THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. 3>v\V»sV\ YWe-urv^ a\ o g-v\e. YOL. 188. PUBLISHED IN JULY $ OCTOBER , 1898 . LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1898. LONDON: Printed by William Clones and Sons, Limited, Stamford Street and Charing Cross. THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. Art. I. —1. British Museum Catalogue of Printed Books. London, 1881-1898. 2. Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Con¬ stitution and Government of the British Museum. With Minutes of Evidence. London, 1850. 3. Centralkataloge und Titeldruche: geschichtliclie Erorterungen und praktische Vorschlage in Hinhlick auf die Herstellung eines Gesammtkatalogs der Preussischen wissenschaftlichen Bibliotheken. Von Fritz Milkau. Leipzig, 1898. T HE Library of the British Museum, though equalled or excelled in some special departments by one or another great institution elsewhere, has no peer or rival as an immense storehouse of books in all languages and in every class of literature. Founded on the library of an eminent physician, Sir Hans Sloane, consisting chiefly of works on medicine and natural history, it has grown by the influx of royal and private collections, by the operation of the Copyright Acts, and, during the last half-century, by the expenditure of the annual grant for purchases which the Treasury places at the disposal of the Trustees. The Catalogue which reflects this vast and varied growth has, since 1881, been in process of transforma¬ tion from manuscript into print; and that process is now on the eve of completion. The history of the Catalogue is not without interest. Its present and prospective condition is also a subject which well deserves attentive consideration. The British Museum was opened to the public on the 15th of January, 1759. From a minute recorded by the Trustees on the 21st of June following, it appears that the officials of the Museum were required to attend for six hours daily, and that four of these hours were to be occupied in conducting visitors over the building. The Trustees added that ‘ the two vacant Vol. 188.— No. 376. U hours 290 The Book Catalogue of the British Museum . hours (if it is not thought too great a burden upon the officers) might very usefully be employed by them in better ranging the several collections, especially in the Department of Manu¬ scripts, and preparing the catalogues for publication, which last the Committee think so necessary a work, that, till it is per¬ formed, the several collections can be but imperfectly useful to the public.’ The Trustees hoped that this suggestion as to the * two vacant hours ’ would not be regarded as * a wanton or useless piece of severity.’ The modest though frank manner in which they indicate their view as to the utility of catalogues betokens a sense that the subject was one on which some difference of opinion might be apprehended. The first printed Catalogue of the Museum Library appeared twenty-eight years later, in 1787. It was in two folio volumes, and was executed by three persons, two-thirds of whose time was (as we have seen) demanded for other duties. Every allowance is due ta the shortcomings of a work done under such conditions; but one or two of the errors are quaint enough to deserve mention, as illustrating the standard. A William Bedloe, who wrote against Mahometanism in 1615, was confounded with the William Bedloe who gave false evidence against Roman Catholics in 1678. 4 The London Prodigal ’ and 4 Mucedorus ’ were entered as works of Shakespeare. A book printed in 1575 bears the title, ‘Memoires et remonstrances sur le fait de la paix, faites par les deputes de ce grand Roy Emmanuel, Admirable Prince de Paix, Roy des Roys, Seigneur des Seig¬ neurs, et addressees aux Eglises reformees de France] et du pais bas.’ The cataloguers unhappily confounded Emmanuel, Prince of Peace, with Emanuel, King of Portugal; and the entry of the book stood as follows: 4 Emanuel, Lusitan. Rex. Memoires et remonstrances sur le fait de la Paix. 8°. 1575.’ A German, writing in Latin, had entitled his treatise, 4 Schediasma de Pastoribus Paganis,’ adding on the title-page, immediately after those words, 4 vulgo von Dorff-Priestern 1 ; and adding elsewhere, 4 De Pastoribus paganis quaedam com- mentari dum aggredior, nemo me Ethnicorum Sacerdotes innuere putabit.’ But all his precautions were in vain. The Catalogue registered his labours under the head of 4 Pagani.’ Such as it was, however, the Catalogue of 1787 held the field till 1807. A new Catalogue was then commenced by Sir Henry Ellis and Mr. Baber : this was completed in 1819, and published in seven octavo volumes. It was compact and handy ; but its errors and defects could not long escape notoriety. Four years later the Library received a great accession. In 1823 George IV. presented to the Museum the library collected at Buck¬ ingham The Book Catalogue of the British Museum. 291 ingham House by George III., comprising upwards of 65,000 volumes and some 20,000 pamphlets. This gift invigorated the demand for a more accurate and more complete inventory of all the literary treasures which the Museum possessed. The question was as to the form which it should take. A catalogue may be an alphabetical list of the titles or authors of books* irrespective of subject; or it may be a list in which books are classified under their respective subjects, such as Chemistry, History, Mathematics. At the present day it is generally agreed that a catalogue of the second or ‘ classed ’ kind, though of the highest intrinsic value, presupposes, as a condition of its full utility, a catalogue of the first or simply alphabetical kind. The classed catalogue should serve as an index to the alpha¬ betical catalogue, not as a substitute for it. Seventy or eighty years ago, however, a different opinion was in vogue. The classed