departure; and many a one feels so nettled, that he comes no more. On your first visit, you can merely admire the magnitude of the different rooms, the apparent order of the books, and their splendid bindings, attended by a subaltern officer, who relates wonderful things about these literary treasures. To get a book to read in the library itself is all but impossible, though you can point out where it stands. You must first write down the title in a large register, and then, if it is not lent, and can be found, you are supplied with it on the next library day. But it happens sometimes that you may wait for weeks in vain for a single book. The first time, the entry of the book has perhaps been overlooked, and you must write down the title again; next time, you are told it is not to be found, or the librarian to whose department it belongs is not in the way. Should you be prevented from attending on a library day, you lose your claim to the wished-for book, which has meanwhile been removed from the table; so that you are obliged to go on a fourth or fifth day to enter it again, and at last, on a sixth or seventh, to read it. On the days appointed for reading, you may many a time knock in vain, because it may happen to be one of the numberless festivals of the Russian church. The precautions, on the delivery of a book that is to be taken home, are so great, that one would think the library was merely intended for the safe custody of books, and not for introducing them among the people.' Besides this imperial collection, Russia possesses forty-two other public libraries, some of which contain 10,000 volumes. The first circulating or lending library in Europe was established at Wetzlar, in Prussia, by Winkler, the bookseller and printer, towards the close of the seventeenth century. Lately, in the city of Breslau, the Prince-Archbishop has founded a library for the working classes, to whom the books are lent gratis. The number of volumes contributed to it amounts to nearly 2000. In 1835, the Gottingen library contained, according to its librarian, Dr. Benecke, 300,000 works. It is fairly entitled to be designated the most useful library in the world.' It is open every day in the year to students; and free admission, during certain hours, is allowed to every person who may wish to see or refer to any work. Books are lent out daily, without any pledge or remuneration, but they must be returned in a month. Besides an extensive collection of Spanish, French, Italian, and Oriental works, here is a more complete collection of books on English history and literature than one can readily find in Great Britain. The Gottingen library has likewise the recommendation of a scientific or classed catalogue, and an alphabetical one; both kept in a state of strict completeness by the immediate insertion of the new books. The library at Munich contains 500,000 volumes, but of which onefifth at the least are duplicates; and the entire length of its shelves is computed to be fifteen miles and a-half. Ten years ago, the University library at Vienna was reported to possess 100,000 volumes. The emperor's fine private library, an heirloom in the imperial family, is also accessible to the public; every person being admitted free, without any previous application, and no instances have occurred of books being purloined. Sumptuous and costly works are not put into the hands of the idle and curious, but only into those of the studious, who do not visit the library for the sole purpose of looking at pictures. This library, which was begun by Maximilian I., contains above 300,000 volumes, all of which are admirably arranged and catalogued. Besides a general alphabetic catalogue, wherein all new acquisitions are immediately inserted, there are ten class catalogues, namely, of 12,000 volumes printed before the year 1500; of 6000 works on music; of all the Bibles; of Hebrew works; of Sclavonic books; of Latin manuscripts; of 1000 Oriential manuscripts, besides 800 Chinese and Indian books; of 8000 autographs; of the valuable prints and maps; and a general classified catalogue of scientific books. After seeing what industry and perseverance have accomplished at Vienna, how can we be cajoled by the lazy excuses made for the want of proper catalogues at the British Museum Library! The Royal Library of Copenhagen contains 463,332 volumes, and about 22,000 manuscripts. After eleven years' labor, a catalogue of all the books, and of one-fourth of the manuscripts, was completed by the conservators, and published at the expense of the government. The catalogue itself extends to 174 volumes. The Royal Library at