Arabic, and Chaldaic, published in 1516, [express donation, to at least 168,000 voby the learned Justiniani, bishop of Neb- lumes.

bio, was intended by him to be merely a

specimen of a complete Polyglot Bible To a similar spirit of munificence in inwhich he had in contemplation, but never dividual donors, the Museum is almost enaccomplished. It is the first Polyglot work tirely indebted for a very extraordinary ever published in the characters appro- collection, or rather a series of collections, priate to each language; but the compilers of pamphlets, amounting in the aggregate of the Grenville Catalogue are in error to 130,000 in number. when they add (probably copying Le Long) that "it contains the first Arabic ever printed." That description properly applies to the Septem Hora Canonica, printed at Fano in 1514.* Brunet has noticed† that the Commentary of the learned prelate is not the least curious part of his work. In a note on the psalm Cæli enarrant, for example, he has introduced a biography of Columbus, which in truth might have been worse placed. Justiniani himself relates, in his Annali di Genoa, that he had fifty copies struck off on vellum, and had sented them" to all the kings of the earth, whether Christians or idolaters, without exception." The Grenville copy is one of

these.

pre

The Polyglot Psalter, printed at Cologne in 1518, in Hebrew, Greek, Ethiopic, and Latin, is much rarer than Justiniani's. The Greek Psalter, printed at Venice in 1486, is also extremely rare. The same remark applies to the English Psalter, printed by Powel, for Edward Whitchurch, about 1548.

Archbishop Parker's Psalter was never published, and only eight copies are known to exist. Neither Ames, the historian of English printing, nor Strype, the biographer of Parker, ever saw it. The first French Psalter, supposed to have been printed by Verard, appears to have been unknown both to Panzer and to Maittaire. The Grenville Library likewise contains a very fine and complete copy of the Biblia Pauperum, corresponding with that which Heinecken§ describes as the second edition, copies of which have obtained large prices. We must not extend our notice of the treasures of this rich collection. It is, as we have said, the noblest gift the British Muscum has received for nearly a quarter of a century, and it carries up the number of printed books added to the library, by

* Panzer, tom. vii., p. 2.

+ Manual, tom. iii., p. 853. + P. 224.

Idée d'une collection d'estampes, p. 293, et seq. An excellent summary of the history of these curious "Bibles of the poor," will be found in Horne's Manual of Biblical Bibliography, pp. 59—62.

"Wherever pamphlets abound," says Mr. I. Disraeli, "there is freedom, and therefore have we been a nation of pamphleteers. Of all the nations of Europe, our country first offered a rapid succession of these busy records of men's thoughts. Their contending interests, their mightier passions, their aspirations, and sometimes even their follies."* And certainly the student who is neither too impatient to search for the valuable ore amidst heaps of rubbish, nor too scornful to give their due meed of praise to even the humblest of his implements, will acknowledge that for the thorough comprehension of any stirring epoch, from the days of Martin Mar-prelate down to those of the Free Church secession, there is no more useful appliance than a full and impartial collection of the fleeting publications which appeared from day to day in the very eddy of the strife, and the poorest and feeblest of which could not fail to bear something of the shape and impress of the time.

Foremost among these collections, both in extent and in the importance of the period to which it relates, is that formed by George Thomason, a wealthy bookseller, "at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church Yard," and a common-councilman of the city of London. He was in the prime of life when the "Long Parliament" began its memorable sitting. He lived through the whole of that tremendous struggle, which was to determine for all time, whether England should look for its good government to a series of "fortunate accidents," in the shape of wise and paternal monarchs, or to the principle of a representative legislature and responsible administration, a principle liable, indeed, in the vicissitudes of human affairs, to be corrupted and juggled with, but carrying within itself the seeds of stern and certain retribution to those who abuse it, The worthy bookseller was far from seeing all the importance of this struggle. He was a staunch Royalist, and a devout Episcopalian. He seems to have had great faith in * Amenities of Literature, vol. iii., p. 300.

