TRINITY COLLEGE LIBRARY.
With awe around these sacred walks I tread;
These are the lasting monuments of the dead:—
“The dead!” methinks a thousand tongues reply:
“These are the tombs of such as cannot die!
Crown’d with eternal fame, they sit sublime,
And laugh at all the little strife of time.”—Crabbe.
Our College Library is a creditable establishment—a goodly structure to look at, both inside and out—and has a choice and ample collection of books of all sizes and in all languages. Gentle reader, have you ever felt the book passion? Know you what it is? If not, belike you might walk down our noble library’s length, and survey the books and busts, and stalls and gallery at each side, and the beautiful antique manuscripts in glass cases at the end just before you enter the Fagel Library, and be no more impressed—you will excuse us—no more than a grave-digger in knocking about an old coffin or a skull, yea, though the skull should once have belonged to poor Yorick, the king’s jester! Ah, sir, the passion is a tender one, if you knew but all—full of lack-a-daisical and melancholy, yet pleasing fancies. There are people smitten by the mere outside of a book—by the fineness of the paper, the breadth of the margin, or the beauty of the letter-press; but they know nothing of the true affection. Give them an annual, or an album, or any other bit of gilt gingerbread, and they will have all they require to their hearts’ content. Let them make sonnets to their mistress’s eyebrow; there is no soul in them; they are mere dandies; they have nothing congenial with the true passion. To be a proper lover of books a man must have been a great reader of them; and the more his reading, the stronger will be his love for them. They then present themselves to him with their train of associations, and as his eye passes along the shelves, he recognises each volume as an old acquaintance: some he shakes hands with cordially; with some he exchanges a few words; others he just nods to, and to some perhaps he may give the cut direct; but he knows them all in some way or other. As the review of a fine army to an old general, so is a fine library to a true student. He loves to see his levy en masse, and in detail. The sight of them cheers his spirits, elevates his mind, and—mark this, gentle reader—gives him the idea of power. There lies a great secret, which in these costermonger days we deserve great credit for communicating to the world free-gratis for nothing.
Knowledge is power—that’s our major; there one stands in the midst of a noble army of books—that’s our minor, or lieutenant; then a man feels strong, and vastly well pleased with himself—and that is our fife and drum, or conclusion, by every law of drill or logic.
In our juvenile days, before we were A-B-C’d, and therefore before we enjoyed the privilege of free ingress and egress at the superb Old Trinity, we used to pass whole days of rumination in the quiet pastures of Marsh’s. This library, situate in an antique building to one side of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, is graciously open to the public in general, and to all under-graduates of the University in particular, and wears a secluded, cloistered, antiquated air about it, that invites to contemplation. You are there on classic ground. The genius of Swift seems to hover o’er you. You fancy yourself with an age that has passed away, and among spirits that have long since winged their flight from earth. Many a summer’s day have we mused and read, and read and mused, in its delightful solitude, without any other interruption save the cackling of hens and crowing of cocks in some of the neighbouring yards, the playing or screaming of children in Kevin-street or Mitre-alley, the scolding of women in some of the adjoining houses, or a few words of conversational politeness interchanged between us and the Rev. Mr Cradoe, the librarian, chiefly on the news of the morning.
But as a book-store, Marsh’s is not to be compared with the College Library. Formerly this splendid repository was open only four hours in the day for public use, from eight till ten in the morning, and from eleven till one; but a more liberal access to its treasures has been conceded of late; the entire is now free from nine in the morning till four in the afternoon, without interruption. This is a great acquisition to the privileged, and has been attended by a vast increase of readers and visitors; but there is still room for amendment in particulars of no small importance to general convenience. We are happy to say, however, that to some of these the attention of the enlightened heads of the University has been directed, and that great improvements in the economy of the institution may at no distant day be expected. In the first place, the books are exceedingly ill arranged, and there is no printed catalogue of them, so that the visitor finds great difficulty in laying his hand upon those he may be in quest of; in addition to which it may be stated, that there is no attendant librarian, or other official whose duty it is to give information, or procure the work which the visitor may require. They order this matter better in France; but whatever may be intended as to such functionaries, we have learned with much satisfaction that a new catalogue is now in course of preparation, and that it is to be a printed one. The preparing of so great a work for the press must necessarily occupy a good deal of time. It has been, we understand, now about two years in hands, and will be completed, it is expected, in about two more. There are six writing-clerks constantly employed in preparing slips for the printer, under competent direction. A greatly improved classification will be effected, and the printed volumes, when perfected, will be offered for sale. Incidental to the execution of this great work, there will be a new and improved arrangement of the books on the shelves to correspond with that in the catalogues; and when both these important matters are effected, it is obvious that the difficulties which are now experienced in the pursuit of knowledge within this venerable gallery, will be in a great degree removed.
