WATTS, THOMAS, a distinguished philologist and librarian, was b. in London early in the present century. At school he studied Latin and French, and in due time Greek es well; but he principally distinguished himself by his attainments in English. He read every book that came-in his way, and he wrote, apparently with the utmost ease, tales, essays, and poetry, very much above the average, not alone of schoolboy composition, but of the magazine-writing of the day. To a knowledge of the classics and French, Watts soon added an acquaintance with the other languages of the Latin family—as Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese; likewise with the German Dutch, Swedish, Danish, and Icelandic. The facility with which he ac nired these e v' 11 encouraged d him to undertake, from time to time, the study of some several oriental tongues, Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and even Chinese, In each of these he made con- siderable progress, but cannot be said to have mastered any of did those Ian guases before named, and as lie subsequently mastered the Russian, , o , 1 11 and Hun garian. There are few Englishmen who know anything in of the three languages last named, which Watts could read and translate with the utmost ease—being as familiar, in fact, with their great writers as he was with those of Germany or France. It remains only to mention that Watts was also well acquainted with the Welsh language and liter ature, besides having some knowledge of the Gaelic and Irish as well. Upward of 20 languages have thus been named with which he was well acquainted. No other English man has approached him as a linguist, considering the variety as well as the number of languages which he acquired; while of foreigners, it is not too much to say that Mezzo fanti alone appears to have surpassed him.
In 1832 Watts first became a " reader" in the reading-room of the BritiSh museum, where, in studying some of the languages mentioned, he became acquainted with the deficiencies in the literature of other countries under which our national library then labored. In 1837 the rev. Mr. Baber, then keeper of the printed books, purchased, at his recommendation, a small collection of Russian books, which Watts offered to cata logue as a volunteer. This brought him the acquaintance of Mr. Panizzi, who, becom ing aware of his attainments, recommended him for employment in the library. Accord ingly, he was engaged as an assistant in the department of printed books, Jan., 1838. At that time, the books were being transferred from the old rooms in Montague house to the new library. It was Watts's duty to assist in the rearrangement of the books, and when this was finished, he was intrusted with the responsible duty of arranging and placing on their shelves, according to subjects, all the new works purchased or other wise acquired for the library. For this his vast acquirements as a linguist eminently qualified him. In other respects also his knowledge of languages was brought to bear in the service of the museum. He drew up lists of desiderata in all the languages of Europe. It was at his suggestion also that the first large orders were given for American books. " The object" (says Watts in a letter to the principal librarian in 1861, printed by order of the house of commons in 1866) "which has been kept in view during the last three-and-twenty years has been to bring together from all quarters, the useful, the elegant, and the curious literatur; of every language; to unite with the best English library in Eng land or the world the best Russian library out of Russia, the best German out of Ger many, the best Spanish out of Spain, .and so for every language from Italian to
Icelandic, from Polish to Portuguese. In five of the languages in which it now claims this species of supremacy, in Russian, Polish, Hungarian, Danish, and Swedish, I believe I may say that, with the exception of perhaps fifty volumes, every book that has been purchased by the museum within the last three-and-twenty years has been purchased at my suggestion. I have the pleasure of reflecting that every future student of the less known literatures of Europe will find riches where I found poverty." The number of books classified and arranged by Watts, while only an assistant in the library, is reck oned at about 400,000 volumes, and of these as many as 100,000 were arranged upon a plan of his own invention, now known as "the elastic system." "One of the advan tages," he says, in the letter before mentioned, " obtained by this system is, that when the new library, which surrounds the new reading-room, was ready for the reception of books, these 100,000 volumes were removed to their new locality without the necessity of altering a single press-mark: had the operation of altering the press-marks been still required, as under the former system, the amount of labor necessary to effect it would have been enormous, and the expense not less than some thousands of pounds." Here it may be mentioned that it was Watts who first suggested the erection of a library and large reading-room in the vacant quadrangle, where now rises the splendid dome erected under the auspices of Panizzi. The suggestion was originally made in a series of articles contributed anonymously to the Mechanics' Magazine for 1836 and 1837, since that time acknowledged by Watts as his own. In one of these, speaking of the quadrangle, lie says: " The space thus unfortunately wasted would have provided accommodation for the whole library. A reading-room of ample dimensions might have stood in the center, and been surrounded on all four sides by galleries for the books, communicating with each other, and lighted from the top." In 1856 Watts was promoted to be assistant keeper of the printed books; and on the opening of the splendid new reading-room in 1857, he was most fitly appointed its superintendent. In Aug., 1866, Watts was appointed keeper of the department of printed books. He died Sept. 9, 1869. Watts was a member of the philological society of London; he was also an honorary member of the Hungarian academy, to which he was elected at the same time as late lord Macaulay. Among the literary productions of Watts may be mentioned: "Notes of a Header," contributed to a weekly periodical entitled The Spirit of Literature, 0; numerous poetical pieces contributed to Liunington's Rhetorical Speaker and Poetical Class-Book, 1833; A Letter to Antonio Panizzi, Esq., on the reputed Earliest Printed News paper, " The English Mercurie, 1588," 1839; _4 Sketch of the History of the Welsh Language and Literature (reprinted from Knight's English G'yclopadia). 1839; more than a hundred biographies of eminent men, Russian, Hungarian, Bohemian, etc., contributed to the same Cyclopadia; numerous articles in the Biographical Dictionary of the society for the diffusion of useful knowledge; papers in the Transactions of the Philological Society, among which are an "Essay on the Hungarian language," and a biographical notice of cardinal Mezzofanti; also contributions to the Quarterly Review, the delientrum, and other literary periodicals.