^T. 28.] JOURNAL. 233 



years old, but his hair may be prematurely gray. He 

 seems to have his hands very full of business, but he 

 received me with cordiality; took me to the library 

 and the cabinet of natural history, which are in the 

 same building, told me to amuse myself till one (the 

 universal dinner hour), and meet him at the Botanic 

 Garden at three, and afterwards spend the evening at 

 his house. The cabinets here are in an old, rather in- 

 convenient building, once a Jesuits' college, which now 

 contains them all, as well as the library, the lecture- 

 rooms of the university, etc., but in a year or so all 

 will be removed to very fine buildings the king is 

 erecting for their reception. Excepting the Brazilian 

 collections, which are large and good, there is nothing 

 worth particular notice in the zoological and minera- 

 logical cabinets ; they make no great show after that 

 of Vienna. The library is immense, this and the one 

 at Paris being the two largest in the world ; the books 

 fill a great number of rooms, none of them magnifi- 

 cent but very convenient ; the whole is soon to be 

 transferred to other quarters. I was introduced to 

 one of the librarians, who was at the moment showing 

 the curiosities of the collection, very old and rich man- 

 uscripts, the earliest attempts at wood-engraving, 

 etc., to a party of English. When he had done 

 with them I told him he must have been bored quite 

 sufficiently for once, and that I would not trouble him 

 any further just then, but that I wished to acquire 

 some useful information about the plan and arrange- 

 ment of the library, rather than to see its curiosities. 

 So he fixed upon Friday morning, when he would be 

 quite disengaged, and would gladly afford me all the 

 information I desired. Shortly after dinner I went 

 down to the Botanic Garden ; found Martius, who, 



