Even In times when printing becomes more general in its use than it is now, or has ever been, there will still be an occasion for forming libraries of some contemporary manuscripts. Collections of autographs will always be eagerly sought after : the original manuscripts of the compositions of great author,' will always command a deep and respectful interest. " Breathes there the man with soul so dead " who can look with indifference on the original manuscript of Walter Scott's 'Kenilworth,' or sketch of his own life, or the deed by which Milton sold 'Paradise Lost,' or the autograph of Shakspere, or the will of Mary Queen of Scots, or the lines that Lady Jane Grey wrote in the prayer-book she had with her on the scaffold ? All these are in the Museum ; but it has no large collection of recent autographs, such as is now possessed by several continental libraries, and would be of frequent use for the verification of the authenticity of signatures. The diaries of Byron, of Walter Scott, and of Moore—books such as these should also be secured, if possible, for our national library, for, by their remaining in private hands, an occasion is lost for much innocent and ennobling gratification of the public. A library of printed books resembles a collection of engravings, a library of manu scripts resembles a collection of paintings ' • and as the one cannot aspire to the completeness of the other, it should aim at making up for the deficiency by the high excellence of some of its constituents. Such books as have been mentioned would be equivalent to a fine Raffaelle or Murillo.
A great library of printed books and manuscripts will thus, if carried out on a scale worthy of a great nation, comprise specimens of every kind of literature that the world has produced, from the earliest that the tooth of time has spared to the last and least in date—from the library of the kings of Assyria to the Clerkenwell News.' A national collection of this kind is the greatest of ornaments to a capital, and yet is of still greater use than ornament. It is a boon to the casual visitor, still more to the constant resident, for its treasures are inexhaustible in the limits of a hundred lives.
The rules which are applicable to the collection and management of a large public library are certainly the same in principle which are applicable to those of a small one. The difference is only in the scale on which they are to be applied ; but the effect of this difference is in some things enormous. In the case of a large library, not only must everything be done more extensively, but many things more minutely. Errors and oversights which are of small consequence in a small cata logue, for instance, are not only more difficult to avoid in a large one, but when they are not avoided they are more misleading and more confusing.
It has been supposed that some of these difficulties may be got over by treating a large library as an amalgamation of small ones. It has been suggested, for instance, that in so immense a collection as the British Museum there should be librarians for separate parts of it—one for the theology, another for the law, a third for natural history, a fourth for medicine, a fifth for mathematics, and others for other branches. To this it has been answered that, practically, another kind of division is not only preferable, but in some cases imperative. There are books on medcine, for instance, in the Museum not only in English, Latin, French, and German, which are the most ordinary languages for the subject, but in Spanish, Danish, Russian, Chinese, &c. A medical librarian,
therefore, not acquainted with Russian and Chinese, would not be able to class or to catalogue the whole of the books in hie department. On the other hand, a Russian scholar not acquainted with medicine or mathematics would meet with no difficulty, if of ordinary intelligence, in classing and cataloguing a Russian medical or mathematical volume.
The first requisite therefore for dealing efficiently with a book is to be able to read the title-page,—and often a great deal more than the title-page. In fact, at the Museum, though the different assistants of the Printed Book department are all officially reported as engaged without distinction in "assisting the keeper of the printed books," it has been found in practice necessary to have one to catalogue Hebrew and another to catalogue Chinese ; and books in certain other languages, Slavonic or Oriental, only go to particular persons. As there are more than twenty cataloguers, a division can easily be made; but the difficulty recurs in the case of operations which are confided to one or two persons only. The books to be sent to the binder, for instance, are sent by one assistant, and the letterings to each book are to be in the language of that book. The course necessarily taken Is, for the assistant to write the letterings in as many languages as he can, and to apply in cases of difficulty to those of his colleagues who can assist him. The binder himself is often in a perplexity, and obliged to ask for information ; for, it must be remem bered that the printed directions to the binder given in books at tho Museum are couched, of course, in the language of the book—Welsh or Wallachian, as the case may be. As the library is now arranged in different classes, and each book is placed according to its subject, it is of course necessary, also, for those who place them to read at least the title of each, or to have the title translated for them. In short, in all the operations of a library, from first to last, and more especially of a large library, the question of language is continually recurring,— although, strange to say, in outside speculations on the subject of library management, it appears to be continually overlooked. It may be doubted if Mr. Gladstone, when he recently told the House of Commons, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the duties of the assistants in the British Museum were so easy and agreeable, that their salaries might well be proportionably light, remembered at the moment that it, was part of those duties to catalogue Sanscrit and Chinese. • In addition to qualifications of this kind, it is especially required in those who are entrusted with the selection of books to be purchased for a I urge library, that they should have an acquaintance with biblio graphy in general. The name of no other science has been so misapplied as this. To call a man a bibliographer because he is well acquainted with the productions of the press of the Alduses and the Elzevirs is as absurd, however frequently done, as it would be to call a man a geographer because he was familiar with the topography of the weald of Kent or the coast of Sussex. Bibliography is the knowledge of the world of books, as geography is the knowledge of the world of sea and land. The ramifications and details of the science are infinite ; but it is no more the business of a bibliographer to know every detail of a set of volumes than of a geographer to know every street of a market town.