less than 100,000 volumes, is one of the wildest fictions which writers have imposed upon the credulity of ages.

I cannot even touch upon the libraries of the Romans, though we have very attractive accounts, among others, of the literary riches of Lucullus, of Atticus, and of Cicero. The first library in Rome was founded 167 B. C. and in the Augustan age they multiplied, until there were twentynine public libraries in Hadrian's time, 120 A. D. The emperor Julian, in the fourth century, was a founder of libraries, and is said to have placed over the doors this inscription: "Alii quidem equos amant, alii oves, alii feros; mihi vero a puerulo mirandum acquirendi et possidendi libros insedit desiderium."

The libraries of the middle ages were neither large nor numerous. The neglect of learning and of literature was wide-spread; only in the monasteries of Europe were to be found scholars who kept alive the sacred flame. In these were renewed those fruitful labors of the scriptorium which had preserved and multiplied so many precious books in classic times among the Romans. The monks, indeed, were not seldom creators as well as copyists, though the works which they composed were mainly theological (as became their sacred profession and ascetic life). The Latin, however, being the almost universal language for so many centuries, the love of learning conspired to widen the field of monastic study. Many zealous ecclesiastics were found who revived the classic authors, and copies of the works of poets, historians, philosophers and rhetoricians were multiplied. Then were gradually formed those monastic libraries to which so many thousands of mediaeval scholars owed a debt of gratitude. The order of Benedictines took a leading and effective part in this revival of learning. Taxes were levied on the inmates of monasteries expressly for furnishing the library with books, and

the novices in many houses must contribute writing materials upon entering, and books at the close of their novitiate, for the enrichment of the library. Among notably valuable libraries, several of which still survive, were those of Monte Cassino in Italy, the Abbey of Fleury in France, St. Gall in Switzerland, and that of the illustrious congregation of St. Maur in France. The latter had at one time no less than one hundred and seven writers engaged in multiplying books.

The first library in England is recorded (in the Canterbury Chartulary) to have been given by Pope Gregory the Great, and brought by St. Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, on his mission to England about A. D. 600. It consisted of nine precious volumes on vellum, being copies of parts of the Scriptures, with commentaries, and a volume of Lives of the Martyrs. The library of the Benedictine Monastery at Canterbury had grown in the 13th century to 3000 titles, being very rich in theology, but with many books also in history, poetry and science. At York had been founded, in the 8th century, a noble library by Archbishop Egbert, and the great scholar Alcuin here acquired, amidst that "infinite number of excellent books," his life-long devotion to literature. When he removed to Tours, in France, he lamented the loss of the literary treasures of York, in a poem composed of excellent hexameters. He begged of Charlemagne to send into Britain to procure books, "that the garden of paradise may not be confined to York."

Fine libraries were also gathered at the monasteries of Durham, of Glastonbury, and of Croyland, and at the Abbeys of Whitby and Peterborough.

Nor were the orders of Franciscans and Dominicans far behind as book-collectors, though they commonly preferred to buy rather than to transcribe manuscripts, like

the Benedictines. "In every convent of friars," wrote Fitzralph to the Pope, in 1350, "there is a large and noble library." And Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, and Chancellor of England in 1334, whose "Philobiblon" is the most eloquent treatise in praise of books ever written, said, when visiting places where the mendicants had convents; "there amid the deepest poverty, we found the most precious riches stored up." The Pope, it appears, relaxed for these orders the rigor of their vows of poverty, in favor of amassing books-mindful, doubtless, of that saying of Solomon the wise "Therefore get wisdom, because it is better than gold."

Richard de Bury, the enthusiast of learning, wrote thus: "The library, therefore, of wisdom is more precious than all riches, and nothing that can be wished for is worthy to be compared with it. Whosoever, therefore, acknowledges himself to be a zealous follower of the truth, of happiness, of wisdom, of science, or even of the faith, must of necessity make himself a lover of books."

And said Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich-"I can wonder at nothing more than how a man can be idle-but of all others a scholar; in so many improvements of reason, in such sweetness of knowledge, in such variety of studies, in such importunity of thoughts. To find wit in poetry; in philosophy profoundness; in history wonder of events; in oratory, sweet eloquence; in divinity, supernatural light and holy devotion-whom would it not ravish with delight?"

Charles the Fifth of France amassed a fine library, afterwards sold to an English nobleman. Lorenzo de' Medici, Mathias Corvinus of Hungary, and Frederic Duke of Urbino, each gathered in the 15th century a magnificent collection of books. All of these were dispersed later, though the

manuscripts of the Duke of Urbino's collection are preserved in the library of the Vatican.

I may here note a very few of the most extensive library collections now existing in Europe and America.

1. Of the great public libraries of Europe, which owe much of their riches to the government privilege of the copy-tax, the national library of France is the oldest and the largest, now numbering two million six hundred thousand volumes. Founded in the 15th century, it has had four hundred years of opportunity for steady and large increase. Paris abounds in other public libraries also, in which respect it is far superior to London.

2. Next to the Bibliothèque nationale of France, comes the Library of the British Museum, with 2,000,000 volumes, very rich both in manuscripts and in printed books in all languages. A liberal Parliamentary grant of $60,000 a year for purchase of books and manuscripts keeps this great collection well up to date as to all important new works, besides enabling it constantly to fill up deficiencies in the literature of the past. Following this, among the great libraries having over half a million books, come in numerical order

Volumes.

3. Russian Imperial Library, St. Petersburg, 4. Royal Library of Prussia, Berlin,

1,200,000

1,000,000

It is a notable fact that among the richest monuments of learning that have been gathered by mankind, the Uni

versity libraries hold a very high rank. Reckoned in number of volumes, there are many of them which far outrank the government libraries, except in six instances. Out of 174 libraries, all exceeding 100,000 volumes, as reported in the annual Minerva, in October, 1898, no less than 72 are the libraries of universities. Strasburg heads the list, with a noble collection of 700,000 volumes; then Oxford university, whose Bodleian library numbers 530,000; Leipzig university, 504,000; Cambridge university, England, Göttingen university, and Harvard university, 500,000 each; the university of Vienna, 475,000; the universities of Heidelberg and of Munich, 400,000 each; Ghent and Würzburg universities, 350,000 each; Christiania, Norway, university, and Tübingen, each 340,000; University of Chicago, 330,000; Copenhagen university, 305,000; Breslau, Cracow, Rostock and Upsala, 300,000 each; Yale university, New Haven, 280,000; St. Petersburg, 257,000; Bologna, 255,000; Freiburg and Bonn universities, 250,000 each; Prague, 245,000; Trinity, Dublin, 232,000; Königsberg, 231,000; Kiel, 229,000; Naples, 224,000; and BudaPest, 210,000. I need not detain you by enumerating those that fall below 200,000 volumes, but will say that the whole number of volumes in the 72 university libraries embraced in my table is more than fifteen millions, which would be much enlarged if smaller libraries were included. A noble exhibit is this, which the institutions of the highest education hold up before us.

We may now consider, somewhat more in detail as to particulars, the origin and growth of the libraries of the United States. The record will show an amazingly rapid development, chiefly accomplished during the last quarter of a century, contrasted with the lamentably slow growth of earlier years.