LIBERT AS LIBRARIES. 



459 



attended with great, if not unexampled, success. 

 The men of colour, who have migrated to Liberia, 

 have felt the influences of enterprise and freedom, 

 and are improved alike in their condition and cha- 

 racter. Those who were slaves have become masters; 

 those who were once dependent have become inde- 

 pendent : once the objects of charity they are now 

 benefactors, and the very individuals' who, a few 

 years ago, felt their spirits depressed in America, and 

 incapable of high efforts and great achievements, 

 now stand forth conscious of their dignity and power, 

 sharing in all the privileges and honours of a respec- 

 ted, a free, and a Christian people. 



LIBERT AS, among the Romans, personified liber- 

 ty ; according to Hyginus, a daughter of Jupiter and 

 Juno. When she is represented on coins, with her 

 head uncovered, she is the Roman Liberty ; but, 

 witli a diadem and veil, she is the goddess Liberty, 

 in general. Gracchus built a temple to the latter on 

 mount Aventine. 



LIBERTINES, or LIBERTINI ; a sect of fana- 

 tics, in the sixteenth century, in Holland and Brabant, 

 who placed religion in a perfect union of the soul 

 with God, whicli having once taken place, all differ- 

 ence between evil and good, sin and virtue, ceased ; 

 so that the individual might give himself up to his 

 appetites and passions, as these were no longer bad. 



LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. See Press. 



LIBERTY TREE. At the time of the disturb- 

 ances excited in the American colonies by the stamp 

 act, a large American elm was used, in Boston, to 

 hang obnoxious characters in effigy, and to make 

 known the intentions of the sons of liberty (as the 

 patriot! were called) , who also held their meetings 

 under ft. The following inscription was placed upon 

 it " This tree was planted in the year 1646, and 

 pruned by order of the sons of liberty, February 14, 

 1766." It was thenceforward called the liberty tree, 

 but, in 1774, was cut down by the British troops, by 

 whom the town was occupied. The example was 

 imitated in other parts of the country, most of the 

 towns having their liberty tree ; and on the breaking 

 out of the French Revolution (1789), the same em- 

 blem was adopted. A' liberty tree was planted by 

 the Jacobins in Paris, and many other cities of France 

 followed their example. The same ceremony was 

 practised by the French troops, on their entrance into 

 foreign countries. The Lombardy poplar was first 

 used, but the French name of this tree (peuplier), 

 affording matter of derision, oaks or fir-trees were 

 afterwards used. 



LIBERTY, CAP or. The right of covering the 

 head was, in early times, a mark of liberty. Slaves 

 always went bare-headed, and one of the ceremonies 

 of emancipation was the placing a cap on their head, 

 by their former master. Thus the cap (or the hat) 

 became the symbol of liberty, and has played a part 

 in many revolutions. The Swiss owe their liberty to 

 the hat which Gessler ordered to be saluted as a mark 

 of submission. The arms of the united Swiss can- 

 tons have a round hat for a crest. In England, the 

 cap (blue, with a white border, and the inscription 

 Liberty, in letters of gold), is used as a symbol of the 

 constitutional liberty of the nation, and Britannia 

 sometimes bears it on the point of her spear ; more 

 commonly, however, she has the trident of Neptune, 

 without the cap, in her left hand, whilst she offers the 

 olive branch of peace to the world in her right hand. 

 The cap was used in France, as the symbol of liberty, 

 at the beginning of the revolution (1789); and its red 

 colour was borrowed from that of the liberated galley- 

 slaves of Marseilles, who went in great numbers to 

 Paris. The Jacobin club, at Paris, afterwards made 

 the red cap a badge of membership, and it was, 

 therefore, afterwards called the Jacobin cap. 



LIBRA ; the Roman pound unit for weighing. 

 (See As.) The ancient Romans reckoned money 

 also by pounds, and a libra of silver was worth about 

 thirteen dollars. This word passed over to the various 

 nations of Latin descent or mixture. See Livre. 