catalogue was regarded by many men of letters, not ^ only as the most convenient, but as all-sufficing. In 1824 the Rev. T. Hartwell Horne, a bibliographer of high repute for method and diligence, was engaged as a temporary assistant at the Museum, for the purpose of executing a new Catalogue, on the principle of classification by subjects. Among his col¬ leagues were Mr. Cary, the translator of Dante, Mr. (afterwards Sir) Frederic Madden, and Mr. Tidd Pratt. The task of sorting the titles under the various subjects proved laborious and costly ; when 7,000Z. had been spent upon that operation alone it was still only half finished. An instructive glimpse of the difficulties which beset the classifier of books according to subjects is afforded by a report which Mr. Horne made to the Trustees in 1834. During the preceding year he had classified the books in ‘ chemical and medical philosophy ’ under twenty divisions, which included the following: ‘Treatises on Ple¬ thora’; ‘Treatises of the Vis Medicatrix Naturae’; ‘Use of Flagellation, Friction, and Philtres.’ In July, 1834, the Trustees decided that it was uridesirable to spend more moneys on the classed Catalogue, and that project came to an end. The s situation was now this. The Catalogue of Ellis and Baber, finished in 1819, was the fullest which the Library possessed ; but it was utterly unsatisfactory, and the Trustees were anxious to provide an adequate Catalogue at the earliest possible date. It was already felt, indeed, that the question was one of national importance. In the sessions of 1835 and 1836 a • Parliamentary Committee had inquired into the condition and management of the Museum. Valuable evidence regarding the proposed Catalogue, and a mass of statistics concerning the chief libraries of the Continent, were laid before the Committee U 2 by 292 The Booh Catalogue of the British Museum. by a remarkable man, destined to exert a memorable influence on the fortunes of the great institution to which he gave the best years of his life. Anthony Panizzi was born at Brescello, in the duchy of Modena, in 1797. In 1823 he came to England, an almost destitute political refugee, and at first maintained himself by teaching his own language at Liverpool, while at the same time he was learning English. When University College was founded in 1828, Panizzi, through Lord Brougham’s influence, was appointed Professor of Italian. A few years later he entered the service of the British Museum as an 4 extra assistant librarian.’ In 1837 he succeeded Mr. Baber as Keeper of Printed Books. Nothing could more significantly attest Panizzi’s versatile powers of mind and force of character than the simple fact that he should have reached this important position within fourteen years from the date when he landed in this country, a stranger without resources or prospects of any kind, and unable to speak our language. He entered on his new duties at a critical moment. That a new Catalogue ought to be provided as soon as possible was agreed on all hands; but Panizzi saw that the first requisite was a clear and definite statement of the principles on which the Catalogue should be based. Aided by four colleagues (Messrs. Winter Jones, Watts, Parry, and Edwards), he accordingly drew up a code of rules. It has been said of this code, and we believe with truth, that it has formed ever since 6 the foundation of scientific cataloguing.’ No system so precise or so complete had been attempted before. It was inevitable that this new organon of a difficult and only half-developed art should be complex. The number of rules formulated by Panizzi and his assistants was no less than ninety-one. About one-third of these relate merely to arrange¬ ment ; the remainder deal with a multitude of those intricate questions which confront the cataloguer of a vast and miscel¬ laneous library. So far from being needlessly elaborate, the code fell short of providing for many cases which might arise ; but it remains a signal achievement, a permanent landmark in the field of work which it concerns. Within the last few years these rules have been simplified by the labours of a committee of experts selected from the staff of the Printed Book Depart¬ ment ; but the amended rules provide for all the cases which Panizzi thought it needful to determine, and for many which have arisen since his time. It was evident that, if the new Catalogue was to be executed with methodical thoroughness, and in strict accordance with the new code, no very rapid progress could be expected in the earlier The Book Catalogue of the British Museum. 293 earlier stages, nor until the workers had become familiar with the new system. On the other hand, the Trustees of the Museum were anxious to see the new Catalogue finished as soon as possible ; and their impatience was shared by the public. It was understood that December, 1844, was the date by which the whole Catalogue must be printed. The printing was to proceed alphabetically. As soon as the letter A went to the printers, the correction of the press began to absorb much of the labour which should have been given to making the Catalogue. The pressure of the time-limit, hurrying and harassing the staff of the Museum, was, in fact, incompatible with the best standard of work. Adherence to strict alphabetical order also occasioned x much delay, by compelling the books to be brought to the cataloguers ; when afterwards, upon its abandonment, they sat down before the books, progress was much more rapid. In 1841 the first volume, containing the letter A, was published. It could not, of course, contain those titles under A which had come in after it was printed ; but its deficiencies on this account were larger than had been anticipated. On other grounds, too, it met with a good deal of unfavourable criticism. No further volume was published. The project of a