ation from the archives of other lands, so "utterly regardless" are their countrymen of "historical records and monuments." Most true it is that America can show no great encyclopædical collection like the Imperial Library at Paris, or the British Museum Library in London, or the Bodleian at Oxford. Such repositories as these are the slow growth of centuries. They need the combination of many favourable circumstances, and the laborious efforts of several successive generations of benefactors. The rude and arduous pioneer work which the American Colonists had to perform, might well have tasked their utmost energies, to the exclusion of all thought for the wants of their future historians and scholars, in the way of a great public provision of books. That Collegiate and other Educational Libraries, indeed, should be formed in the States may be regarded as but the natural sequence of that wise and far-sighted policy which led the Legislature of Massachusetts to enact (more than two hundred years ago) that "when any town shall increase to the number of one hundred families they shall, under penalty, . . . set up a grammar-school; "*—thus initiating one of the best systems of school organization which the world has seen, and deciding on broad and enduring principles a question, which in the mother-country is to this day made the arena of petty sectarian conflicts. But it would be vain indeed to expect any elaborate collection of the muniments of history, and the rarities of literature, from men who not only had before them the conversion of a vast wilderness into a civilised and religious community, but of whom it might be said with literal truth, that "they who builded and they who bare burdens, . . . . with one hand wrought at the work, and with the other hand held a weapon." It will, however, become apparent in the course of our brief review of the rise and progress of Public Libraries in the United States, that even in times of savage warfare and intestine difficulty there have been Americans who were thoughtfully providing for the wants of the men of letters of a more quiet period to come; whilst, on the other hand, the Union, as a country, has long been distinguished for the wide diffusion of a popular taste for reading, and the large facilities presented for the gratification of that taste. The discrimination, too, which time was sure to bring with it, is visibly advancing. No circumstance in recent days has more noticeably affected the book-markets of Europe, than the rapid growth of the American demand for good, choice, and fine books. Always a nation of readers, they are becoming, not indeed a nation of critics, but-what is much better-of generous appreciators of the literature of all Europe, as well as of their own. Seventy years ago it was said of them: "It is scarce possible to conceive the number of readers with which every little town abounds. The common people are on a footing in point of literature with the middle ranks of Europe." But the same writer tells us, that "of expensive publications they have none. A single book of the value of £5 or £10 is nowhere to be found here."† Sixty-four years after these passages were penned, another writer, Mr. Henry Stevens, of Vermont-who has had • Charters and general laws of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts Bay. (Boston, 1814. 8vo.) + Bibliotheca Americana (1789), Preface. unusual opportunities of forming a correct judgment on such matters-tells us that "a few years ago the veriest trash was deemed good enough for exportation to Jonathan, who was then proverbially not over-particular either as to the edition or condition of his books, provided he had enough of them. Now, however, he buys . . . much more intelligently. . . . He is ready and anxious to secure for his library those literary gems which are so wont to delight the heart and empty the pockets of the bibliophile."* And, above all things, it might have been added, he is eager to collect, at any cost, every work that throws light on the early history of his own country, so utterly wide of the mark is Sir Archibald Alison's unwise assertion, that Americans "are wholly regardless of historical records or monuments." CHAPTER I. OF COLLEGIATE LIBRARIES. I. COLLEGIATE [1] Library of Harvard College. THE largest Library (or that which was largest † only a few months ago) is also their oldest. The Library of Harvard College, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, is almost contemporaneous with the College itself, which was founded by the Massachusetts Legislature, at the instance of the celebrated Governor Winthrop, in 1632, and endowed by John Harvard, with his library and half his estate, six years afterwards. To the small, but precious collection of Harvard, were successively added the valuable gifts of Sir Kenelm Digby, Sir John Maynard, Dr. Lightfoot, Dr. Gale, Richard Baxter, Bishop Berkeley, and other benefactors, of the mother country, as well as those of many native Americans. How many interesting associations must have been bound up with those early acquisitions, we may partly estimate from a passage in Baxter's writings: "I purposed," he says, "to have given almost all my library to Cambridge, in New England; but Mr. Thomas Knowles, who knew their library, told me that Sir Kenelm Digby had already given them the Fathers', Councils, and Schoolmen, and that it was Histories and Commentators which they wanted. Whereupon I sent them some of my Commentators