LIBRARIES. 



LIBRARIES. 



260 



former libraries having been destroyed at the conflagration of 1834. 

 The library of the East India House has been already spoken of. It is 

 the most important collection of the kind in London. 



Of libraries not in the capital, the Bodleian of Oxford is the most 

 extensive and the most interesting. Long the first collection 

 in England, it still remains the second and is likely long to remain 

 go. Increased interest in its prosperity has been manifested ' in 

 the present century, during which it has received the valuable presents 

 of the Gough, the Malone, and the Douce collections, each of them 

 more important than any single donation in the ISth century, and 

 only to be paralleled by the benefactions of the Lauds and Seldens 

 of the 17th. Its venerable buildings, so appropriate to a university 

 library, are now becoming inadequate to the reception of its treasures, 

 and a proposal has been recently decided on which will at once provide 

 the establishment with room and increase its magnificence. The 

 Radcliffe Library building, in almost immediate juxtaposition to the 

 Bodleian Library, and remarkable for the beauty of its interior as well 

 as exterior structure, is to be added as a reading-room to the Bodleian, 

 with which it will be connected by a passage, and the Radcliffe collec- 

 tion is to be removed elsewhere. This will be singularly in accordance 

 with the intentions of the founder, Dr. Radcliffe, the great physician, 

 who originally intended to enlarge the Bodleian Library, by building 

 another room connected with it ; a scheme which only failed on account 

 of some conditions insisted on by Exeter College. The Radcliffe and the 

 Bodleian Libraries have been remarkable among libraries in close juxta- 

 position for having come to an agreement which would have been 

 thought likely to suggest itself to almost all libraries in a similar pre- 

 dicament. The Radcliffe has confined itself to the purchase of books 

 in a particular department natural history and the Bodleian has 

 avoided making purchases in that department. Had a similar plan 

 been followed with regard to college libraries, and Hebrew or Arabic 

 manuscripts, for instance, been as systematically collected at one, aa 

 Welsh manuscripts have accidentally been at another, at Jesus 

 College the large assemblages of books at Oxford might have con- 

 stituted one all-embracing library. The Bodleian library consisted, in 

 1849, of 220,000 volumes as returned to the House of Commons, and 

 may be now estimated to amount to 250,000. There are several 

 minor libraries belonging to the University the Radcliffe, the Ash- 

 molean, the library of the Taylor Institution for modern languages, &c. 

 The college libraries are, however, the distinguishing glory of Oxford. 

 Within a short walk of each other, in a city of not more than 30,000 

 inhabitants are found a range of some of the most splendid edifices 

 ever erected for the reception of literature, most of them enclosed with 

 lawns and gardens, some venerable for antiquity, some radiant with 

 architectural splendour. Christ Church and All Souls are particularly 

 magnificent, Merton is venerable ; but almost all have striking attrac- 

 tions, and each of many would be a gem elsewhere. The same may be 

 xjKud of Cambridge, where, indeed, the arrangement of the buildings is 

 superior to that at Oxford, and one range of gardens with noble trees 

 joins on to another, leading along the banks of the Cam, from college 

 to college, from library to library. By perhaps an intentional arrange- 

 ment of Sir Christopher Wren, who built the noble library at Trinity 

 College, Cambridge the place of education of Bacon, Newton, and 

 Byron, of Tennyson, Thackeray, and Macaulay the windows are so 

 high that the view of this unrivalled scholastic landscape which they 

 command is not allowed to distract the reader from study. The 

 library so lodged, which now contains about 50,000 volumes, embraces 

 the autograph of Milton's Comus, the Shakcspere collection of Capel, 

 and the German library of Archdeacon Hare. The library of St. John's 

 is, like the college, a rival to Trinity ; Bennet's is famous for its Anglo- 

 'i manuscripts; that of Magdalen for the autograph of Pepys's 

 Diary and the Pepys collection of ballads. Other libraries have other 

 claims to attention, while the University Library, placed in the new 

 and splendid room, erected by Mr. Cockerel, which is only a portion 

 of the intended design, forms a worthier rival than is supposed to the 

 Bodleian. The collection of about 30,000 volumes, brought together 

 by ];i*hnp Moore of Norwich, and presented to the University by 

 George I., abounds in resources not yet sufficiently explored. The 

 library in spoken of in the University Calendar as containing over 

 1 7' i.OOO volumes. The Fitzwilliam library also belonging to the 

 University, and placed in the Fitzwilliam Museum, of which it forms 

 a part, is rich in works of art. 



Manchester was long distinguished among English towns as it is 

 now among English cities by its possession of a library to which 

 access was as free as to any of the libraries of the continent. It was 

 founded in 1653 by the will of Humphrey Chetham, of Manchester, 

 whose family motto was not of a very liberal cast, " Quod tuum tene," 

 " Keep what is thine." There can hardly be a more striking contrast 

 than that between the low narrow and crowded rooms in the building 

 of Chetham's hospital, where this collection, chiefly of ancient folios, is 

 now, it i true, accessible to the student, but seldom disturbed, and 

 the fine airy lofty rooms, full of modern books in splendid bindings, 

 which house the "Free Library" of Manchester, founded in 1850, 

 within an easy walk of it. The Manchester library was the first esta- 

 blished under the Free Library Act of I860, which gave power for 

 limited local rates to be levied for the establishment of a free and 

 public lil.rary, on the consent obtained of two-thirds of a meeting of 

 the rate-payers. The Americans had already anticipated us by a 



similar law, but the English Libraries Act may be considered as only 

 an extension of the Museums Act of 1845. The early history of the 

 Manchester library is set forth in the reports of Mr. Edward Edwards, 

 its first librarian, whose exertions are understood to have had a con- 

 siderable share in promoting and obtaining the Act of Parliament. 