new printed Catalogue had been a fiasco. Panizzi, who had loyally done the bidding of the Trustees, was probably not much surprised, and cannot have been much disappointed, at this result. From the outset his personal opinion had been opposed to printing the Catalogue. In a report of November 17th, 1837, he had declared that the public could not reasonably be asked to defray the cost of such a work. He regarded the question strictly from the point of view of the Museum, its administrators, and its visitors, leaving wholly out of account the benefits which a printed Museum Catalogue might confer on learned institutions and on men of letters in every part of the civilized world. Hence it was enough for him that the Museum should possess a manuscript Catalogue, com¬ piled with the utmost care on the best plan, and maintained in completeness by manuscript entries of the accessions. The failure of the rival scheme in 1841 was favourable to that ideal; but the controversy between Panizzi and the Trustees as to the comparative advantages of print and manuscript continued for some time longer. In a report to the Trustees on March 6th, 1847, Panizzi stated that it would be possible to have a manuscript Catalogue finished by the end of 1854, but that it could not be fully prepared for the press before 1860. The correction of each volume for the press would occupy six months, and the total number of volumes would be seventy. The 294 The Book Catalogue of the British Museum. The publication of the Catalogue could not, therefore, be completed before 1895, and the Catalogue published in 1895 would represent the state of the Library in 1854. Experience has since shown that the period of thirty-five years, which Panizzi here assumes as the shortest within which the Catalogue of his own day could be printed, exceeds, in the ratio of about seven to four, the period which will actually have been occupied in printing a Catalogue enormously vaster than any which he could have contemplated. But it is easy to imagine that, in 1847, his hypothetical statistics were impressive. And, just at that time, events which seemed to menace his authority resulted in strengthening it. From 1847 to 1849 a Royal Commission sat to inquire into the state of the Museum. The appointment of a foreigner to a high post at the Museum had been unpopular ; Panizzi, though a man of rare social gifts, was sometimes arbitrary and despotic; that capacity for large ideas, which he combined with mastery of the minutest details, was associated also with some rather narrow prejudices, and in particular with a very inadequate sensibility to the claims of Science. He had many foes, and during the sittings of the Royal Commission his conduct in his office was fiercely assailed from several quarters. He came off with flying colours. Not only was he completely vindicated, but his reputation was greatly enhanced. Thenceforth his influence at the Museum was predominant. Meanwhile, the new manuscript Catalogue, based upon his rules, and carefully supervised by him, had been steadily progressing. In 1850, only nine years after the appearance of that solitary and ill-starred volume with which the publication of the printed Catalogue began and ended, one hundred and fifty volumes of the new manuscript Catalogue were placed in the Reading Room. We hold that Panizzi’s policy in this matter was vitiated by a fundamental error of principle. The catalogue of a great national library, such as that which grows year by year in the British Museum, is a comprehensive index to the sources of knowledge in all its branches, which ought to be made as widely available as possible. Its use should not be confined to those who can consult it within the walls of its stately home. A catalogue which exists only in manuscript defeats some of the most important purposes which such a list should serve. For the moment, however, let us leave this vital consideration aside, and grant Panizzi’s postulate, that the Catalogue exists for use at the Museum alone. On that assumption his pre¬ ference for manuscript is intelligible, when it is viewed with reference to the circumstances of his own day. Every catalogue which The Book Catalogue of the British Museum . 295 which is to be printed must first be written; and Panizzi regarded printing as a costly and laborious task superadded to the task of writing,—one, too, which must necessarily be of such duration as to make it inevitable that the Catalogue, when wholly printed, should already be in great part antiquated. Nor did Panizzi in 1850 foresee that rapid and immense expansion of the Library which, even within his own life-time, was to make a manuscript Catalogue no longer possible, and to render the adoption of print indispensable. That event was hastened by two causes, both of which he had himself set in motion. An admirable report which he presented to the Trustees in 1845 called attention to the extra¬ ordinary deficiencies of the Museum Library in general litera¬ ture, and led to the Treasury making an annual grant of 10,000/. for the purchase of new books. The growth of the collection was thus accelerated. The bulk of the manuscript Catalogue was further increased by a measure, excellent in itself, which Panizzi adopted. Accessions were to be registered by slips pasted on the leaf in such a manner that they could easily be removed and shifted from place to place, so as to avoid disturbing the alphabetical order. Such slips, when placed on each side of a leaf, trebled its thickness; moreover, they were pasted somewhat widely apart, and were written without much regard to saving of space. Thus not only the number of accessions, but the mode of recording them, rapidly swelled the dimensions of the Catalogue. The 150 volumes of written Catalogue which existed in 1850 had in 1875 become about 2250, and the single letter B then