Page images
PDF
EPUB

most improbable, they cannot rival that collection. Our own opinion is, that the libraries of the Inns of Court (for we see no objection to the establishment of independent law circulating libraries, or libraries especially dedicated to students) should include all really valuable professional publications-the newest, if they bear the stamp of professional approval-and the best standard works upon an almost unlimited range of subjects, and in the four or five principal languages of Europe. But we would not purchase books valuable only for rarity, however precious in the eyes of bibliomaniacs.

Should such libraries include newspapers? We think that they should. The admission of such publications has been objected to, as tending to promote idleness in places devoted to study; but it is not to be forgotten that the earliest legal intelligence is invariably contained therein; and unless these repositories of learning be intended, not for regular daily use, but for occasional consultation and reference only, we are inclined to believe that, whether preserved or not, the benefits of the presence of some few of the leading daily papers would outweigh the objections which may be raised against it.

There are many plausible reasons for promoting a general circulation of books in these libraries amongst students and barristers, no less than amongst masters of the bench; but nevertheless we think, upon due consideration of the question, that the plan could not be adopted without producing more inconvenience than benefit. We could say a good deal more upon this subject, but it is one of considerable delicacy.1

It has been sometimes proposed to admit all members of the Inns of Court indiscriminately to each library-to render them, in fact, the common resort of the legal profession. There is, certainly, much to be said in favour of this arrangement; but we nevertheless doubt whether it would be found to work well. We

1 It is one of the privileges of the Benchers of some of these societies to abstract from the libraries, and to retain, for an indefinite period, any volumes they may need, to the great inconvenience and disgust of those who resort to the libraries. We have known Blackstone, Chitty on Contracts, and volumes of the Statutes and Reports, thus selfishly borrowed.-Ed.

would have every one of these libraries easily accessible to members of other Inns who had sufficient reasons for using them, and not rigidly closed against literary men in general; but we think that to make such admission a matter of course, would be dis. covered upon trial to be an experiment fraught with no inconsiderable disadvantages, inconveniences, and annoyances, alike to readers, librarians, and the legal profession at large. The societies can respectively maintain a firm grasp of their own property, and yet be liberal in its application.

The subject of public libraries in general is handled by Mr. Edwards in the work, the title of which is placed first at the head of this article, at very considerable length, and with much ability. The author is retrospective as well as universal in his view, carrying it backwards to "The Libraries of the Ancients," and around to every corner of the globe in which such institutions are known to be established; but it is not our purpose to follow him over this vast field. We shall confine ourselves to the consideration of a few particulars respecting the management of the library and reading-room of the British Museum, as being the national model of English public libraries.

Of the literary management of this great library we make but one complaint. Bygone parsimony may have rendered a comprehensive catalogue impossible, and such a catalogue therefore we ought not to be too sanguine in expecting; but we may observe that the cross references in the new catalogue, in which completeness is attempted, are far too many and perplexing to the sight, and practically defeat by their multiplicity the objects which they were intended to effect, and which a greater economy in their use might really achieve.

Of the general management of the reading-room, there are however more grounds than one for complaint. In the room itself there is a sad deficiency of fresh air in hot or rainy weather, and no ingenious system of ventilation, under such circumstances, will atone for the want of open windows and open grates. Again, very essential rule of "silence" is not enforced with sufficient

the

strictness. It is true that we, in common with Mr. Carlyle, are "thin-skinned students;" but numbers of persons with duller ears, and more fixed and dogged habits of attention, are nevertheless liable to be annoyed by the chatter which is frequently to be heard in the reading-room.

