BOOK IV. Chapter IV. Libraries. In the class "Literature," the section of Linguistics seems to be best provided. It contained at the opening 2100 volumes, including the best works on Ægyptology (to use the fashionable phrase) and on the Oriental languages,- -some of them of great value and rarity. In the whole it has Grammars and Dictionaries of 104 different languages. In the Literature of Greece and Rome, the Library counted 3100 volumes, the apparatus criticus included. In that of Italy, 1761, and in that of France, 3101 volumes. Of Spanish and Portuguese literature there were 673; of Dutch, 156; of German, about 1400; and of Scandinavian, 809 volumes. In the Hungarian and Sclavonic languages collectively, the number of volumes was but forty-one. In English literature there were 3400 volumes; 300 of which were exclusively Shakespearian. It need scarcely be added that this enumeration of languages has relation to the class “Literature" only. Of Polygraphic and Miscellaneous works the number of volumes was nearly 5000. If, then, these several statements be grouped into a simpler and more comprehensive classification, the broad result may be stated thus: THE ASTOR FREE LIBRARY OF NEW-YORK. 225 For the systematic comprehensiveness and the judicious selection which alike characterize this fine Library, New-York is eminently indebted to Mr. Cogswell, who made two several journeys to Europe in search of books, visiting every European book-mart of much importance, and who himself inaugurated the Library in the best possible manner, by presenting to it a series of books, in every section of Bibliography, amounting to nearly 5000 volumes. Very wisely, the Trustees have determined that the Astor Library shall be a Library for consultation, not for borrowing, although it is by no means so certain that "a free Library of circulation is a practical impossibility in a city as populous as New York," as Mr. Cogswell seems to think. Nor is it practicable-ponder it as we may-to perceive why a mere conjecture, expressed thus-"One hundred volumes a day is a low average of the daily use," is "a statement with respect to the extent of the use made of the Library, as exact as the nature of the case will admit;" or why "it would not be easy to say which department is most consulted," since both difficulties would be instantly removed by the simple expedient of registering the issues, as has long been done in libraries where the issue of five or six hundred volumes a-day is not a "low average" but an ascertained fact. These, however, are little blemishes in what is otherwise a most interesting Report of the first year's working of the Library, and will doubtless disappear from future Reports. Especially interesting is the statement, that “Very 1 Annual Report on the Astor Library (1854.) Vol. II. 15 BOOK IV. Chapter IV. BOOK IV. Chapter IV. The Town few come to the Library without some manifestly dis- It remains to be added, that the present yearly income is £2473, and the ordinary expenses of maintenance £1132, which leaves £1341 a-year available for the purchase and binding of books. CHAPTER V. THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION AT WASHINGTON. I know no "Wisdom", but that which reveals Man to himself, and which teaches him to regard all social institutions, and his whole life, as the means of unfolding and exalting the Spirit with him..... I call that mind "free" which escapes the bondage of matter, which, instead of stopping at the Material Universe, and making it a prison-wall, passes beyond it to its Author, and finds, in the radiant signatures which it every where bears of the Infinite Spirit, helps to its own Spiritual Enlargement. CHANNING, Spiritual Freedom. The Smithsonian Institution was founded by an Act of the Congress of the United States of America, on the 10th August, 1846, in pursuance of the bequest by James Smithson of all his property to the United States, in order to the establishment of an institution "at Washington, under the Name of the 'Smithsonian Institution'.... for the increase and diffusion of Knowledge among Men." James Lewis Macie (afterwards called Smithson) appears to have been a natural son of Sir Hugh Smithson, BOOK IV. Chapter V. Smithsonian Institution at Washington. BOOK IV. Chapter V. Smithsonian Institution at Washington Bart., who was created Duke of Northumberland, in 1766 (and shortly afterwards "Vice-Admiral of all America"), after his marriage with the heiress of the Percies. Mrs. Elizabeth Macie, his mother, is said to have been of the Wiltshire family of Hungerford. Little is known of his life, save that he was educated at Oxford, that he cultivated a knowledge of chemistry, was well acquainted with Cavendish, and contributed to the Philosophical Transactions several analytical papers on chemical subjects; that he was proud of his descent. yet keenly sensitive on the score of the "bar sinister" in his escutcheon; ambitious of leaving a name that, to use his own words, "would live in the memory of men when the titles of the Northumberlands and the Percies are extinct or forgotten," yet willing to make his purpose wholly contingent on the birth of no child or children to a nephew who survived him; that he passed most of his life on the Continent, and died at Genoa in 1829, unmarried, leaving a fortune of about £120,000 sterling. Mr. Smithson is said to have been a man of reserved manners and sensitive feelings; but an anecdote (almost the only one which has survived of him) shows that he must have possessed considerable coolness and strength of nerve. "Happening to observe a tear gliding down a lady's cheek,.... he submitted it to reagents, and detected what was then called microcosmic salt, with muriate of soda, and, I think" (Mr. Davies Gilbert, President of the Royal Society, is the narrator) "three or four more saline substances held in solution." |