There is another point on which complaints are sometimes made, namely, the excessive cold of the building in winter. It was originally intended that no fires should be lit in it, as a security to its valuable but highly combustible contents against accident through that medium; but in this provision, it is plain, the preservative principle was much more attended to than the utilitarian, and is carried, as we conceive at the present day, to an unreasonable length. But, at all events, modern ingenuity can meet the difficulty; for the air may be heated by means of tubes, without the immediate presence of combustion; wherefore we are led to expect that the same liberal and enlightened spirit which has suggested and directed the realization of other improvements, will direct and realize this also in due time.
By the bye, the origin of this great establishment is curious. On the defeat of the Spaniards by the English at the battle of Kinsale in 1603, we are told that the triumphant soldiery determined to commemorate their victory by some permanent monument, and that they collected among themselves the sum of £1800, which they resolved should be laid out in the purchase of books for a library, to be founded in the then infant establishment of Trinity College.[1] This sum was handed to the celebrated Ussher, and by him judiciously expended, conformably to the wishes of the generous conquerors at Kinsale. And here we pause to pay our most profound respects to the memory of these literary warriors. Who would have expected that the most scientific, and studious, and intellectual men of our age, would owe the most splendid temple dedicated to their use, which the country can boast, to the bounty of a victorious soldiery in the beginning of the seventeenth century? There was a spirit of chivalry in this transaction which we cannot sufficiently admire; and though we live in an age in which we pique ourselves excessively on the march of intellect, we doubt that any testimonial more solid and convincing is producible by us to show that our organ of veneration in this respect is at all more highly developed than that of men who went before us in the days of Queen Elizabeth. The bequest at all events does honour to the profession of arms, and we are sure would be duly appreciated by a grateful posterity, as a memorial of their mind and achievements, if it were only more generally known.
So began our splendid University Library. In process of time its collection of volumes was increased by many valuable donations, till at length their growing number demanding a corresponding increase of room, the present edifice was erected for their reception. It is built of hewn stone, with a rich Corinthian entablature, crowned with a balustrade, reminding us in its appearance of the gallery of the Louvre at Paris, and was completed in 1732. The room is certainly the finest in the empire appropriated to such a purpose. It is 210 feet long, 41 feet broad, and 40 feet high, and is very elegantly and suitably fitted up. At its farther end, in the eastern pavilion, is a fine apartment 52 feet long, 26 wide, and 22 high, containing the Fagel library, purchased at an expence of £8000, and comprising upwards of 17,000 volumes. This library was the property of Mr Fagel, Pensionary of Holland, who had it removed to London on the French invasion of Holland in 1794; the purchase money was a grant to the College from the Governors of Sir Erasmus Smith’s schools. The total number of volumes now in the entire building, including the Fagel library, and 1419 volumes of manuscripts, is 89,455.[2] The manuscripts are in Greek, Latin, English, Irish, Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, and other languages. Many of them relate to Irish history and antiquities, particularly to the troubles of 1641, all the depositions relating to which are here; as also the particulars of the settlement of Ireland and plantation of it by James I. There are many Latin manuscripts of the sacred scriptures, particularly of the New Testament, of various ages and remote antiquity. Several are in the Irish character but Latin language. There is also the Greek manuscript of the New Testament that belonged to Montfortius, and is the only one extant that reads the once contested verse, 1 Ep. John, ch. 5, v. 7. There are old translations of the Bible by Wickliffe, Pervie, Ambrose, Ussher, &c. There is no fund for the augmentation of the library except what the Board may please to allot for the purpose; but it receives a great annual increase by being entitled to one copy of every work entered at Stationers’ Hall.