We never knew a public library-and we have read in manythe regulations of which did not call forth more or less of grumbling; yet we are by no means convinced that those wherein the rules were the most stringent and apparently irksome, were not in the long run the most convenient; and it is assuredly the convenience of a majority of readers, rather than that of favoured individuals, that should in the first place be considered. Take, for instance, the necessity of waiting for those books in the British Museum which are not kept in the reading-room, itself a library of excellent quality, and no contemptible dimensions. This is an annoyance, undoubtedly; we have felt it frequently and as keenly probably as others; patience (of which we have now an inexhaustible share) being with us quite an acquired virtue. But although, upon waiting three-quarters of an hour, and sometimes more, for a book, owing to pressure of work on the attendants, we have occasionally been obliged to depart without it, we have never complained of this arrangement. "How much better," some say, "would it be for the public, were every admitted reader to have the run of the whole library, and help himself!” Without a reference to much dishonesty (a little we know has been detected there occasionally), how long could such a collection be well kept together under such lax regulations? This, it may be said, is an extreme case; but it applies more or less to most of the unpleasant restrictions imposed upon readers, in almost all public libraries, of whatsoever character or dimensions.

Mr. Edwards devotes a chapter of his work to the destruction of the Alexandrian and other ancient libraries, and doubts, with Sir Thomas Browne, whether the real amount of the loss to learning be much affected by the number of works that were burnt. No doubt a very considerable quantity of rubbish would be consumed in any such general conflagration; but whether or not the

burning of libraries may be in the main injurious to literature, we feel confident that, whilst this said literature continues to be a trade, their partial destruction is an event to be hailed with ecstasy by writers; by those at all events who make the smallest pretensions to originality. Many and deep have been the anathemas pronounced by authors upon their forerunners in literary labour, and they would be undoubtedly most materially benefited by periodical burnings. Nevertheless, until periodical burnings shall have been adopted as a system, it is as well to guard against the effects of unintentional conflagrations. For this reason, we are adverse to the opening of public libraries by candle-light, or other kind of artificial light-gas more particularly, as this has been ascertained to be peculiarly injurious to book; and we trust that the treasures of our great national library will continue to be spared, as heretofore, from any risk of this nature.

Those who consult the elaborate work of Mr. Edwards upon libraries, will find that in some respects he is inclined to be more ostensibly liberal in his views than we are regarding admission to public libraries; and, even with reference to the practice of lending books (which we know has been long adopted with the collection of our university of Cambridge, and we presume with the Bodleian also), he has brought forward many certificates from the guardians of foreign libraries to show that it can often be safely allowed. But when reading-rooms are frequented, we cannot think that the circulating system could be maintained to any great extent without detracting from the accommodation of those who visit the room. And, above all, we should be sorry, even although we might ourselves be gainers thereby, to see the literary contents of the British Museum subjected to such an experiment. We have no doubt that the admitted superiority, as regards readiness of access, in our own great library to its still more voluminous Parisian rival, is owing in a great measure to the stricter, and what some may consider the harsher, nature of its protective regulations.

We could have greatly extended the limits of this article by dwelling more at length on the disquisitions of Mr. Edwards,

who unites a patient consideration of his subject to an enthusiastic regard for it. But we were averse to stray very far from our own proposed topic of the actual state of the libraries of the Inns of Court, combined with a few suggestions as to their supply and regulations. With justice does Mr. Edwards observe, that "no task is more likely to strip a man of self-conceit than that of having to frame, and to carry out in detail, a plan for the formation of a large library." He is an advocate for comprehensive purchases, and so, for great national libraries with ample space, are we; but in this it is necessary to have regard to the means of which we are possessed, and funds and room must be taken into

account.

Nor is the purchase of books alone a matter for thought and reflection. Their judicious arrangement is also a work more difficult than is generally supposed, involving some of the qualities requisite in generalship-physical courage (the "dignity of danger" being absent in this description of service) of course excepted.

THE

ART. XI.-LAST SESSION.

HE fate of nearly all the measures of law amendment last session is sufficiently vexatious. With the exception of the Lord Chancellor's bill, which had been postponed above two years, for preventing vexatious or frivolous prosecutions in certain cases of misdemeanours, every thing that was proposed, whether by the government or individuals, was rejected. Of these defeated propositions, the most important and the most to be regretted were the bill for improving the profession of solicitors by encouraging their better education; provision in the Divorce Court bill for preventing fraudulent collusion; and another provision in the same bill, for preventing the needless publicity of details of an immoral tendency. The first was introduced at the suggestion of

« PreviousContinue »