occupied as much space as the whole of that portion of the Catalogue which had been written up to 1850. But this unmanageable growth in bulk was not the only objection. Manuscript had become more costly than print. The system of movable written slips required end¬ less labour in transcribing, incorporating, shifting, relaying, binding, and rebinding. The great expense had been the subject of frequent communications from the Treasury. In 1875, Mr. Richard Garnett, who had then lately become the Superintendent of the Reading Room, represented, in a report, that the space available for the accommodation of the Catalogue was all but exhausted, and that it would soon be imperative to reduce the bulk of the work by printing at least a part of it. In 1878 he renewed these representations, with the approval of Sir Charles Newton, who was then acting as Principal Librarian,—a post which in the autumn of that year was filled by the appointment of Mr. (afterwards Sir) Edward Bond. Mr. Bond had long held that the Catalogue ought to be printed, —being 296 The Booh Catalogue of the British Museum. —being led to that opinion, not only by the practical reasons just noticed, but also by considerations of a literary kind. As the result of negotiations between Mr. Bond and the Treasury, it was decided that in future the annual accessions to the Catalogue should be registered on printed, instead of written, slips. This measure came into operation in 1880. At that time, no space remained in the Reading Room for even one additional volume of the Catalogue. The plan of printing accessions, introduced many years earlier in some libraries of the United States, had been in use since 1861 in the University Library at Cambridge, which was the first in Europe (as Dr. Milkau notes) to adopt it; it had also been established, four years later, in the University Library at Glasgow. The initial step was thus taken towards controlling the unwieldy bulk of the Museum Catalogue. The next step was the decision of the Treasury that not merely the accessions, but the Catalogue itself, should be printed. For that purpose, as well as for printing the acces¬ sions, an annual grant was assigned, which has risen, by gradual increments, to the sum of 30001. a year. The printing of the Catalogue began in January 1881. The work did not proceed, at first, in the alphabetical order of the letters. Practical necessity dictated that those letters should be taken first in which the bulk of the manuscript Catalogue was hugest. An economic reason further prescribed that most of the letters first sent to press should be taken from the latter extremity of the alphabet. In that part of the alphabet there was a large number of titles in manuscript which had not yet been printed, as accessions, on separate slips ; and so it was still possible to avoid the expense of printing them twice over—first on slips, and then in the body of the work. Thus one of the earliest volumes to be printed was that which contained the article ‘Virgilius.’ But, when these urgent cases had been dealt with, the order of printing became, as Mr. Bond desired, approximately alphabetical, subject to the proviso that, where convenient, different parts of the same letter should be taken up simultaneously. The process of preparing the manuscript for the press has necessarily been laborious. In the first place, a literary and bibliographical revision is required, as can easily be understood when it is remembered that the written Cata¬ logue had been in progress for more than forty years, and had employed at least as many different workers. Then it is neces¬ sary to verify with the utmost care the order of the several entries^ since transposition, after the type was set, would entail heavy expense. Lastly, there is the correction of the press, which demands The Book Catalogue of the British Museum . 297 demands all the more vigilance since the Museum is almost always content with a single 4 revise.’ Several of the best assistants devote their whole time to these labours. With much practical wisdom, it has been recognized that, in a vast undertaking of this nature^ speed and regularity are the first essentials. If an ideal standard of perfection in details had been set up, the work would have been indefinitely protracted, and must have sunk under the accumulated mass of arrears. Hence all pretension to minute accuracy has been steadily disclaimed. For example, when the title of a black-letter book is quoted, a specialist would wish to know where each line on the original title-page ends; but the Museum Catalogue does not attempt to show this. Again, I and J had at the outset been treated as a single letter; U and V had been similarly treated; and this system has been maintained, though it is admitted that theoretically it would be better to alter it. To all microscopic criticism the authorities of the Museum have an incontrovertible answer, viz., that, if the aim had been to make the work fault¬ less, it could never have been done at all. Nevertheless, it has been executed in a manner on which the Museum may well be congratulated, and of which the nation may reasonably be proud. The printed Catalogue is accessible in two forms. One is that of a large quarto, printed, in double columns, on both sides of the paper. A 4 Part ’ or volume seldom contains more than 300 columns; the average number of columns in a volume is about 250, and that of entries about 5000. In this form the Catalogue is sold to subscribers of 37. 