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that literature, or of portions of that literature. We have, besides, special bibliographies of books on vellum, of books privately printed, of books condemned to the fire, of rare books, of choice books, of catalogues of books, and of books printed by particular printers, and of books printed at particular places and at particular times. A good descriptive catalogue of all these 'helps ' would be a very useful book.

It has been said, and said, we believe, with truth, that albeit the National Gallery of England ranks far below the public collections of some other countries, yet England in its various galleries, public and private, taken collectively, may challenge a comparison with any other nation; and we apprehend that this analogy will hold good, as in pictures, so in books. The Bodleian and other libraries of Oxford, the libraries at Cambridge, Edinburgh, and Dublin, will rank with many of the continental collections. The Harleian library of printed books, formed by Lord Treasurer Oxford and his son, the second Earl, has, like the library formed by the Duc de la Vallière in France, been dispersed; but the catalogues of each remain to testify to their merits. The Sunderland library, so rich in vellum copies of Editiones Principes, is still preserved at Blenheim; and the truly regal collection formed by King George III. out of his privy purse, and so munificently presented to the British nation by King George IV., is kept intact at the British Museum. Immediately upon his accession to the throne, King William IV. commenced the formation of a new library: various collections belonging to the Crown were brought together and amalgamated; many deficiencies have since been supplied by judicious purchases silently and unostentatiously made; and already Her Majesty and her illustrious Consort appreciate and enjoy at Windsor Castle a splendid library of 35,000 volumes, occupying the whole of Queen Elizabeth's Gallery and King Henry VII.'s and King Charles II.'s rooms: to which library is attached an almost unrivalled collection of drawings by the ancient masters, including that of Cardinal Albani. The Roxburghe Collection has, by its dispersion, enriched the noble libraries of the Duke of Devonshire, Lord Spencer, and Mr. Grenville, all of them, but particularly the last, formed with regard to the value of the books, and not the number of the volumes, numerous though they be. We doubt if all Europe could produce another individual gentleman who, in his ardour for collecting books and manuscripts, has disbursed, like Sir Thomas Phillipps, 100,000l., or 2,500,000 francs. It need scarcely be said that the Middle Hill library is of high order.

The passion for collecting books which many individuals have displayed

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displayed has, all things considered, worked well for literature: to the credit of book-collectors it must be said, that in general their stores have been available to the use of others. Some collections formed by distinguished bibliomaniacs,' to use Dr. Dibdin's phrase, yet remain entire; others, dispersed after their owners' death, have enabled many a student to obtain some rare volume necessary to the perfection of his subject. Roscoe acknowledges his obligations on this account to the Crevenna and Pinelli sales. Of the libraries so dispersed some are on record in a good catalogue; whilst others, perhaps of greater merit, are almost forgotten, 'carent quia vate sacro.' The late Mr. Heber accumulated a vast library, or rather a chaotic mass of books, which, certainly from no want of liberality in the possessor, but from various circumstances, produced in his lifetime little good. He had some few favourite classes of literature, which he endeavoured to complete; but in general all books were books to him, and greedily purchased. He stopped not at duplicates, nor triplicates, nor at a tenth copy. Of this library, the labour of a life, the expenditure of a fortune, what remains? Some fifteen auction catalogues, with several alphabets in each, all drawn up in haste for the merely temporary use of vendor and purchasers, and for all purposes of consultation perfectly useless. The late Frederick, Earl of Guilford, began early to collect books, and, after his return from the government of Ceylon, indulged his penchant largely in the literature of Southern Europe. During his visits to the Continent* he purchased the entire libraries of convents; and his collection was singularly rich both in printed books and manuscripts of Italian and modern Greek literature. His aim was to found a university in Corfu, and to deposit there his library. However, upon the earl's death it was dispersed by auction, and, like Mr. Heber's, is now known only by three or four meagre and ill-digested sale-lists. The greater portion of his MSS. are in the British Museum and in Sir Thomas Phillipps's library. Earl Spencer's magnificent library is well known by the volumes of Dr. Dibdin, descriptive of the early-printed books which it contains. Of Dr. Dibdin's labours we have before spoken.†

The library of Mr. Grenville is in its way unique: formed regardless of cost, elegant in taste and objects, choice in editions, with just so much of rarity as makes us esteem a picture by a master whose works are numbered by tens, more than a picture of equal merit by a painter whose canvas may be estimated by acres; there never was a library more complete, in proportion to

* When Lord Guilford, then Mr. North, was abroad in July, 1809, his house in Conduit Street was in danger of fire, and Mr. Windham, who was passing at the time, assisted in removing the books. An injury which he then received caused his death. + Quart. Rev., vol. xxxii., p. 152.

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In

its extent, than that of this venerable statesman and scholar. making known his treasures, which are unreservedly opened to any one who appears likely to profit by the use of them, Mr. Grenville has had the good taste, as it might be expected, to abstain from telling the world that he possesses a well-selected library, including Hume, Smollett, Gibbon, and Robertson, &c. &c.,' the 'tea, coffee, tobacco and snuff,' of the retail dealers in literature and the auctioneers. He has had compiled a catalogue of his rarer or more valuable books, with a few short descriptive notices, often drawn from the small notes placed loosely in his volumes, which those of his friends who are happy enough to use his books value for the information so tersely given in them. A similar catalogue, but restricted to early printed books, of the treasures in the archiepiscopal library at Lambeth, is preparing by Mr. Maitland.