 Free libraries have since been proposed and adopted in many locali- 

 ties, and rejected in others one has been rejected in London, and one 

 has been founded in Oxford, adding to that city of libraries one 

 collection more. At Liverpool a great example of munificence has 

 been set by Mr. Brown, a Liverpool merchant, trading with America. 

 The Free Library, founded in 1852, having grown so rapidly as to 

 require an extension of room, he presented the town with a new and 

 spacious library building at his own expense, of which the estimated 

 cost was 25,000?. A connection has been proposed to be established in 

 some cases between old establishments and the new such as the 

 Chetham and the Free and this would certainly be one way of 

 revivifying the old cathedral libraries, of which Mr. Beriah Botfield's 

 volume on that subject has shown that they possess more valuable 

 collections than they have always had credit for. 



In Scotland, the largest collection is the Advocates' Library, at 

 Edinburgh, belonging to the Faculty of Advocates, and located close to 

 the Courts of Law, in immediate proximity to, and under the same 

 roof with, the library of the Writers to the Signet. The Advocates' 

 Library formerly occupied the identical room now occupied by that of 

 the Writers, and some passages of law have, it is understood, taken 

 place between the two branches of the profession respecting their 

 rights to light, which is so deficient, that in some underground rooms 

 of the Advocates' Library candles are used at noon-day. The present 

 Signet library is a palatial room, which reminds the visitor by its 

 appearance of the libraries of the London clubs. The Advocates and 

 the Signet libraries together the former about 180,000 volumes, and 

 the latter about 50,000 amount to nearly a quarter of a million 

 volumes, and if an arrangement had been come to similar to that 

 between the Bodleian and Radcliffe libraries, Edinburgh might have 

 reaped a material benefit. The Advocates' library contains a large 

 Spanish collection, formerly belonging to the Marquis of Astorga, and 

 acquired in a mass from Mr. Thorpe, the London bookseller, but found, 

 after purchase, to be much less choice than was expected. It has also 

 a collection of works relating to the Scandinavian nations, bought 

 like a similar one in the British Museum of Professor Thorkelin, and a 

 mass of 100,000 foreign dissertations bought at the recommendation 

 of Sir William Hamilton for 80?. Though both the Advocates and the 

 Signet library are rich in law, yet neither is by any means exclusively 

 a professional library, and neither is pre-eminently Scottish, though of 

 course, Scottish publications predominate more than elsewhere. The 

 library of the University of Edinburgh occupies the finest room in 

 Scotland and one of the finest in Great Britain. The collection has 

 upwards of 100,000 volumes, but is said to be very deficient in some 

 branches of learning. The leading collections in provincial Scotland are 

 those of the universities Glasgow, St. Andrews, and Aberdeen. They 

 were long an object of odium to English booksellers, on account of 

 the privilege that had been somewhat liberally granted to them of 

 demanding a copy of every book published. This right was exercised 

 in very unequal degrees, for when it was abolished in 1835, and com- 

 pensation granted in proportion to the actual loss sustained, Aberdeen 

 was ordered to receive only 320?. a-year from the Consolidated Fund, 

 while Glasgow was rewarded for its diligence with 707?. Glasgow, in 

 addition to its fine university library, has that of the Hunterian 

 Museum, founded by Dr. Hunter, of London. 



There is probably no more singular origin of a library on record 

 than that of Trinity College library in Dublin. The English army, 

 which had defeated some Irish insurgents and their Spanish allies 

 at the battle of Kinsale, on Christmas Eve, 1601, resolved to "do 

 some worthy act that might be a memorial of the due respect they 

 had for true religion and learning." For this purpose, the soldiers 

 raised among themselves 1800?. to furnish a library for the University 

 of Dublin, then recently founded. Their agents coming to London 

 for that purpose, found Sir Thomas Bodley engaged in making pur- 

 chases for his intended library at Oxford, and conferred with him 

 on the choice of books. In 1656, the death of Archbishop Ussher 

 brought his valuable library into the market, and again "the soldiers 

 and officers of the then army in Ireland, out of emulation to the former 

 noble action of Queen Elizabeth's army, were incited by some men of 

 public spirit to the like performance," and the archbishop's library 

 was bought by the army and presented to Trinity College, with the 

 sanction of Oliver Cromwell. The most important addition ever 

 made to it at one time, was that of the Fagel collection, formed by 

 several generations of the Fagel family in Holland, and amounting to 

 nearly 18,000 volumes, which were acquired for 10,000?. Some 

 valuable books were bequeathed by a Mr. Quin, but under such 

 onerous conditions that Mr. Panizsd, who had to cross the sea for the 

 purpose of examining an Ariosto of the collection for his edition of 

 the ' Orlando,' complains loudly of the illiberal restrictions by which 

 the donor had rendered it impossible to receive his benefits with 

 unmixed feelings of gratitude. The Trinity College collection was 

 counted in 1848, and found then to contain 101,962 volumes of 

 printed books, and 1512 of manuscripts. Marsh's library, of about 

 5000 volumes, founded at Dublin in 1707, by Archbishop Narcissus 