Stockholm, founded by Gustavus Vasa, and greatly increased by Gustavus Adolphus, is not so large as is commonly supposed; its printed volumes scarcely amounting to 70,000, while its manuscripts are only 5,000. It would have been much more extensive but for the plunder of Queen Christina; for the ease with which she allowed literary men to take the books away; and for the great fire which, in 1697, destroyed a great portion of it. In this library, the excellent system is adopted of giving to each class of books a distinct color of binding. Among the manuscripts, the most curious is one brought from Prague after the conquest of that city, and called the 'Devil's Bible,' from a fanciful representation of that personage, though it is also known by the name of the 'Codex Giganteus;' and gigantic indeed it must be, to contain not only the Latin Vulgate, but the works of Josephus, some treatises of St. Tsidore, a Chronicle of Bohemia, and several Opuscula. The most northern library in the world is that of Reikiavik, the capital of Iceland, which nearly forty years ago, contained 3,600 volumes. About the year 1731, Franklin established by subscription the first public library in Pennsylvania. There are now many public libraries in the United States. In most of the principal towns of New York, school district libraries' have been established by law, at a cost of about half a million of dollars, and are exempt from all taxes. The public library of Mexico, contained, ten years ago, about 11,000 volumes; but four convents there possess libraries, the total amount of whose volumes is more than 32,000. In many of the Mexican provinces, libraries exist whose contents vary from 1000 to 3000 volumes. From Haydn's Dictionary of Dates. The first public library of which we have any certain account in history was founded at Athens, by Pisistratus, 544 B. C. The second of any note was founded by Ptolemy Philadelphus, 284 B. C. It was nearly destroyed when Julius Cæsar set fire to Alexandria, 47 B. C. 400,000 valuable books in MS. are said to have been lost by this catastrophe.-Blair. The first private library was the property of Aristotle, 334 B. C.-Strabo. The first library at Rome was instituted 167 B. c.; it was brought from Macedonia. The library of Appellicon was sent to Rome by Sylla, from Athens, 86 B. c. This library was enriched by the original manuscripts of Aristotle's works. A library was founded at Constantinople by Constantine the Great, about A. D. 335; it was destroyed in 477. A second library was formed from the remains of the first, at Alexandria, by Ptolemy's successors, consisting of 700,000 volumes, which was totally destroyed by the Saracens, who heated the water of their baths for six months, by burning books instead of wood, by command of Omar, caliph of the Saracens, in 642.—Nouv. Dict. Hist. Pope Gregory I. ordered that the library of the Palatine Apollo should be committed to the flames, under the notion of confining the clergy to the attention of the Scriptures. From that time, all ancient learning which was not sanctioned by the authority of the church, has been emphatically distinguished as profane in opposition to sacred. The early Chinese literature suffered a similar misfortune to that of the west in the destruction of the Alexandrian library; their emperor, Cheewhan-gtee, ordered all writings to be destroyed, that everything might begin anew as from his reign; and books and records were afterwards recovered by succeeding emperors with great difficulty. The first public library in Italy was founded by Nicholas Niccoli, one of the great restorers of learning. At his death, he left his library for the use of the public, A. D. 1436. Cosmo de Medici enriched it, after the death of Niccoli, with the invaluable Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Chaldaic, and Indian MSS. Among the great libraries of Europe are the following:-That of the Vatican, at Rome, founded by Pope Nicholas V., in 1446; improved by Sixtus V., 1588; it contains 150,000 volumes, and 40,000 manuscripts. The Imperial Library of Vienna, founded by Maximilian 1., about 1500; and one of the most choice existing. The Royal Library of Paris, by Francis I., about 1520; it contains 500,000 volumes, and 77,000 manuscripts. The Escurial, at Madrid, commenced with the foundation of that sumptuous palace, by Philip II., in 1562; the Spaniards regard it as matchless. The Library of Florence, by Cosmo de Medici, 1560, of great value in illustrated and illuminated works. The Library of the University of Munich contains 400,000 volumes, and 10,000 manuscripts; and that of Gottingen, 300,000 