and some Histories, among which was Freherus, Reuherus, and Pistorius's Collections ... Now, I must depend on the credit of my memory." Reminiscences like this are all that now survive of this first "Harvard Library," the whole of which, with the philosophical apparatus and much other property of the College, as well as the building which it occupied, was destroyed by fire in January, 1764. The calamity, however, did but give a new impulse to liberal exertion both at home and in England. The Legislature immediately set apart £2000 for a Stevens, My English Library, Preface. Taking into the account, that is, the subsidiary collections called "Society Libraries." True History of Councils, as quoted in Orme's Life of Baxter, vol. ii. p. 384. new building. Almost another £1000 was raised by a public subscription in the State.* Equal zeal was shown in the restoration of the Library, so far as that was possible. The General Assembly of New Hampshire gave books to the value of £300 sterling. The Societies for the Propagation of the Gospel gave an equal sum, to be expended in purchases. Amongst individual benefactors, Thomas Hollis stands preeminent. During the ten years which elapsed between the fire of 1764 and his death, he sent over no less than forty-three cases of books, selected with that keen relish for our best writers, and that acute perception of the pregnant qualities of books as the "fertilizers" of the soul, by which (as well as by some singular crotchets that did nobody much harm) he was so remarkably distinguished. At his death he bequeathed to the College a sum of money, from which there is still a fund of three thousand dollars, the interest whereof is expended in the purchase of books.† a Mr. Brand Hollis followed his uncle's example, both by the gift of books and by a legacy at his death. John Hancock gave £550 in money, and “ large collection of chosen authors." Thomas Palmer, of Boston, gave, in 1772, a set of the Works of Piranesi, and some other choice books; and, nearly fifty years afterwards, bequeathed a library of about 1200 volumes, valued at 2500 dollars. Samuel Shapleigh, who was Librarian at Harvard at the beginning of the present century, gave a piece of land to the Library, and made it his residuary legatee. The fund thence accruing is combined with that of Hollis, and their conjoint interest amounts to about £100 a-year. In 1818, Israel Thorndike, of Boston, purchased, and presented to Harvard College the celebrated Library of Professor Ebeling, of Hamburgh, consisting chiefly of books relating to America, extending to 3200 volumes; and to which was appended a collection of no less than 10,000 maps and charts. Another remarkable collection of books relating to America was purchased of Mr. D. B. Warden, by Samuel Elliott, of Boston, and similarly presented in 1823. Many other donations of almost equal importance must be passed over without remark. But I cannot omit to record the gift, in 1846, of £100, for the purchase of books, by the late Right Hon. Thomas Grenville. It was one of the latest of a long series of beneficent acts that adorned a life unusually protracted, and the good deeds of which, as all students know, did not terminate with the life. Twenty years ago, the growth of the Library had outstripped the capabilities of the building. But the munificent bequest of Christopher Gore enabled the Regents to lay, in 1837, the foundation of a new structure, which received the name of Gore Hall, and to which the books were removed in 1841. Mr. Gore Jewett, Notices of Public Libraries in the United States (1851)—a " Smithsonian Report,"-p. 31. Nor is it undeserving of remark that many of his gifts are clothed in that rich and peculiar binding, with the well-known emblems, which still makes the collector's eyes to glisten, however small his general attachment to caps of liberty and "red republicanism." Many of the Hollis volumes at Harvard have MS. notes by the donor. In one of these he speaks of the pains he had taken to collect grammars and lexicons of the "Oriental root-languages," in the hope that he might thus help to form "a few prime scholars, honours to their country and lights to mankind."-See the note quoted by Mr. Jewett, in his Notices of Public Libraries in the United States, pp. 31, 32. had been, in his life-time, a liberal benefactor to the Library, especially by the gift of valuable law-books; and the sum ultimately receiveable,-after the lapse of certain life-annuities,-from the bequest of his residuary estate, will fall little short of £20,000 sterling.* At the time of removal, the Library numbered about 38,000 volumes. In the following year, a sum exceeding £4000 sterling was subscribed by thirtyfour gentlemen, of Boston, expressly for the purchase of books, and with a special view to the filling up of deficiencies in certain important departments of the sciences. About 12,000 volumes were purchased, from this source, between the years 1842 and 1850. During the same period about 4000 volumes and upwards of 16,000 pamphlets were presented by various donors. Since 1850 the Library has been dependent for its augmentation on the interest of the Hollis and Shapleigh Fund, and on casual donations. The Harvard Library is at present divided into four departments: 1. The Public Library, which contains about 61,000 bound volumes, and upwards of 25,000 pamphlets. The MSS. are few and of little importance. 