10$. a year; a certain number of copies is also presented, chiefly to public libraries. The number of Parts issued annually in the first two years of the printing was fifteen ; the amount of the printing grant at that time did not admit of more. But, since then, the average annual number of Parts has been about thirty. Such a rate of publication implies notable energy and diligence. It becomes still more remarkable when it is found to have been sustained through a series of years. There is, indeed, every incentive to expedition. Speed is here the best economy ; since any part of the annual printing grant (3,0007.) which may be unexpended at the end of the financial year reverts to the Treasury, and is lost to the Museum. The other form of the Catalogue is for use in the Reading Room. A certain number of copies of each quarto part of the Catalogue is printed on one side of the paper only. One half (i.e. one column) of a printed quarto page is then laid down on a folio page of the strongest vellum paper procurable; the rest 298 The Book Catalogue of the British Museum. of the space on that page, and the whole of the opposite (or right-hand) folio page, are left blank, to receive the printed slips which record accessions. Thus, for every whole page of the Catalogue in its quarto form, there are four pages of the folio form as used in the Reading Room. The folio volumes contain, not only all the titles comprised in the quarto parts, but also all the new titles which have come in since these parts were printed. The folio volumes, and they alone, represent the actual contents of the Library at any given time. Each folio volume can receive about 9,000 titles. There is space in the Reading Room for 2,000 such volumes, capable of contain¬ ing, in all, some eighteen million titles. It has been computed that this space provides for the probable accessions of about three centuries to come. The printing of the Catalogue will be finished before the end of the year 1900. The work will then consist of about COO quarto volumes, containing, on an average, 250 columns each. When the printing began, in 1881, the number of titles in the manuscript Catalogue was about 3,000,000. The accessions since that time exceed half a million, their average annual number during recent years having been about 40,000. The number of printed volumes in the Museum may be roughly estimated at about 2,000,000. The reason why the number of titles in the Catalogue so far surpasses this total is, of course, the number of cross-references frequently made to the same book from the names of editors, annotators, and other persons concerned with it, or whom it concerns. As we write, the Catalogue is complete in print, with the exception of the entries referring to 4 England,’ 4 France/ 4 Germany/ 4 Great Britain/ the difficult article 4 Liturgies/ and a portion of 4 Bible.’ All these, it is hoped, will be printed in the course of 1899. It is natural to hail with applause and gratitude the approaching completion of this vast enterprise, prepared and prosecuted, during two generations, by the labours of the scholars and administrators who have so ably served the British Museum. The printed Catalogue is a monument of careful and systematic labour on an unprecedented scale, applied to a library which, for comprehensiveness, has no rival in the world. Yet, even while we welcome the attainment of a definite goal,— the complete transference of the Catalogue from manuscript into print,—it is impossible to forget the limitations which the very nature of the work has imposed upon it. The printing will have occupied about nineteen years, during which accessions have been pouring in, as we have seen, at the rate of some 40,000 a year. Under the letter which will have been the last to The Book Catalogue of the British Museum . 299 to be printed (T) will be incorporated the titles beginning with T which have come in while that letter was at press ; and, in respect to that letter, the Catalogue will nearly represent the actual state of the Library in 1899. But, at each step back¬ wards in the order of the letters printed, the Catalogue will, of course, be further and further from representing this con¬ temporary condition. In regard to those letters which were the earliest to be printed, the Catalogue can only represent the state of the Library as it was in 1881 or 1882. The accessions under those letters which have since flowed in are recorded on the printed slips inserted in the folio form of the Catalogue placed in the Reading Room, but do not appear in the Catalogue as printed for circulation outside of the Museum. Only those persons who can consult the Catalogue in the Reading Room will have before them anything like a complete list of the Library as it will stand in 1899. Subject to the exceptions noticed above, the order of the printing has been (broadly speaking) alphabetical ; and therefore the degrees of completeness in the successive parts of the Cata¬ logue will be generally progressive from the earlier to the later letters of the , alphabet. The literature relating to Tennyson will be far more completely represented in the Catalogue than that which relates to Browning; Thackeray will have the advantage over Dickens, Schiller over Goethe, Tasso over Boccaccio, Thucydides over Herodotus, and so forth. Such inequalities might be of comparatively little moment in the catalogue of a small collection, where the yearly additions were few, and where the printing covered only two or three years. But in a work on this vast scale, which will have been nineteen years at press,—a work in which the accessions accumulate with enormous rapidity and in enormous volume,— a work, too, of which the distinctive value resides in its claim to mirror nearly the whole world-literature of each subject— it is obvious that this defect assumes a magnitude which seriously impairs the value to students of the Catalogue as a whole. Further, the circulation of the Catalogue has always been extremely limited, and threatens to become even more limited in the future. No great institution has ever issued its publications on more liberal terms than the British Museum. But of many or most of these publications it may be said that