volumes, and 6,000 manuscripts. Richard de Bury, chancellor and high treasurer of England, so early as 1341, raised the first private library in Europe. He purchased thirty or forty volumes of the abbot of St. Alban's, for fifty pounds' weight of silver. Our national libraries are of great number and extent; the following are among the principal:-The Bodleian, at Oxford, founded 40 Elizabeth, 1598; opened in 1602; this library contains nearly 400,000 volumes, and upwards of 30,000 manucripts. The Cottonian Library, founded by sir Robert Cotton, about 1600; appropriated to the public, 13 William III., 1701; partly destroyed by fire, 1731; removed to the British Museum, 1753. The Radcliffeian, at Oxford, founded by the will of Dr. Radcliffe, who left £40,000 to the University, 1714; opened, 1749. The Library at Cambridge, 1720, when George I. gave £5,000 to purchase Dr. Moore's collection. The fine library of George III., presented to the nation by George IV., in 1827. The library of the Royal Institution. That of the London Institution, of Sion College, &c., and the great library of the British Museum, containing about 500,000 volumes, and 100,000 manuscripts, including the Cottonian, the Harleian, and other collections. The Library of the University of Dublin, and the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh, are among the most extensive and valuable in these countries. RHODE ISLAND BILLS OF CREDIT.-The earliest emission of bills of credit, to take the place of gold and silver in Rhode Island, was made in 1710. The colony had been at great expense in furnishing supplies for the war with France, in which the mother country had been involved ever since the accession of William and Mary to the throne. Finding the resources of the treasury inadequate to the exigency, the General Assembly, following the example already set by Massachusetts twenty years before, adopted the fatal though perhaps inevitable expedient of issuing bills of credit, and thus delaying the actual payment of the debts which had been incurred. The first emission did not exceed the sum of five thousand pounds; but this mode of postponing to the future the necessities of the present, having been once invented, was found to be too convenient to be readily abandoned. Other emissions followed in rapid succession, until, in 1749, after the lapse of nearly forty years, the bills which had been issued amounted to not less than three hundred and twelve thousand three hundred pounds, of which one hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds were still standing against the treasury, in one form or another; and these constituted the depreciated and almost valueless currency of the colony. Every occasion of public expenditure furnished an excuse for the issue of a new Bank; and though merchants were everywhere suffering from the policy, and frequently petitioned against it, and most intelligent persons were satisfied of its ruinous tendency, yet so captivating to the people is always the idea of plentiful money, and so clamorous were now the multitude of those who were largely in debt, that numbers of the assembly constantly yielded to the popular will, and in some instances, it is said, actually legislated to meet their own private necessities. The currency which was thus created tended in no equivocal manner to impair the commercial contracts, and to prostrate the commercial honor, of the whole community; while it perpetually offered to the reckless and the profligate an opportunity, too tempting to be resisted, to counterfeit the bills of the colony; a crime of frequent occurrence, though punished in Rhode Island with cropping the ears and branding the forehead of the offender, together with the confiscation of his entire estate. Such is a brief outline of the subject upon which the two political parties in Rhode Island were accustomed to divide during the period of which we are now writing.-Sparks' American Biography. STATE FINANCES.-FINANCES OF NEW YORK. STATEMENT exhibiting the population of the STATE OF NEW YORK, under the Census of the State, and of the United States, commencing with her Internal Improvements, the Canal Loans, Principal of Loans paid, Interest on Loans paid, Amount of Canal Tolls, the Valuations of Real and Personal Estate, the General Movement the Canals, and the Estimated Value of the same. of Property on all 1,676,888 377,000 $270,000 94,615 20,000 1829 1,858,178 87,000 321,142 1830 1,918,608 150,000 30,977 1831 1,969,793 240,263 9,653 1,478,336 1834 2,123,336 950,000 588,006 706,943 418,125 880,454 315,839,783 284,490 Am't C. Loans, $27,653,122 $10,909,372 66,303,892 |