2. The Law Library, which includes the valuable collection of Mr. Justice Story, comprises upwards of 14,000 volumes, and of which the purchased portion, exclusive of many important donations, has cost upwards of £7000. "It includes," says the Catalogue of 1850, "all the American Reports; the Statutes of the United States, as well as of all the States individually; a regular series of all the English Reports, including the Year Books, and also the English Statutes, as well as the principal treatises on American and English law; besides a large collection of Scottish, French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, and other foreign law, and a very ample collection of the best editions of the Roman or Civil Law, together with the works of the most celebrated commentators upon that law." The Catalogue of this excellent collection was prepared by Mr. Charles Sumner, the well-known and respected Senator of the United States. 3. The Theological Library, containing between 3000 and 4000 volumes. It consists chiefly of modern works, but also contains some of the Fathers of the Church in their original texts. And 4. The Medical Library, especially intended for the Medical Students attending the lectures in Boston, and containing about 1300 volumes.† In addition to these main collections, the "Society Libraries," as they are termed, which at various times have been originated by the students themselves, contain about 12,000 volumes, making a series of collections which amount, in the aggregate, to upwards of 92,000 volumes. All officers and students of the University; officers of the State Government, and members of the Legislature; clergymen of all denominations, living within ten miles of the Library; all donors to the value of £8, during their residence in Cambridge; and all persons temporarily residing in Cambridge for purposes of study, may borrow books without charge, under the conditions prescribed in the laws of the University. Ready admittance, with all requisite information and facilities for examining and consulting the books, are afforded to all visitors, and the library is extensively used. *Jewett, Notices, &c., ubi supra. + Jewett, ubi supra. [2] Library of Yale College. The Library of Yale College may almost be said to have been founded before the Institution to which it belongs, since we read in its history, that in the year 1700, eleven of the principal ministers met at New Haven, and formed themselves into an association for the erection of a College in the Colony; and that, at their next meeting-the first after they were organized-each of them brought a number of books, and presenting them to the society, said, I give these books for the founding of a College in this Colony.* To this College, as to Harvard, Bishop Berkeley was an early and eminent benefactor. In the dawn of his illustrious career he had said deliberately that he would prefer the headship of an American College-on a scale worthy of the work which he saw to be before it-to the primacy of England. Had he succeeded in imparting to the English government but a tenth part of his own sense of its duties, he would assuredly have lived and died in the position he longed for. As it was, he left America with a truer insight into its great futurity than seems to have been attained by any other man of that generation, and kept through life a most loving regard for its best interests. His donation to Yale was said to be "the finest collection that ever came together at one time into America:" and his name is followed in the donation book by the names of Newton, Halley, Woodward, Bentley, Steele, Burnet, Kennet, Calamy, Edwards, and Henry. For nearly a century and a half, however, the growth of Yale Library was very slow. But in 1845 a fund was raised for large purchases in Europe, and, by the care and exertions of Professor Kingsley, such a selection of books was made as at once placed the library amongst the best-though not amongst the largest collections in the Union. On the 1st of January, 1849, the number of volumes was 20,515, and it now exceeds 30,000, exclusive of pamphlets, and of the libraries of the Students' Literary Societies, which number not less than 25,000 volumes. There is a permanent fund of £5400, yielding an annual income of £324 for purchases, and hence accrues a yearly addition of 900 or 1000 volumes. Numerically, the College Library of Yale contains the smallest portion of its literary stores. The two "Society Libraries," belonging to the students, comprise in the aggregate upwards of 25,000 volumes. Of these the "Linonian " is the oldest, having been founded in 1753. In 1800 it contained but 475 volumes; in 1822, 1187 volumes; in 1842, the number had increased to 8000. It has now nearly 14,000 volumes, and has a good catalogue. The library of the "Brothers in Unity" is of nearly similar date, and contains a nearly equal number of volumes. To this collection bibliographers and book lovers, both in Britain and in America, are indebted for the admirable "Index to Periodical Literature," of Mr. William Frederic Poole. "While connected," says the author in his preface, "with the library of the Society of Brothers in Unity' in Yale College, I attempted to . . . make the contents of Periodicals accessible to the students in the preparation of their written exercises, and the discussions of their literary societies." This attempt ultimately resulted in the volume which is now an indispensable part of the bibliographical apparatus of Jewett, ut supra, p. 70. |