Our library and the Bodleian at Oxford are exactly of the same age; and it is another curious fact, that while Ussher was laying out the soldiers’ money in London to the best advantage, he met there Sir T. Bodley engaged in a similar business for his establishment at Oxford. If there were auction rooms in those days, we have no doubt the two gentlemen were acceptable visitors, heartily welcome to the auctioneers, and that they seldom let a good thing go without a smart competition.
With regard to Marsh’s Library, we may mention that it was founded in 1707 by Doctor Narcissus Marsh, then Archbishop of Dublin, and that the building is erected on part of the ground attached to what was formerly the archbishop’s palace. The books were originally the collection of the celebrated Bishop Stillingfleet, and were purchased by Doctor Marsh for the public use. Once upon a time each book was fastened by a chain to an iron rod which ran along the shelves, so that all who partook of the bounty of the good archbishop might read and satisfy their souls without any danger of violating the eighth commandment; but this stringent system is now abolished: the chains are broken; the prisoners are free; the books are emancipated! The change may be considered as a compliment to the honesty of modern times; and all we say is, we wish they may deserve it. Much as we admire and commend these great public institutions, however, it is not to be denied that their real amount of utility is limited enough—limited at least when one compares the end with the means. Many thousand volumes must lie on their shelves from year to year, without ever being opened; there must be many that are fit only for burning, and that just occupy good room to the exclusion of their betters; and as to the very best books, how limited must the access to them necessarily be in a great public room! Their use consists chiefly in their being available for consultation—a most important purpose, no doubt, but yet one the accomplishment of which still leaves a vast hiatus in our reading hours to be filled up by other means. Now, every individual, we humbly think, should have a library of his own, if it were ever so small. No man ever made a good gardener that had not a small garden, his own property, to begin with; and it is something the same with a good reader. The careful, and leisurely, and repeated study of a few good books, does one more real good than a cursory and indigestive perusal of a vast number. This is well known; and, therefore, without detracting from the just value of public libraries, we would wish that a taste for book-collecting, as well as book-reading, were widely diffused among us. Take our word for it, there is no better company than good books; you may choose from among them companions for all hours, and for all moods of the mind. Ask them questions, and they will be sure at all times to give you at least a civil answer. They are finger-posts to the travelling man, and travel through all regions to him who never moves from the chimney corner. They are implements of trade to the professional man, and a profession itself to him that has none. They are music to the melancholy, and as a dance to the merry; as salt are they to the solid, and to the solid as salt. They are as a new world to him that has exhausted the old, for “of making many books,” as the preacher saith, “there is no end.” But we must come to an end ourselves. We would, in short, advocate the claims of literature in general, and its high title to consideration, as it commends itself to all men in common; and we plead guilty to the ambition of adding to the numerous honourable characteristics of our countrymen, that of being in an eminent degree a reading people. Irishmen ought to remember that their country was famous in ancient days for its learning, and cherish an honest ambition in modern times to retrieve its character. As one means of forwarding this object, we would seek to diffuse among them a reading habit, and give our best encouragement to whatever instrumentalities might tend to increase libraries, and make reading easy to all classes. Cheap literature is a luxury of sterling value; but until people have acquired a taste for it, they will hold it cheap enough. Never do we pass a book-shop, or an humble bookseller’s stall, without a feeling of reverence for the profession. There, say we, is a dispensary of ideal aliment indispensable to our mental existence, and, if properly used, yielding nothing but health, prosperity, and enjoyment to the soul. If our countrymen read, they will become informed—learned; and if they read good books, they must not only become informed and learned, but wise. The vivacity of their conversation will then be enriched with all the streams both of useful and entertaining knowledge. Reading will be a delightful resource to the working man, and no bad employment at least to the idle. Poverty will have its compensations. There will be another distinction set up in society besides that of having, or not having, mere worldly professions. The dignity of mind will be asserted. Mind with its congenial influences must act upon manners; and if, as the inscription upon the old gate at Oxford beareth record, “manours maketh ye man,” our country will be once more exalted among the nations.
X. D.
[1] The first stone of Trinity College was laid on the 13th March 1591, by Thomas Smith, Mayor; it was opened two years afterwards, in 1593.
[2] This return is given from the most recent calculation officially made, and may be depended on.