If it be desirable for any country, or for this country in particular, to have one huge catalogue of all that has been printed, of all that has been written, at any time, and by everybody, de omni scibili-a catalogue which shall embrace in one alphabet the works of the Fathers of the Church, and the 2870 tracts of the Religious Tract Society-the writers of old Greece and Rome, and the effusions of Mr. Colburn's novelists-Plato, and the works of the Socialists and Chartists—if all the flocci-naucinihili-pilifications of the present day are to be as elaborately and distinctly enumerated, in all their editions, as the works of the gigantic intellects of former epochs—if a book, of which 500 copies were printed, and which has been catalogued perhaps 600 times, is to be described yet once more-if all the 365 editions of Mavor's Spelling-Book are to be duly set forth in order-if all this is to be done, and done in this country, and at this time, there can be no doubt that it must be a national, or, in other words, a government undertaking. But a general Catalogue, however well done, of the Library of the British Museum, however rich (relatively speaking) it may be, would not supply the want: as compared with the number of books existing in print, a catalogue would show the deficiencies of the library, not its riches; 400,000 works are but a small portion of that ὠκεανὸς ἀπέραντος of print which during four centuries has accumulated from the evergushing springs of typography in Europe. Every year it would become more incomplete, not only by the regular annual production of thousands of new volumes, but also by the constant additions of books of an older date, to supply deficiencies. It would take twenty years of time, and twice twenty thousand pounds of money; and when completed, in perhaps twenty volumes, price twenty guineas, it would neither represent the library of the British Museum-such as we trust it will then be-nor exhibit a complete series of any branch of literature at

any

any given period. It would start at once into old age, and would leave behind it the literature of an entire generation-the twenty or thirty years consumed in its progress through the press. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that, if completed, it will be the foundation of all future works of the same kind; and, to judge from the volume before us, it will be unrivalled in extent and accuracy, not in this country only, but in Europe. May he who has signed the preface live long enough to render the justice which he promises to those who will have assisted him to complete that gigantic undertaking; but we fear. The French began a catalogue of the printed books in the Bibliothèque du Roi so early as 1739. In three years three volumes, containing the faculty of Theology, were published: at the end of eight years more came two volumes comprising the Belles-lettres (what are the Belles-lettres?)-and, after three more years, there appeared a single volume of Jurisprudence. With this volume, now just ninety years old, ended the attempts of the French librarians to publish a catalogue of the Bibliothèque du Roi. In 1761, Audiffredi began an alphabetical catalogue of the fine library, which, in the year 1700, Cardinal Girolamo Casanate bequeathed to the Dominican convent della Minerva at Rome. In the year 1788, twenty-seven years after the first, was the fourth volume published, which ends with the letter K. The catalogue still remains, and in all probability will remain, unfinished: it is, for its extent, the best which exists. At the head of this article we have named the first volume of the catalogue of the Neapolitan Library: ten years have passed away, and it remains tomus primus et unicus. We know not if a second volume be even in contemplation. These are significant precedents.

ART. II.-The Lady of the Manor. Being a Series of Conversations on the Subject of Confirmation, intended for the Use of the Middle and Higher Ranks of Young Females. By Mrs. Sherwood. 7 vols. Fourth edition. London, 1842.

THE

HE work now before us, as far as outward structure is concerned, demands no particular comment. The system of illustrating moral or religious precepts by tales and fables was as little new in the days of Æsop, as it is superannuated in our own; while the Divine example has demonstrated that, even in the inculcation of the most momentous truths, this system is the most intelligible and acceptable to human nature. Doubtless, we shall be told that it was this reflection, and this alone, which prompted Mrs. Sherwood to the task, and supported her through

the

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In

its extent, than that of this venerable statesman and scholar. making known his treasures, which are unreservedly opened to any one who appears likely to profit by the use of them, Mr. Grenville has had the good taste, as it might be expected, to abstain from telling the world that he possesses a well-selected library, including Hume, Smollett, Gibbon, and Robertson, &c. &c.,' the 'tea, coffee, tobacco and snuff,' of the retail dealers in literature and the auctioneers. He has had compiled a catalogue of his rarer or more valuable books, with a few short descriptive notices, often drawn from the small notes placed loosely in his volumes, which those of his friends who are happy enough to use his books value for the information so tersely given in them. A similar catalogue, but restricted to early printed books, of the treasures in the archiepiscopal library at Lambeth, is preparing by Mr. Maitland.

If it be desirable for any country, or for this country in particular, to have one huge catalogue of all that has been printed, of all that has been written, at any time, and by everybody, de omni scibili-a catalogue which shall embrace in one alphabet the works of the Fathers of the Church, and the 2870 tracts of the Religious Tract Society-the writers of old Greece and Rome, and the effusions of Mr. Colburn's novelists-Plato, and the works of the Socialists and Chartists-if all the flocci-naucinihili-pilifications of the present day are to be as elaborately and distinctly enumerated, in all their editions, as the works of the gigantic intellects of former epochs-if a book, of which 500 copies were printed, and which has been catalogued perhaps 600 times, is to be described yet once moree-if all the 365 editions of Mavor's Spelling-Book are to be duly set forth in order-if all this is to be done, and done in this country, and at this time, there can be no doubt that it must be a national, or, in other words, a government undertaking. But a general Catalogue, however well done, of the Library of the British Museum, however rich (relatively speaking) it may be, would not supply the want: as compared with the number of books existing in print, a catalogue would show the deficiencies of the library, not its riches; 400,000 works are but a small portion of that ὠκεανὸς ἀπέραντος of print which during four centuries has accumulated from the evergushing springs of typography in Europe. Every year it would become more incomplete, not only by the regular annual production of thousands of new volumes, but also by the constant additions of books of an older date, to supply deficiencies. It would take twenty years of time, and twice twenty thousand pounds of money; and when completed, in perhaps twenty volumes, price twenty guineas, it would neither represent the library of the British Museum-such as we trust it will then be-nor exhibit a complete series of any branch of literature at

any

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