1850. Catalogue of Printed Books: in MS. or in Print? 393

almost clamorous: though it is well known that the public never bought so many as twenty perfect copies of the eightvolume catalogue which was completed in 1819. It was proposed, in order to meet the wants of those who live at a distance, that a clerk at the Museum should answer letters (with return postage inclosed) inquiring whether specified books are or are not in the library. Mr. Panizzi was disposed to think this feasible, and the Commissioners seemed to incline towards it. If the convenience of the majority is to be consulted, unquestionably this plan (the expense of which would not equal the interest of the money spent upon printing a catalogue) should be adopted. For the many are those whose wants are comparatively of rare occurrence, and who would not buy a catalogue for infrequent and occasional use. Moreover, it is to be remembered that the corresponding clerk would answer upon all that had been entered up to the date of the letter, while the catalogue would give only the answer of, it might be, several years before. Upon the balance of all the arguments, the Commissioners decided upon recommending that the catalogue should not be printed: and, looking upon the question as merely one of library management, we agree with them. But, seeing how much a more correct knowledge of books, and idea of bookknowledge, is wanted, even by distinguished literary menlooking also to the great number of errors which have arisen from insufficient bibliography—we are of opinion that a full and accurate catalogue should be printed, sold at a cheap rate, and widely presented to public institutions. Not merely as a catalogue of the Museum library, but as a contribution from the national funds to the promotion of sound and accurate literature, both in letters commonly so called, and in science: a contribution which would have its value, independently of the accessions which the library had received since its publication. It is to be remembered that the investigations of a student not only require him to consult many books, but to have a correct knowledge of more which he need not consult: and also that the question whether he need consult or not may very often be settled, and his valuable time saved, by nothing more than a full and accurate catalogue description of the work in question: and nothing less will do. Consequently, an excellent catalogue is a valuable literary companion, even though its parent library be at a distance, or dispersed, or burnt. Nothing but national

* As soon as this work was either contemplated or completed, we do not know which, a stock of the old folio catalogue of 1789 was cancelled, i. e. destroyed.

power can supply this want to a sufficient extent, or can foster. in the nation which it belongs to that love of accuracy which is wanted, by furnishing the means of being accurate, at a moderate expense of labour. We do no more than hint at this subject because we have not space to develope it; and also because we are afraid that, in like manner as men of letters are not yet bibliographers, bibliographers are not yet much more than librarians, that is, not sufficiently alive to the fact that a part of their function is public instruction. They are too much isolated, too much among themselves and for themselves. At the same time we must say that in the new Museum Catalogue the duty of giving information, where it may be briefly done, is acknowledged; and the entries show that the books have been properly examined. Inquiries of the kind which we have been discussing, have a tendency to shake the classes together, and the result begins to show itself in a remarkable manner. As soon as it became apparent that the field was lost, a proposal immediately emanated from the anti-bibliographical side, as we must call it, of the controversy, bold enough in character to make the regular librarian stare. It is not uncommon for a party which cannot obtain what it wants, to outbid the opponent in his own ground, to win the trick by putting on a higher trump. In the present case, the Athenæum' journal, the most prominent organ of the assailants of the Museum, in concluding its remarks upon the Report of the Commissioners, astonished its readers by proposing a Universal Catalogue, to contain all the books that ever were printed. The plan was, that our Government should catalogue all British works, and every other one its own.* Such a catalogue, when complete, would serve for every library; nothing would be necessary, in any one such institution, except to indicate the presence of each work in the library by affixing to each its press mark, or designation of its place on the shelves. Separate: stereotype blocks for each title are proposed, to be presented by each government to the rest; out of which any variety of plans. of cataloguing might be made feasible. This magnificent design has presented itself to many, and has, we doubt not, been only rejected with regret, as much too good to be hoped for. If we saw the slightest chance of its accomplishment, we should be only too happy to lend our voices in favour of it, provided that it was to be a full and accurate catalogue, not a compendious If those who made the proposal fancied that short titles

one.

This part, we are perfectly satisfied, is impracticable. Our Government must do it all, employing such agency in foreign countries as shall be found necessary.

1850.

Catalogue of Printed Books: Its extent.

395

must needs be secured by the vastness of the plan, which it would seem impossible to execute on the fuller scale, we answer that we put on a higher trump than theirs, and will win the trick by showing that our addition will render the whole execution more easy. Almost all who have themselves catalogued books gave evidence that a short title, carefully done, takes more time than a long one: that it is shorter to write out the titles on Mr. Panizzi's scale, than to make the deliberate examination which the best abbreviation, or any good abbreviation, requires. That short titles take short time, was one of the master fallacies of the discussion: true only in the sense in which it may be said that no titles at all take less time still. Now we put the following considerations forward, not as having an immediate practical bearing upon anything we have much hope of seeing; but because any step which goes beyond the utmost limits of the current routine, must be familiarised by speculative thought, before it can possibly induce a sufficient number to think it can be done. And, if we may venture to say it, it is not only true that without faith no man can see God, but also that without faith no man can see the next step in that career of improvement which God has ordained for man. It was the greatest stumbling-block in the transition from the turnpike-road to the railway, to create the first degree of belief in its possibility: and of this we may always be sure, that there never was a moment at which there did not exist numerous plans which were really and truly impossible-but only because they were thought to be so.

