256 A Librarian's Work. [xn. 



great -uncles, whose names the world of readers has 

 forgotten. 



A librarian has the opportunity for observing many- 

 curious facts of this sort, but he will seldom have 

 leisure to speculate about them. For while a great 

 library is an excellent place for study and reflection, 

 for everybody except the librarian, his position is 

 rather a tantalising one. In the midst of the great 

 ocean of books, it is " water, water everywhere, and 

 not a drop to drink." 



To make up for the extreme vagueness with which 

 authors customarily designate themselves on their 

 title-pages is the work of the assistants who write the 

 long cards, and it is apt to be a very tedious and 

 troublesome undertaking. Biographical and biblio- 

 graphical dictionaries, the catalogues of our own 

 and other libraries, university-catalogues, army-lists, 

 clerical directories, genealogies of the British peerage, 

 almanacs, " conversations-lexicons," literary histories, 

 and volumes of memoirs, — all these aids have to be 

 consulted, and too often are consulted in vain, or give 

 conflicting testimony which serves to raise the most 

 curious and perplexing questions. To the outside 

 world such anxious minuteness seems useless pe- 

 dantry ; but any sceptic who should serve six months 