the "divinity of kings," but his faith in that of prelates was not large enough to make him approve the practices of Laud, or the decrees of the High Courts of Commission and Star-chamber. He had a great horror of "unlicensed preachers," but fortunately none of "unlicensed printing." If a man not regularly educated for the ministry, published a work on theology, or a sermon, he was more careful to note that the author was 66 a cobbler," " a leatherseller," or "a lawyer," than to examine whether his arguments were sound, or his teachings scriptural. But in his lifetime he was repeatedly honored with the friendly notice of John Milton, and at his death he left a valuable legacy to posterity.

It appears to have been in the year 1641, that Thomason first formed the idea of collecting the various publications that were then coming thick and fast from the press. He began by procuring all those, or very nearly all, which had appeared from the beginning of 1640, when the old controversy about church government had started into new life, and some few of earlier date. And from that period until after the Restoration he steadily proceeded with that "chargeable and heavy burthen, both to himselfe and his servants that were employed in that busines, wch continued above the space of twenty yeares, in which time hee buryed three of them, who tooke greate paines both day and night wth him in that tedious employmt. "Such exact care," continues the collector, "hath been taken that the very day is written upon most of them that they came out."

But this was not only a work of great cost and pains, it was also one of considerable danger. Few men on either side were prepared to accord the "liberty of the press." Few even understood what that phrase really meant. But, despite the censorship, many prohibited and many surreptitious publications appeared; and the search after them and their authors was sometimes very keen. Hence, even to possess such publications was a matter of peril; and in the present case the peril was increased by the preservation and transcription of many obnoxious MSS. For "in this numb. of pamphletts is contained neere one hundred sev'all peeces [in MS.] most of wch are on the king's side, weh no man durst venture to publish here without the danger of his ruine."†

*Thomason, note prefixed to his MS. catalogue. + lbid.

At

The collection, in consequence, had to undergo many removals and many transformations whilst it was in progress. one time, "when the army was northward," the books were packed up in trunks, and sent into Surrey; and when the army was in the west, in apprehension of its return that way, they were hastily sent back again; but the poor collector, not daring to keep them, forwarded them to a friend in Essex, and soon hearing of the famous march to Triploe Heath, again "was feign to send for them back." He then planned to transmit them to Scotland, but ing what a precious treasure it was, durst not venture them at sea." And so caused tables, with false tops, to be constructed, in which he concealed them in his warehouse, continuing his collection the while without intermission. But even now, these peregrinations were not ended; as a final precaution, they were sent to Oxford, and a colorable transfer of them to the University was effected, in the belief that so powerful a body would be better able to protect them than a private individual.*

The collector lived till 1666, and is said to have refused £4000 for his books, which he had bound, in strict chronological series, in 2220 vols., containing probably 34,000 separate works. They remained at Oxford, in the charge of Dr. Barlow, Bodleian Librarian, and afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, and thus escaped the perils of the great fire. Barlow attempted in vain to induce the trustees of the Bodleian Library to purchase them. About 1680, they appear to have been bought by Henry Mearne,

the king's stationer," at the instance of Sir Joseph Williamson, and "by command of his Majesty," according to Mearne's widow, who, in 1684, petitioned for leave to resell them. They seem, however, to have remained in the possession of Mearne's representatives until after the accession of George III., and to have been considered as a sort of domestic grievance and burden, gladly got rid of on the receipt from the king of £300-less than a thirteenth part of the sum said to have been refused by the collector himself. George III. was, it seems, induced to purchase them for the purpose of presenting them to the British Museum, by the exertions of that lover of literature and of his country, Thomas Hollis, who obtained the acquiescence of Lord Bute,† and thus preserved them from the fate

*Thomason, note prefixed to his MS. catalogue. † Memoirs of Thomas Hollis, p. 121.

which Coleridge tells us attended, in his day, a similar though smaller collection, that supplied the chandlers' and druggists' shops of Penrith and Kendal for many years.

