Another great European library is frequently said to contain mere than 800,000 volumea—the collection at Munich, but in that cute the statement will not bear the slightest investigation. 1)r. Petzheldt, in his excellent Handbuch der deutschen Bibliotheken; gins the numbers thus, out of which the total is composed These numbers added together give 679,000 only, but it will to observed that as one of the items is 250,000 works, it may be alleged that as there are so many works in two or twenty, or even a hundred volumes, the difference may thus be made up. Two of the other items however are 100,000 dissertations, and 300,000 pamphlets.
Taking these at 40,000 volumes altogether, according to Balbi'e rule, and deducting the 16,000 manuscripts, the library at Munich is at once reduced to 424,000 volumes.
The third, if not the second, great library in Europe is now that of the British Museum. In a previous article in this Cyclopaalis [Batumi Mcserat] some of the steps have been pointed out by which it has emerged to importance in the course of the last quarter of a century from a position of inferiority, not only to the libraries of Vienna and Berlin, but to those of Munich and Copenhagen. The number of volumes in the library was officially stated in 1853 at 550,000, and the numbers added since must have carried it over 600,000. These num bers are arrived at by counting the volumes as they come from the hands of the binder, not as they go to him; reckoning a pamphlet bound separately, however insignificant, as one volume, and also reckoning a three-volumed novel as one volume only, provided the three volumes are, as they generally are at the Museum, actually bound in one.
This system of counting is hardly satisfactory, for it makes the numbers vary in cases where the books remain the same. A volume of old pamphlets sent to the binder to be taken to pieces goes one volume and comes back a dozen, while 300 volumes of novels return shrunk to a hundred. If a congress of librarians were ever to take place in Europe, as it did a few years ago in America, one of the first things for them to settle would be the method of counting libraries. If every separate work under 100 pages were to be considered a pamphlet, if ten of such pamphlets were counted as one volume, and if in other cases the divisions made by the printer and not the binder were taken as a guide, a better comparison of the extent of libraries would be practicable, and the British Museum would probably be found to stand still higher than it now appears to do, even in point of numbers. The rank of a library, however, does not entirely depend on its number of volumes, however important an element that may be. The Zaluaki library, though in 1789 it outnumbered that of the Kings of France, could not have approached it in point of value. The first book printed in English by Caxton, one of the treasures of the Museum, sold the last time a copy came to auction for over 10001., while a hundred thousand dissertations, now in the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh, were bought for less than a fin-thing each. There can be no doubt that In numbers, and also in intrinsic value, the hundred thousand dissertations far surpass the Recuyell of the historic of Troye; but a library which aims at universality must aim at possessing both.
Under all circumstances, it•appears remarkable that this idea of a complete or universal library, so long and so generally current, should never have approached to a more thorough realisation. Of all insti tutions of public magnificence, that of a great library is at the same time the most useful and the least expensive. A few years ago a single picture by Paul Veronese was bought for the National Gallery for 13,000/. The highest sum that has ever been voted by the House of Cornmenn to the British Museum for the purchase of printed books for a whole year is 10,0001. There can be little doubt that if 10,000/. a-year hael been voted uninterruptedly for the purchase of books for the last fifty years, and had been judiciously expended, the nation would now be in possession of the finest and completest library the world has ever seen, and perhaps of a finer and completer than the world will now ever see.
Such a library should, if anywhere, be in London. A great deal depends on the locality In which a library Is placed. That of the kings of France was once kept at Blois, and for a long time afterwards at Fontainebleau. It was one of the good deeds of Henry IV. to remove it to Paris, and one of the good deeds of Louis XIV. to leave it there, Instead of removing it to Versailles. The great library of England was for two centuries at Oxford, where it was founded amid universal acclamation in close neighbourhood to numerous college libraries, at a time when there was no public library whatever in the capital. Of all places In the world, London would appear to be the most appropriate for the seat of a great permanent and universal library. Talleyrand is reported to have said that Paris was the capital of Europe, and London the capital of the globe. No other capital stands in such direct and constant communication with all the ends of the earth,—no other has such a vast resident population, —and no other, except Paris, is visited by such an immense variety of strangers. An institution not far from its centre is within easy reach of two millions and a half of persons. Shielded by its sea from the Continent, England has for ages been the asylum of foreign refugees, and is the safest asylum in Europe for persecuted books. It is remarkable that while England is as distinguished for its opposition to centralisation, in many important respects, as France is for its attachment to that form of rule, the two countries exchange their characterietics in the very case in which the advantages of centralisa tion are the most capable of proof. Paris boasts of several public libraries, of which some are almost rivals of the principal ; and a reader who wishes to study a particular language may possibly find the grammar of it in one collection, the dictionary in another, and the chrestomathy in a third. In London, the one great library of the British Museum towers above all rivalry since its important accessions of the last forty years ; and while the first library of London has more than 600,000 volumes, the second has hardly one tenth of that number.