librarian, the publication of Irish MSS. in the library was begun in 1870, and has since continued. The library of King's Inns was founded, pursuant to a bequest of books and legal MSS. under the will of Mr Justice Robinson in 1787, to form the nucleus of a library for law students. It is partly supported from the funds of the benchers, but partly also by a treasury grant of £433, 6s. 8d. in lieu of the copy privilege. No books are lent out, and the use of the library is confined to students and barristers; so that the public has no advantage in return for the annual contribution of public money.
There is no library in Dublin corresponding in extent and public accessibility to the British Museum in London, or the Advocates Library in Edinburgh. About 1850 it was proposed to supply the deficiency by combining the libraries of the Dublin Society and the Irish Academy, both of which had long received grants of public money, together with the collection of Archbishop Marsh. Accordingly in 1854 an Act of Parliament was passed "for the establishment of a national gallery and for the care of a public library in Dublin." The scheme thus authorized has never been carried out. In 1877, however, the National Library of Ireland was established in the apartments of Leinster House. The library is under the Science and Art Department of South Kensington, and is superintended by a body of twelve trustees in Dublin. For the last two years it has received an annual vote of £1000 from parliament for the purchase of books. As already mentioned, the books of the Royal Dublin Society have been transferred to it. It is freely open to the public on a respectable introduction, and is much used. The public library of Armagh was founded by Lord Primate Robinson in 1770, who gave a considerable number of books and an endowment. The books are freely available, either on the spot, or by loan on deposit of double the value of the work applied for. At Belfast the Queen's College Library has about 36,000 volumes, with a special collection of books on the languages and literatures of the East. The library of the Queen's College, Cork, contains about 25,000 volumes, 1600 of the most valuable of which have been presented by Mr Crawford. The library is easily accessible to literary inquirers, and is much used by strangers. The library of Maynootfi College is chiefly theological, and contains the collections bequeathed by the late president, Monsignor Russell. There are about 40,000 volumes and a few MSS.
Dundalk is at present the only town that has a library under the Public Libraries Acts, which were adopted there in 1856. The rate produces only about 80.
France.
France.French libraries (other than those in private hands) belong either to the state, to the departments, to the communes, or to learned societies, educational establishments, and other public institutions; the libraries of judicial or administrative bodies are not considered to be owned by them, but to be state property. Besides the unrivalled library accommodation of the capital, France possesses a remarkable assemblage of provincial libraries. The communal and school libraries also form striking features of the French free library system.
Five and twenty years ago (see Tableau statistique des Bibliothèques publiques, 1857) there were in the departments, exclusive of those not literally free, and of all Parisian libraries, – 340 public libraries containing 3,734,260 volumes and 44,436 MSS. In 1857 there were only 32 provincial libraries which owned more than 30,000 volumes each; there are now 54 which are of that extent and upwards.[1] In Paris there are now 16 containing over 30,000 volumes each.
Paris.Libraries of Paris.—The Bibliothèque Nationale (still the most extensive library in the world) has had an advantage over all others in the length of time during which its contents have been accumulating, and in the great zeal shown for it by several kings and other eminent men. Enthusiastic writers find the original of this library in the MS. collections of Charlemagne and Charles the Bald, but these were dispersed in course of time, and the few precious relics of them which the national library now possesses have been acquired at a much later date. Of the library which St Louis formed in the 13th century (in imitation of what he had seen in the East) nothing has fallen into the possession of the Bibliothèque Nationale, but much has remained of the royal collections made by kings of the later dynasties. The real foundation of the institution (formerly known as the Bibliothèque du Roi) may be said to date from the reign of King John, the Black Prince's captive, who had a considerable taste for books, and bequeathed his "royal library" of MSS. to his successor Charles V. Charles V. organized his library in a very effective manner, removing it from the Palais de la Cité to the Louvre, where it was arranged on desks in a large hall of three stories, and placed under the management of the first librarian and cataloguer, Claude Mallet, the king's valet-de-chambre. His catalogue was a mere shelf-list, entitled Inventaire des Livres du Roy nostre Seigneur estans au chastel du Louvre; it is still extant, as well as the further inventories made by Jean Blanchet in 1380, and by Jean le Bègue in 1411 and 1424. Charles V. was very liberal in his patronage of literature, and many of the early monuments of the French language are due to his having employed Nicholas Oresme, Raoul de Presle, and other scholars to make translations from ancient texts. Charles VI. added some hundreds of MSS. to the royal library, which, however, was sold to the regent, duke of Bedford, after a valuation had been established by the inventory of 1424. The regent transferred it to England, and it was finally dispersed at his death in 1435. Charles VII. and Louis XI. did little to repair the loss of the precious Louvre library, but the news of the invention of printing served as a stimulus to the creation of another one, of which the first librarian was Laurent Paulmier. The famous miniaturist Jean Foucquet of Tours was named the king's enlumineur, and although Louis XI. neglected to avail himself of many precious opportunities that occurred in his reign, still the new library developed gradually with the help of confiscation. Charles VIII. enriched it with many fine MSS. executed by his order, and also with most of the books that had formed the library of the kings of Aragon, seized by him at Naples. Louis XII., oncoming to the throne, incorporated the Bibliothèque du Roi with the fine Orleans library at Blois, which he had inherited. The Blois library, thus augmented, and further enriched by plunder from the palaces of Pavia, and by the purchase of the famous Gruthuyse collection, was described at the time as one of the four marvels of France. Francis I. removed it to Fontainebleau in 1534, enlarged by the addition of his private library. He was the first to set the fashion of fine artistic bindings, which was still more cultivated by Henry II., and which has never died out in France. During the librarianship of Amyot (the translator of Plutarch) the library was transferred from Fontainebleau to Paris, not without the loss of several books coveted by powerful thieves. Henry IV. removed it to the Collége de Clermont, but in 1604 another change was made, and in 1622 it was installed in the Rue de la Harpe. Under the librarianship of J. A. de Thou it acquired the library of Catherine de' Medici, and the glorious Bible of Charles the Bald. In 1617 a decree was passed that two copies of every new publication should be deposited in the library, but this was not rigidly enforced till Louis XIV.'s time. The first catalogue worthy of the name was finished in 1622, and contains a description of some 6000 volumes, chiefly MSS. Many additions were made during Louis XIII.'s reign, notably that of the Dupuy collection, but a new era dawned for the Bibliothèque du Roi under the patronage of Louis XIV. The enlightened activity of Colbert, one of the greatest of collectors, so enriched the library that it became necessary for want of space to make another removal. It was therefore in 1666 installed in the Rue Vivien (now Vivienne) not far from its present habitat.
- ↑ In 1877 a questionnaire was issued in order to obtain materials for a more complete report, but the results have not yet been made public.