*

and Taylor to bear upon the deliberations and struggles of the church and the state, and upon the affairs of daily life. Here are also the not uninstructive writings of their fierce and pertinacious opponents, A celebrated writer-whose genius and from the ponderous Gangræna of "shallow other high qualities are disfigured by a Edwards," with its attendant train of perverse affectation of superciliousness, thirty-five or forty refutations, replies, and manifestly foreign to the natural bent of rejoinders, to that strange utterance from his mind-seems to think the benefit thus across the Atlantic,-"The bloudy tenent conferred upon literature, a very doubtful washed and made white in the bloud of the In a recent work he has been elabo- Lamb"-which John Cotton sent to the resrately jocose about the "rubbish-mountains cue of his Presbyterian brethren in Briof the British Museum," and the "huge piles of mouldering wreck, wherein, at the rate perhaps of one pennyweight per ton, lie things memorable."t

one.

tain.

Theological and ecclesiastical controversy may be regarded as the staple of this collection, as it is indeed the key-note to But despite these sarcasms, we venture the history of the period. And next to to assert that this collector's plan of pre- the works of this class may be ranked the serving everything, from the surreptitiously extraordinary series of Mercuries, Diurnals, printed notice, scarce as large as one's Intelligencers, Informers, Posts, Scouts, hand, to the goodly tomes of Caryl on Job, Doves, &c., the newspapers and newsletwas really at that period, and for his pur-ters of the period, full of curious informaposes, the best of all possible plans. Had tion hitherto little used, and needing great he attempted to value and select, however care and discrimination in their use, but wisely and comprehensively, we should most which will yet, in competent hands, help certainly have lost much precious informa- to rectify many current mistakes and prejution. As it is, we have such a picture of dices. the national mind, during a great crisis in its history, as, in all probability, exists nowhere else, and such as no industry and no expenditure could create now with any approach to completeness.

tion.

In the letters, dispatches, and speeches of Cromwell, some of which have been exclusively preserved in the pamphlets of the period,* history has at once its faithful records, and its triumphal monuments. And The period whose history is thus illus- even the ribald attacks upon the fame of trated, was the age of Milton, of Jeremy that "king of men," by the hireling scribes Taylor, of Ussher, of Fuller, of Baxter, of of the Restoration, like the outrages inflictOwen, of Bunyan, of Roger Williams, of ed by their fellows upon his disinterred Eliot (the "apostle, of the Indians,") and body, have their lesson of profound instrucof many more, the great and excellent of the earth. Here are their works in impressions, the proof sheets of which passed under their own eyes. Here are the argumentative and convincing writings of the Neys, Burroughes, Goodwins, Vanes, who laid a broad foundation for the ultimate recognition of liberty of conscience as the inherent right of all men, and courageously stood up to assert that principle in the uncongenial Assembly of divines, and in the scarcely less uncongenial Parliament; thus bringing the lofty speculations of Milton

"The late Sir Wilfred Lawson's predecessor, from some pique or other, left a large unique [?] collection of pamphlets, published from the commencement of the Civil War to the Restoration, to his buller, and it supplied the chandlers' and druggists' shops of Penrith and Kendal for many years." -The Friend, vol. iii., p. 55, note (third edition).

+ Carlyle, Letters of Oliver Cromwell, with Élucidations, vol. i., p. 5 (first edit.).

Nor is poetry without its fitting_representatives in this assemblage. Besides many of Milton's minor pieces in their original editions, we have the exquisite lyrics of Herrick, the thoughtful and devout poems of George Herbert, the graceful effusions of the accomplished and ill-fated cavalier, Lovelace, to say nothing of those of the courtly and versatile Waller, of ingenious Mr. Cowley," of the prolific satirist and scape-grace, "Major George

the

Even Mr. Carlyle, with the scorn of the "rubbish-mountains," and their poor collector, has to make 100 references (direct or indirect) to them, in the course of 350 pages of his work. But he makes a large portion of these at second-hand, to "Cromwelliana," which is itself a compilation from them. A more thorough examination of the collection would have furnished him with at least seven of the Cromwell Letters, which were omitted in his first edition.