their sale has been restricted by the fact that their existence has been too little known. For instance, it may be doubted whether it is a matter of common knowledge, even among men of letters, that the Museum has published special bibliographies (complete, so 300 The Book Catalogue of the British Museum. far as that library is concerned) of several important authors, including Aristotle, Bacon, Bunyan, Byron, Dante, Goethe, and that each of these lists can be obtained for two or three shillings. A similar remark applies, though probably in a less degree, to another important publication, 4 A Subject Index of the modern works added to the Library of the British Museum,’ compiled by Mr. G. K. Fortescue, in three volumes (1886, 1891, 1897), each volume representing the growth of the five years preceding its date. When the printing of the Catalogue began, in 1881, arrangements were made for issuing it to subscribers. For a yearly subscription of 3 1. 10s., a subscriber received the 6 Parts ’ or volumes published in each year. The annual number of such Parts, at first fifteen, subsequently rose to an average of thirty ; but the amount of the subscription remained the same ; and consequently the price of each volume (containing an average of 5,000 titles) fell from the very moderate sum of 4s. Sd. to 2s. Ad. It may certainly be said that the Catalogue of the Museum, as issued to subscribers, is one of the cheapest books extant. The number of copies available for this annual issue has, since 1882, been about 250 ; but of these less than one third has passed into circulation, and even of that number about one half has been given gratuitously. Lack of publicity at the outset may have had something to do with this result. There was no heralding of the publication in the press ; few persons were aware of its existence until several volumes had appeared ; and the accumulated price of these, to be met by a single payment, may in some cases have proved deterrent. But a more powerful cause in restricting the sale was presumably a per¬ ception of the fact to which we have referred,—that, by the time when the last part of the Catalogue had been printed, the earlier parts would be deeply in arrear. An effort was made, indeed, to meet this objection. A supplementary Catalogue of Acces¬ sions was printed, which a subscriber could obtain for 3/. a year, in addition to his subscription of 31. 10s. for the principal Catalogue. But this Accession Catalogue found scarcely any subscribers; and the issue has now been contracted within the narrowest possible limits. The present situation may be summed up in the statement that the Catalogue of the British Museum is almost unknown outside of the Reading Room; that its complete form is found in the Reading Room alone; and that the very few persons who have access to it beyond those precincts possess it in a form which is so incomplete as well-nigh to frustrate the chief reason of its existence. Could Panizzi revisit the scene of his labours The Book Catalogue of the British Museum. 301 labours and his controversies, he would doubtless rejoice in the splendid and ever-growing fortunes of the great Library over which Sir Edward Maunde Thompson worthily presides. But in the present circumstances of the Catalogue he would perhaps recognize, with a smile, the irony of fate. That manuscript Catalogue which was his cherished ideal had to make way for a printed Catalogue, because the rapid growth of the Library had rendered manuscript too bulky and too expensive. But now the operation of the very same cause has deprived the printed Catalogue of the most distinctive advantage which belongs to print. The multiplying power of the press is, in this case, of practically no avail. To all intents and purposes, there is only one copy of the Catalogue which fulfils the proper functions of such a work, and that is the copy which is placed in the Reading Room. It will perhaps be suggested that the simplest expedient would be to print a supplementary Catalogue of all titles not included in the principal Catalogue. This supplement might then be issued in parts to subscribers. There can be no objection to issuing such a supplement expressly for the benefit of persons and institutions already possessed of the principal Catalogue, should the Trustees consider this worth while. But the objection to such a publication on behalf of the general public is obvious. Such a supplement would be valueless, except to those who possessed the whole of the Catalogue as originally printed in the years 1881-1899 ; and the number of such possessors is exceedingly small. Suppose, however, that new subscribers to the supplement could be found, who would be ready at the same time to purchase the whole of the principal Catalogue. Only some 250 copies of each Part were printed, and a portion of those copies has already been sold or given away. In the first year of printing (1881), the impression was considerably less than 250 copies, and the parts for that year are (we believe) no longer obtainable. A supplementary Catalogue for general use would thus be fore¬ doomed to failure, a result foreshadowed by the fact noticed above, that the Accession Catalogue has proved unsaleable. Nor could a supplementary Catalogue be of any service to the frequenters of the Reading Room, who would always prefer to look for accessions in the General Catalogue, where they would ^ continue to be entered. As to the folio Catalogue in the Reading Room, there is, indeed, as we have said, ample space for the additions of a long period to come. But that form of the Catalogue will become more and more inconvenient, as the original nucleus (consisting 302 The Book Catalogue of the British Museum . (consisting of the quarto printed columns laid down on vellum paper) comes to bear a smaller and smaller proportion to the accessions, ever