The world is to go forward; and its literature, the history of its mind, is to be preserved: of this no one doubts. The task of preservation will become more and more difficult as time runs on; and to meet the difficulty, engines of increased power must, and therefore will, be invented: to doubt this is rather to reject history than to prophesy. The day will come when the record which it is thought worth while in Great Britain to give to the documents of all times and all tongues will involve as much printing as the United Parliament orders in three years, and a proportionate quantity of mechanical preparation. Imagine that time come now, and no bolder flight is necessary. We believe that we much overrate the printing of the world in each particular, if we describe it as done in four hundred years, by ten literary nations, at the rate of a thousand titles each year from the beginning: and we are afraid we must say that one fourth of this is irrecoverably lost. Perhaps our readers will think more: if it be so, our calculation is the more what we intend it to be, above the mark. This gives three million of titles; which,

*

entered without cross-reference, in the manner proposed by Mr. Panizzi, would go into three hundred volumes of five hundred pages each. A finding companion, rather than index, being a repetition of each leading word and date, with reference to volume and page, furnished with cross-references, one for each original entry, at the rate of four hundred in each folio page, would give thirty volumes more. Now when Mr. Panizzi's opponents described his proposed manuscript catalogue of the British Museum as to be in five hundred volumes, monstrous as such a thing appeared to them, there was a certain limit to their wonder: no one was made seriously ill by the idea; no one proposed a rising in arms. We are inclined to think then that if, after deliberation, they should hold our figures to be rather above than below the mark (which we regret to say we think they are) there would be nothing to repel further deliberation upon the surrender of the short titles, and an agitation for a full and complete catalogue of all the books in the world up to 1850, to be carefully kept up in time to come. At any rate, we gladly join them in familiarizing the public ear with large undertakings.

One practical bearing of such aspirations upon the existing state of things is as follows. In order to further the execution of some grand ultimate plan, we are disposed to press forward the printing of the intended Museum Catalogue, so soon as (but not sooner than) the manuscript shall be complete and ready for press. We do not think anything would be gained by surrendering the existing project as a part of the consideration for a greater one. The public is a very peculiar individual: he resolves himself into millions of components for the purpose of discussion; but when reunited into one for action, he is another creature, with habits, associations, and foibles, which could not be deduced from those of his molecules. And those who know him never hope to get any thing out of him by giving up something in return and above all, they never ask him to abandon the smaller plan in favour of a larger, or one plan in favour of

The five hundred volume catalogue has been the Carthage of Mr. Panizzi's opponents: and journals and newspapers have echoed the assertion that he proposed, for the Museum as it stands, a manuscript catalogue in five hundred volumes. The truth is as follows ;In a letter to Lord Ellesmere, printed in the appendix to the evidence (p. 394.) Mr. Panizzi, after describing his manuscript catalogue, says Five hundred such volumes would contain one million and fifty thousand entries, with space to increase the whole to one million seven hundred and fifty thousand.' The estimate for the present catalogue is half a million.

1850. Catalogue of Printed Books: Grenville Library. 397

another. He either finishes what he has begun, or he sinks into perfect inaction. To abandon the project of so many years, under the notion that a larger one might then be undertaken, would lead, we think, to this result, that in fifty years our descendants would be recommencing at 1838, so far as this question is concerned, and with a much larger mass of materials to deal with.

In the meanwhile, anxious as we are for the most speedy execution of the sound and (so far as the Museum is concerned) sufficient plan in question, we know by experience, as do the great majority of those who frequent the reading room, that there is not any necessity for the excessive hurry which has been called for-in any point but one. The catalogue now in use is available for everything which it contains, and, in spite of all that has been said against it, serves many purposes. It is of course most desirable that it should be speedily reinforced by lists of the accessions which the Museum has received, and in particular of the Grenville Library, that splendid bequest, which, as all our readers do not know, is very much due to Mr. Panizzi's influence with its munificent donor. We are assured that this reinforcement will very speedily † arrive; and we feel convinced that it would have arrived long ago, if the pressure from without had not tended to paralyse the institution and distract its officers.

If due assistance be afforded; if the catalogue be allowed to make the utmost haste which, in the opinion of those who can best judge, is consistent with good speed; if the House of Commons be moved rather to supply ample funds to those who know how to do this, than to issue directions as to the mode in which it should be done, the present difficulty will be overcome in a much shorter time than the opponents of the plan think of.

* Mr. Panizzi was in Mr. Grenville's confidence on this matter: and, among the most expensive of the books which he was charged with not buying for the Museum when he might have bought them were some which he knew would soon arrive in the course of nature. Public officers very often know something which they may not tell, but which their critics do not know.

It has arrived since we wrote this. On the 9th of September were added to the reading-room two copies of 153 manuscript volumes of supplemental catalogue, commenced in 1849; together with a catalogue of the Grenville Library, being the existing printed catalogue, with its errors and deficiencies (no small number), supplied in manuscript. By the end of the year the catalogue will be at par in its

entries.