 which it was DOW seen, might like mineral districts contain treasures 

 beneath superior to those on the surface. A fragment of the Koinan 

 historian Liciuiauua has thus been recovered by the two Drs. Pertz, 

 father and son, from a manuscript in the British Museum. Almost all 

 Greek clsariral manuscripts now in existence are in public libraries, 

 where they are open to collation, and free to be used for the pur- 

 poses of learning; but there are still a few in situations, such as the 

 conventual libraries of Mount Athos, where they are not easily accessible 

 to th* world of editors, and when their possessors are not qualified 

 to use them to advantage. It has been proposed to apply to them 

 the new process of photography for the purpose of reproducing exact 

 rWaimil**) for th* principal libraries of Europe ; where they might then 

 be used fur the collation of texts with as much confidence as if the 

 original* had been transferred there. A Russian photographer con- 

 tributed to th* exhibition of the Photographic Society in London, 

 om* admirable specimens of a reproduction of several pages of a 

 "coda " of Strabo at Mount Athos. The introduction of the new art 

 is ptoliably .declined to work a revolution in collections of ancient manu- 

 scripts, but it i* not yet satisfactorily ascertained that copies can be 

 allowed to be taken without risk of injury to the original. When this 

 obstacle is got over, as there is reason to hope that in a few years it 

 will be, every library of the first rank will probably aim at having 

 fafsamile* of the leading manuscripts of the world. 



Manuscript* of the middle ages considering the middle ages to 

 terminate with the invention of printing are still existing in largo 

 numbers imprinted, not only in public libraries, but in private hands. 

 It it probable that a hundred years hence the student* of European 

 literature will have much better mean* at command than ourselves, to 

 take a comprehensive view of the literature of Europe during the 

 earlier part of thi* " Yearthouaand," to use a Gennanlam which is in 

 many respect* preferable to " Millennium." The proper use of the 

 treasures of manuscript libraries seems at list likely to be made by 

 leaving them in manuscript no longer. The French are for the first 

 time publishing their early epic*, their long neglected Chansons de 

 O*ate,' their collections of national *onga, their monument* of early 

 tango***. Th* Spaniard* have printed their ' Cancionero de Baena,' 

 from a manuscript which they were obliged to borrow from Paris, 

 where it is now in possession of the Imperial Library, which bad 

 acquired It at a sal* in London. In England we are much in arrear. 

 A i*w year* ago it was announced that a *ociety bad for the first time 

 taken it in band to publish a complete edition of the works of King 

 Alfred, on occasion of the thousandth anniversary of his birth, and the 

 mdertekiiiir " * > oried out. Under the auspices of the 

 Ma*tar of UM Balk, a number of our early historians are now, f..r the 



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m, being given to the public. The numerous publfaUni 

 with th* Roxburgh* Club, and It* mure liberal and large 

 mftaton, th* ScuttLh dubs at their bead, have done mucl: 



in the same good cause. The Britiah Museum has been the principal 

 mine In which these labourers have worked, and the same collection 

 has also been explored by missionaries of literature sent by the govern- 

 ment* of France and Belgium. These have declared that the Museum 

 contained wealth they had not expected in ancient French manuscript 

 literature, while Dr. Pertz, of Berlin, has gone so far as to give his 

 opinion that " if things continue in their present course, every manu- 

 script in Europe, that is not locked up in fiscal collections, or does not 

 become so, will, in the course of another century, become the property 

 of the British Museum." It is not easy, however, to be confident of 

 the accuracy of a prediction so desirable to be accomplished, for in 

 England iteelf there have been forming in the present generation, two 

 collections of manuscripts in private hands those of Lord Ashburn- 

 ham and Sir Thomas Phillipps, of Middlehill each of which has 

 absorbed more than that of the Museum in the same period of t 



One of the most interesting portions of manuscript collections 

 consists hi the illustrated works of the times anterior to printing the 

 illuminated manuscripts. The illuminations are often the most 

 valuable memorials of the costume and the domestic manners of the 

 period in which they were executed, apart from their merit as works 

 of art, which are sometimes of no mean order. A collection of works 

 of this kind, which have belonged to distinguished personages for the 

 more valuable specimens almost always bear traces of the parties for 

 whom they were executed, or to whom they successively belonged 

 presents a union of interest singularly attractive. The Museum 

 is very rich in treasures of this kind. An account of some of the 

 most conspicuous may be found in Waageu's 'Art and Artiste in 

 England.' 