Wither," or of that truer poet than either, though he wrote in prose, honest and loveable Izaak Walton. The very ballads contained in this collection (about 270 in number), however humble their poetical merit, are amongst the most curious of political songs, and are real illustrations of English history.

There also exists in the British Museum a vast collection of books and pamphlets, published (chiefly in Paris) during the first French Revolution; and, in some respects, scarcely less extraordinary than that on the English Commonwealth. The French collection, brought together at three different periods, consists of about 4000 volumes and cartons, and contains at least 40,000 distinct works and tracts (exclusive of duplicates). The bulk of this collection was obtained, by purchase, of the Right Hon. J. W. Croker.

the part of the government and legislature of the day. For it needed but little inquiry to show that, great and valuable as were these accessions, they were far indeed from constituting a national library worthy of the British people. But such did not prove to be the case, until a very recent period.

The whole sum granted by parliament for the purchase of printed books from the year 1812, when the first grant was made, to the year 1836, when the committee of the commons, appointed in 1835, presented its report (inclusive of the sums already mentioned for the acquisition of the Hargrave and Burney libraries, &c., and deducting moneys obtained by the sale of duplicate books), amounted to 28,3761., or 1,135l. a year.

The committee above alluded to reported to the house that the British Museum deserved" increased liberality on the part of parliament, both with respect to its estabA third great collection of pamphlets lishment, and also, to a much greater came to the Museum with the library of extent, for the augmentation of the collecGeorge III. Its contents are miscellaneous, tions in the different departments ;" and and amount to about 19,000 distinct pieces. they expressed their confident reliance It includes an extensive series of political" on the readiness of the representatives of and historical tracts, both English and the people to make full and ample provision, foreign, chiefly published during the eight- for the improvement of an establishment eenth century. which already enjoys a high reputation in the world of science, and is an object of daily increasing interest to the people of this country.

Above 4000 pamphlets, including a great number on the natural sciences, formed part of the Banksian bequest in 1820. A very curious collection of lives, memoirs, funeral In the evidence which had been adduced sermons, and other biographical tracts, before this committee, much was said about 3000 in number, were bequeathed by respecting the great deficiencies in the Sir William Musgrave. Garrick's rich library, especially by Sir Harris Nicolas, collection of English plays, from which by Mr. Robert Brown, the eminent botanist, Charles Lamb compiled his "Specimens of by Mr. A. Panizzi, then extra-assistantthe English Dramatic Poets," was also librarian, and now keeper of the printed added to the Museum Library after the death of his widow.

Besides these collections, each of which is preserved apart, there is a miscellaneous collection of pamphlets, obtained, partly under the copyright act, partly by purchase, and partly by donation, which amounts to above 30,000 articles. The aggregate number of pamphlets, presented or bequeathed, is at least 70,000, independently of those in the Grenville Library.

Such repeated instances of an enlightened appreciation by individuals of the value of a great public library, and of a most liberal willingness to aid in the creation of one, would surely, it might be thought, have roused a spirit of zealous co-operation on

books, by Professor R. Owen, and by Mr. E. Edwards. The two last-named witnesses laid before the committee various lists illustrative of the deficiencies in the Museum library, which were printed in the Minutes of evidence: Professor Owen's list, under the title of "Desiderata in the zoological department of the national library," (filling nearly eight folio pages ;) and Mr. Edwards' six lists, under the title of "Examples of deficiencies... in the library of the British Museum, from an examination of the catalogues in Oct., 1835,"—viz., in "history-Greek history, in particular-fine arts-architecture, in particular-German literature-French liteReport, &c. (1836), p. v.