growing at the rate of some 40,000 a year. For such a Library as that of the Museum, a Catalogue on cards is impossible. The book form is indispensable. And there is only one way in which a book Catalogue of such a Library can be maintained in a satisfactory, or even a tolerable, state. That is, by periodically reprinting the whole, with incorporation of all the new titles which have come in since the last edition was printed. If the Catalogue of the Museum were reprinted so as to include all the accessions (not already incorporated) of the period from 1881 to 1899, this reprint would completely exhibit the actual contents of the Library at a well-marked epoch, the end of the nineteenth century. It would also lay the foundation for the regular issue of such a complete register at definite intervals,—say, at the end of every twenty-five years. Such a register would be of inestimable value to students, in every branch of knowledge, throughout the world. It would also form a basis on which this and other countries could form central catalogues, representing, for each country, its collec¬ tive wealth in literature. Each considerable library could compare its own contents with the Museum Catalogue, and frame a list of any books, in its own possession, which were not found in the Library of the Museum. Such central cata¬ logues would open the way for the ultimate construction, if it should be thought desirable, of a Universal Catalogue; but it is needless to enter here on the pros and cons of that much- discussed scheme. The desirability of central catalogues would, at any rate, be generally conceded. The Library of the Museum is the only one in the world which could provide, without delay, a complete register, capable of serving the purposes described above. It is the only library on a similar scale which has collected books in all classes of literature. Moreover, it has all its materials ready for prompt issue. It has no longer to compile, but merely to reprint. The National Library of France published last year the welcome first volume of the Catalogue of its printed books ; but some twenty or thirty years may be expected to elapse before that great work can be completed. A proposal to reprint the Museum Catalogue must be con¬ sidered, first of all, with reference to the time and money which would be required. On both these heads we are in a position to give an estimate formed by experts practically acquainted with the work to be done. The time required would probably The Book Catalogue of the British Museum . 303 be only from three to four years. This estimate assumes that the task of the printer would be simply to reprint, incorporating the accessions in their alphabetical places. No attempt would be made to re-edit, or to reach a more perfect accuracy of detail; such an aim might involve a further delay of some ten or twelve years. The immediate object, which should be steadily kept in view, is to reprint the Catalogue and the accessions as they stand. This task, if begun in January 1901, ought to be finished by the end of 1904 at latest. The cost might be from 50,000Z. to 60,0007.; it is improbable that it would much exceed the latter sum. A few years ago the Government gave a larger sum for one great picture. Parlia¬ ment and the country did not think, in 1885, that 72,0007. was too high a price to pay for adding the Ansidei Madonna to the National Gallery. The national importance of such an acquisition can scarcely be deemed superior to that of a work, entailing less expense, which would confer a signal benefit on letters and science, both at home and abroad. Further, it is to be remembered that the cost of the reprint would be partly defrayed by the sale. The prospects of the reprinted Catalogue in that respect would be widely different from those of the edition which went to press in 1881. The first edition appeared, as we have seen, under circumstances which made it inevitable that the sale should be very limited. The reprinted Catalogue, a great work with a definite com¬ pleteness of its own, would, from the first, excite a much keener interest and enjoy a far wider publicity. Agents for the sale, rewarded by a liberal discount, should be appointed in selected large cities throughout the world, and a discount should also be allowed to purchasers direct from the Museum. The price charged should be moderate, and should not, irrespective of discount, exceed 307. for the whole work. With a reasonable price and proper efforts, an edition of 1500 or 2000 copies might probably be sold in the course of a few years. The unique character and value of the work would cause its acquisi¬ tion to be felt as desirable, if not indispensable, by many great libraries, universities, colleges, and learned societies in every quarter of the globe. The prospects of an extensive sale in the United States, in particular, would be most encouraging. The proceeds of the sale would, at the best, be far from covering the cost; but they would appreciably reduce it, and the total cost would be moderate, relatively to the magnitude of the national object attained. The question of stereotyping would arise in connexion with the reprint. It would be advisable to stereotype in view of orders 304 The Book Catalogue of the British Museum . orders which might be expected to keep dropping in until the publication of the next edition. And, in reference to the use of stereotype for this purpose, notice is due here to a plan which would be productive of great economy in all future editions of the Catalogue. This would consist in stereotyping each title on a separate plate. The plates, after printing, would be stored in alphabetical order. When it was required to print a new edition of the Catalogue, and to incorporate the titles which had come in since the last edition, all that would be necessary would be to combine the new stereotype plates with the old in the proper alphabetical order. The whole cost of re-setting the type would thus be avoided. This plan was brought before the Royal Commission on the British Museum by Mr. W. D. Cooley in February, 1849 ; but the idea originated, as Dr. Milkau has pointed out, with Mr. Charles C. Jewett, Chief Librarian of the Smithsonian Institute at Washington. It was only, indeed, in 1850 that Jewett pub¬ lished his work, ‘ A Plan for Stereotyping Catalogues by Separate Titles, and for forming a General Stereotyped Cata¬ logue of Public Libraries in the United States.’ But there is evidence that he had communicated his plan to friends in England during the autumn of 1847. Since 1895 this system has been in use at the Public Library at Boston, Massachusetts, over which Mr. Jewett presided from 1858 to 1868. The linotype machine is there used for the work, with much saving of labour and cost. It may be added that this plan was once tried at the British Museum, for the purpose of printing a classed Catalogue of titles selected from the General Catalogue. It was given up because no space for storing the stereotype plates could be found at the printing-office or at the Museum. This difficulty ought surely not to be insuperable if the intrinsic merits of the system are such as to render its adoption desirable. And, with a view to the future, the economic advantages appear so great as at least to deserve careful con¬ sideration. The average cost of stereotyping a title was estimated in 1881 at three half-pence; the cost of a million would therefore be 6,250 1. If, by the omission of cross- references, the total number of titles to be stereotyped could be reduced to about a million and three-quarters, the cost would thus be 10,937/. To this would be added the cost of making arrangements for storage. But this increase of present outlay would hereafter be repaid many times over by the saving of expense in printing future editions of the Catalogue. The adoption of such a plan is, however, in no way an essential part of the proposal which we are advocating. It is merely a detail, The Book Catalogue of the British Museum. 305 detail, though (to our thinking) an important detail, which would fall to be considered when the proposal to reprint the Catalogue took a definite shape. As we have referred to the trial of stereotyping at the Museum in the service of a classed Catalogue, we should add that, after the abandonment of that experiment, the authorities of the Museum endeavoured to lay the foundation of a classed Catalogue in a different manner, viz., by printing several copies of the General Catalogue on one side of the paper only, with a view to the sheets being sub¬ sequently cut up, and the titles arranged according to subject. But a classed Catalogue formed on this plan, though invaluable in the Reading Room, would not get beyond it, unless reprinted and published. Our object in these pages has been to state the general conditions of the problem, and to indicate the importance of solving it at an early date, since every year of delay will render a solution more difficult. It is not to be expected that any action should be taken until public opinion has been awakened to the importance, and indeed the necessity, of doing something. But it is not unreasonable to hope that such support will be forthcoming, when it is realized, on the one hand, that the utility of the existing Catalogue is practically confined to the Reading Room of the Museum, and that its future raises some perplexing questions ; on the other hand, that a reprint would be of the highest advantage both to the Museum itself and to the cause of literature and science, not only in this country, but in all quarters of the globe, and could moreover be accomplished at a cost which, relatively to the greatness of the object, cannot be considered large. Much will doubtless turn on the interest shown in the subject by the natural leaders of public ^opinion on such matters,—by the Universities and other learned societies, by individual representatives of science and letters, and, generally, by all who recognize that the further progress of knowledge depends, in no small measure, on a record, com¬ plete and accessible in the utmost attainable degree, of the knowledge already accumulated by mankind. The common¬ wealth to which an appeal might be addressed is world-wide. Englishmen, in the first place, may be asked to reflect that a complete Catalogue of the British Museum Library, repre¬ senting ; its state at the close of the nineteenth century, and available for students everywhere, would be no unworthy addition to those monuments of national power and beneficence which are the best assured against decay and oblivion. Vol. 188.— No. 376. x Art. 306 ) j^RT. II.—1. A Romance of Two Worlds. And other W^rks. | CBy Marie Corelli. London, 1886-1897. 2. <\The Christian. By Hall Caine. London, 1897. fLEAT and manifold—to speak with the translators of the J 's Bible—as have been the mischiefs wrought py modern unbeliefAit may be questioned whether any have surpassed the evils of Vhe reaction which it has too often /ailed forth. I ‘ Agnostic,\positivist, materialist’ are doubtless/words of ill omen; but ^hysterical, irrational, obscurantist/ have scarcely I a more promising sound. Between the Mo/tagues and the ! Capulets of thetee extremes, fighting over l/r body, Religion seems likely to etoerge disfigured and discroraited—a caricature of the sublime an\ affecting reality whicl/she once was, and as much an offence tocher friends as to h(/ enemies. The man who has escaped without a wound f/m Professor Huxley’s onslaught may fall a victim to Miss /orelli’s ‘electric creed’; or if not the man, yet\he woman,/hough doctors have been known to succumb, and journalist^ despite the triple steel of I their art of criticism. And wh