The state papers and documents of modern times form some of the 

 most interesting portions of those manuscript collections the materials 

 of which are contemporaneous with printing. It has always been the 

 aim of governments to shroud at least some of these documents in 

 secrecy for a time, but their wish has often been remarkably baffled. 

 The moat valuable portion of the Cottonian library consisted of 

 documents of historical importance so near to the collector's own 

 period that it ia no wonder the government looked on them with 

 jealousy. King James I. found in private hands some of the most 

 deeply interesting papers relating to the captivity and execution of hi 

 mother, and his own conduct on the occasion. There seems no 

 adequate reason why, as these Cottonian state papers have now been 

 for more than a hundred years in the British Museum, and nothing 

 but good hoe resulted from it, the whole of the documents of the 

 State Paper Office, of that and anterior dates, should not, as ha- 

 been suggested, be made equally accessible, either by transferring them 

 thither or by adopting at the office the same regulations as at the 

 Museum. Even those of later dates, down at least as far as the revo- 

 lution of 1888, might, apparently with advantage, be considered to 

 have passed from the domain of statesmanship to that of history. 

 The ' Calendars 'of these State Papers, which are now being issued 

 from the press, will, in all probability, place the advisability of this 

 measure in a stronger light, by showing of how many transactions a 

 portion of the evidence is to be found at the Museum and a portion 

 at the State Paper Office. These ' Calendars ' were in some measure 

 anticipated by similar lists published in America, of documents relating 

 to the history of some of the states when colonies of Great Britain, 

 which were mode by Americans Henry Stevens and others at the 

 office, by permission of the Secretary of State. A piiiiil.tr liberality 

 has been exercised by foreign governments toward* mir own, in M 

 copies of documents in foreign libraries, which arc illustrative of English 

 history, to be taken and deposited in the British Museum. Such are 

 a collection of fifty volumes of papers from the Vatican, and a immlx r 

 of others from the Hague, which were much used by Macaulay in his 

 ' History of England.' It has been suggested that the more ancient 

 jwrtion of the English legal records, which are to be assembled at 

 the Record Office now building in Fetter Lane, and the ancient wills at 

 Doctors' Commons, no longer of probable uso fur any but literary 

 purpose*, should be deposited at the British Museum, whence th 

 easily be reclaimed if any unexpected occasion for their legal use 

 should arise. The extent of these, however, is so great, and their 

 general interest so little, that the question does not stand upon tin 

 footing with that regarding the State Papers. It may still be advisable 

 to make a difference between libraries and archives. The collection 

 of the archives of Venice, which was formed by the Emperor Francis I., 

 of Austria, ia said by Balbi, to be composed of 1S90 different collec- 

 tions, to occupy 298 chambers, saloons, and corridors, and ia extend to 

 8,664,709 volumes, the matter of which would occupy about three 

 millions and a half of ordinary octavos. Our own records, though not 

 no voluminous as these, are still said to be some of the completed in 

 Europe. Such vast collections of matter may well demand an edifice 

 and a staff of officers for themselves. 



i in times when printing becomes more general in its uso than 

 it i* n"W, or has ever been, there will still be an occasion for forming 

 libraries of some contemporary manuscripts. Collections of autographs 

 will always be eagerly sought after : the original manuscripts of the 

 compositions of great authors will always command a deep and respectful 

 interest. " Breathes there tin- man with soul so dead " who can 

 look with indifference on the original manuscript of Walter Scott's 

 ' Kenilworth,' or Burna's sketch of his own life, or the deed by which 