*

+ Second Report (1836), pp. 563-570.

rature miscellaneous works, published in books, were considerably increased. DuLondon."*

These investigations established the fact that the acquisition of contemporary works, both scientific and literary, published on the Continent, was almost totally neglected; that there existed a remarkable deficiency of artistic works, both British and foreign, and a very imperfect execution of that provision of the copyright law, which was intended to secure to the British Museum a copy of every work published within the British dominions.

The poverty of the library of printed books was also shown by a statistical comparison of it with the chief Continental libraries. Lord Palmerston having addressed a circular letter to the several British ambassadors and ministers abroad, requesting information as to public libraries and museums in the countries to which they were respectively accredited, obtained a series of valuable reports on that subject; and some additional information was obtained by means of a set of questions which Mr. Panizzi had privately circulated in most of the capital cities of Europe.

From these various sources it appeared that the principal European libraries might then be ranked in the following order, as to the number of printed volumes in each. 1. PARIS, Bibliothèque du Roi 650,000 vols. 2. MUNICH, Hof- und Staatsbibliothek 500,000 " 3. COPENHAGEN, Kongelige Bibliothek 400,000 " 4. ST. PETERSBURGH [Imperial Library ]400,000? 5. BERLIN, Königliche-Bibliothek 320,000" 6. VIENNA, Kaiserliche Hof-Bibliothek 300,000 " 7. DRESDEN, Königliche-Bibliothek - 300,000 " 8. NAPLES, Reale Biblioteca Borbonica 300,000? " 9. GÖTTINGEN, Universitäts-Bibliothek 250,000" 10. LONDON, British Museum 240,000"

At this period, therefore, the wealthy capital of England, with a population approaching two millions, did not possess so large a public library, by one-half, as Munich, with its population of 96,000, or so large a one as Dresden, with its 69,000, or even as Göttingen, with its 10,000 inhabitants.

ring the nine years from 1837 to 1845 inclusive, the sum devoted to the last-named purpose was 30,994/., averaging 3,4431. a year. The number of separate works purchased during this period was 37,961. Of those presented, and of those delivered under the Copyright Acts, there is no precise account until 1841. But from that year until the last, the entire accessions to the library have been, 24,728 by purchase; 2,946 by donations; 15,131 by Copyright, and £19,000 grants for printed books-total books, 42,805.

Foremost in importance amongst the purchases made during this period may be ranked a selection of Bibles from the fine collection of the late Duke of Sussex, including, amongst many others, the following editions, remarkable alike for their beauty and rarity :-1. The Old Testament, in Hebrew, with points and accents, printed on vellum, at Naples, about 1491; 2. The New Testament, in Ethiopic, printed, on vellum, at Rome, in 1548-49; 3. The first edition of the Bible, printed at Rome, in Latin, in 1471. The Polyglot Bible, printed by Plantin at Antwerp, 1569-72, had been purchased shortly before the Sussex sale.

About 2,500 volumes of Chinese works, in history and miscellaneous literature, have been purchased since November, 1843, when her Majesty the Queen laid the foundation of a Chinese Library, by her donation of about 400 volumes. Last year, the British government acquired the library of the late lamented Mr. Morrison, by whose premature death it had lost a most valuable public servant, as the cause of Christian missions in China had lost a powerful and hereditary friend. This collection, containing nearly 12,000 Chinese volumes, and especially rich in theology, novels, poetry, and rhyming dictionaries-for which last article there appears to be a remarkable demand in China-and also, but to a less extent, in historical works, has been preThe inquiry which elicited such informa-sented by the Admiralty to the British tion as this could not fail to excite, both in Museum. It is, however, the collection of the Commons' Committee and in the trus- a student-who gladly picks up many a tees of the Museum, an earnest desire for volume which will add to his information, the augmentation and improvement of the although it will be no ornament to his national collections. The committee made library-rather than that of a connoisseur, their report in July, 1836. In the follow- including as it does a multitude of impering session, both the grant for the Museum fect works and odd volumes, which it will in general, and the particular item of that grant applicable to the purchase of printed