LIBRARIES. The most ancient library is fabu- 

 lously ascribed to the Egyptian king Osymandyas of 

 Memphis. Pisistratus first founded a library among 

 the Greeks, at Athens; Xerxes carried it to Persia, 

 but Seleucus Nicator caused it to be restored to 

 Athens. The most celebrated library of antiquity 

 was the Alexandrian. (See Alexandria.) JEmilius 

 Paulus and Lucullus brought the first libraries, as the 

 spoils of war, to Rome. Asinius Pollio founded the 

 first public library, which was also taken in war. 

 Julius Caesar established a large library, and intrusted 

 it to the care of the learned Varro. Augustus founded 

 two libraries, one of which was called Palatina, 

 because it was in the temple of Apollo, on mount 

 Palatine; the other was in the portico of Octavia, and 

 was called Octaviana. The conflagration of Nero 

 destroyed several libraries, which Domitian restored. 

 Trajan founded a very excellent library. Publius 

 Victor mentions twenty-eight public libraries in Home; 

 there were, besides, extensive private libraries. These 

 treasures were destroyed or dispersed, partly by the 

 ravages of the barbarians, partly by the iconoclasts. 

 In the ninth and eleventh centuries, Basil the Mace- 

 donian, emperor of the East, and the learned Com- 

 nenian imperial family, made several collections of 

 books, principally in the convents of the ^Egean 

 islands and mount A thus. The Arabians had, in 

 Alexandria, a considerable library of Arabian books. 

 Al-Mamoun collected many Greek manuscripts in 

 Bagdad. In the West, libraries were founded in the 

 second half of the eighth century, by the encourage- 

 ment of Charlemagne. In France, one of the most 

 celebrated was that in the abbey St Germain des 

 Prds, near Paris. In Germany, the libraries of Fulda, 

 Corvey, and, in the eleventh century, that of Hirschau, 

 were valuable. In Spain, in the twelfth century, the 

 Moors had seventy public libraries, of which that of 

 Cordova contained 250,000 volumes. In Britain 

 and Italy, libraries were also founded with great 

 zeal, particularly, in the former country, by Richard 

 Aungerville; in the latter, by Petrarch, Boccaccio, 

 and others. After the invention of the art of print- 

 ing, this was done more easily and at less expense. 

 Nicholas V. founded the Vatican library. Cardinal 

 Bessarion bequeathed his excellent library to the 

 church of St Mark at Venice. See Petit-Radel's 

 interesting Recherches sur les Bibliotheques anciennes 

 et modernes jusqua la Fondation de la Bibliotheque 

 Mazarine (Paris, 1819.) 



The principal libraries of modern times are, the 

 royal library at Paris (more than 400,000 printed 

 books, and 80,000 MSS.); the central court library 

 at Munich (more than 400,000 books, and 9000 

 MSS.); the imperial library at Petersburg (300,000 

 books, and 11,000 MSS.); the imperial library at 

 Vienna (300,000 books, and 12,000 MSS.); the 

 university library at Gottingen (about 300,000 books); 

 the royal library at Dresden (at least 220,000 printed 

 books, 150,000 pamphlets, dissertations, and small 

 works not included, and 2700 MSS.) ; the royal 

 library at Copenhagen (stated variously at 130,000, 

 250,000, and 400,000 volumes; it has 3000 MSS.), 

 the library in the Escurial (130,000 volumes, and 

 excellent Arabian MSS.); the royal library at Berlin 

 (200,000 volumes, and 7000 MSS.); the academical 

 library at Prague (130,000 volumes, and 8000 MSS.); 

 the royal library in Stuttgard (116,000 volumes); the 

 Vatican library at Rome (300,000 books, and 40,000 

 MSS.). In Britain, the two largest libraries are the 

 Bodleian in Oxford (stated by some at 500,000, by 



