Manuscripts of the middle ages—considering the middle ages to terminate with the invention of printing—are still existing in largo numbers imprinted, not only in publio libraries, but in private hands. It is probable that a hundred years hence the studeuta of European literature will have much better means at command than ourselves, to take • comprehensive view of the literature of Europe during the earlier part of this " Yearthousand,"—to use a Germanism which is in many respects preferable to " Millennium." Tho proper use of the treasures of manuscript libraries seems at last likely to be made—by leaving them in manuscript no longer. The French are for the first time publishing their early epics, their long neglected' Chansons de Geste,' their collections of national songs, their monuments of early language. The Spaniard,' have printed their Crincionero de Baena, from a manuscript which they were obliged to borrow from Paris, where it is now In possession of the Imperial Library, which hail acquired It at a sale in London. In England we are much in arrear. A few years ago it wu announced that a society had for the first time taken it in hand to publish a complete edition of the works of King Alfred, on cmossien of the thousandth anniversary of his birth, and the undertaking has not been carried out Under the auspices of the Master of the Rolla, a number of our early historians are now, for the first time, being given to the public. The numerona publishing societies, with the Roxburgh° Club, and Its more liberal and large hearted inzitetors, the Picot t Clubs at their head, have, done much in the same goad cause. The British Museum has been the principal mine in which those labourers have worked, and the same collection has also been explored by missionaries of literature sent by the govern ments of France and Belgium. Them have declared that the Museum contained wealth they had not expected in ancient French manuscript literature, while Dr. Pertz, of Berlin, has gone so far as to give his opinion that "if things continue in their present course, every manu script in Europe that is not locked up in fiscal collections, or does not i become so, will, in the course of another century, become the property of the British Museum." It is not easy, however, to be confident of the accuracy of a prediction so desirable to bo accomplished, for in England itself there have been forming in the present generation, two collections of manuscripts in private hands—those of Lord Ashburn Lam and Sir Thomas Phillipps, of Middlehill—each of which has absorbed more thau that of time Museum in the same period of time.
One of the most interesting portions of manuscript collections consists in the illustrated works of the times anterior to printing—the illuminated manuscripts. The illuminations are often the most valuable memorials of the costume and the domestic manners of the period in which they were executed, apart from their merit as works of art, which are sometimes of no mean order. A collection of works of this kind, which have belonged to distinguished personages—for the more valuable specimens almost always bear traces of the parties for whom they were executed, or to whom they successively belonged— presents a union of interest singularly attractive. The Museum is very rich in treasurea of this kind. An account of some of the most conspicuous may be found in 1Vaagen's 'Art and Artists in England.' The state papers and documents of modern times form some of the most interesting portions of those manuscript collections the materials of which are contempomneoum with printing. It has always been the
aim of governineuts to shroud at least some of these documents in secrecy for a time, but their wish has often been remarkably baffled. The most valuable portion of the Cottonian library consisted of documents of historical importance so near to the collector's own period that it is no wonder the government looked on them with jealousy. King James I. found in private hands some of the most deeply interesting papers relating to the captivity and execution of his mother, and his own conduct on the occasion. There seems no adequate reason why, as these Cottonian state papers have now been for more than a hundred years in the British Museum, and nothing but good has resulted from it, the whole of the document, of the State Paper Office, of that and anterior dates, should not, as has often been euggested, be made equally accessible, either by transferring them thither or by adopting at the office the same regulations as at the Museum. Even those of later dates, down at least as far as the revo lution of 1088, might, apparently with advantage, be considered to have passed from the domain of statesmanship to that of history. The ' Calendars 'of these State Papers, which are now being issued from the press, will, in all probability, place the advisability of this measure in a stronger light, by showing of how many transactions a portion of the evidence Is to be found at the Museum and a portion at the State Paper Office. These Calendars' were in some measure anticipated by similar lists published in America, of documents relating to the history of some of the states when colonies of Great Britain, which were made by Americans—Henry Stevens and others—at the office, by permission of the Secretary of State. A similar liberality has been exercised by foreir goveruments towards our own, in allowing copies of documents in foreign libraries, which are illustrative of English history, to bo taken and deposited in the British Museum. Such are a collection of fifty volumes of papers from the Vatican, and a number of others from the Hague, which were much used by Macaulay in his History of England.' It has been suggested that the more ancieut portion of the English legal records, which are to be assembled at the Record Office now building in Fetter Lane, and the ancient wills at Doctors' Commons, no longer of probable use for any but literary purposes, should be deposited at the British Museum, whence they can easily be reclaimed if any unexpected occasion for their legal use should arise. The extent of these, however, is so great, and their general interest so little, that the question does not stand upon the same footing with that regarding the State Papers. It may still be advisable to make a difference between libraries and archives. Tho collection of the archives of Venice, which was furmed by the Emperor Francis I., of Austria, La said by lialbi, to be composed of 1890 different collec tions, to occupy 298 chambers, saloons, and corridors, and to extend to 8,034,709 volumes, time matter of which would occupy about three millions and a half ordinary octavos. Our own records, though not so voluminous as these, arc still mid to be some of the completest in Europe. Such vast collections of matter may well demand an edifice and a staff of officers for themselves.