His Lists of Museum Desiderata.
He began with making lists of Russian books that were desiderata in the Museum Library; then of Hungarian; then of Dutch; then of French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese; then of Chinese; then of Welsh; then of the rapidly growing, but theretofore (at the Museum) much neglected, literature of the Americas and the Indies.
I used, now and then, to watch him at his work, and to think that no man could possibly be employed more entirely to his liking. Long after I ceased to enjoy any opportunity of talking with him about his employment, I used occasionally to hear that similar tasks occupied, not infrequently, the hours of evening leisure as well as the hours of official duty. Some who knew him more intimately than—of late years—it was my privilege to know him, believe that his early death was in part (humanly speaking) due to his passion for poring over catalogues and other records of far-off literatures when worn-out nature needed to be refreshed, and to be recreatively interested in quite other occupations.
During the last twenty years alone (1850–1869 inclusive) he cannot have marked and recommended for purchase less than a hundred and fifty thousand foreign works, and in order to their selection he must needs have examined almost a million of book-titles, in at least eighteen different languages.
When little more than half that last-named term of years had expired he was able to write—in a Report which he addressed to Mr. Panizzi in February, 1861—that the common object of Keeper and Assistant-Keeper had been, during almost a quarter of a century, to ‘bring together from all quarters the useful, the elegant, and the curious literature of every language; to unite with the best English Library in England, or the world, the best Russian Library out of Russia, the best German out of Germany, the best Spanish out of Spain, and so with every language from Italian to Icelandic, from Polish to Portuguese. In five of the languages in which it now claims this species of supremacy, in Russian, Polish, Hungarian, Danish, and Swedish, I believe I may say that, with the exception of perhaps fifty volumes, every book that has been purchased by the Museum within the last three and twenty years has been purchased at my suggestion. I have the pleasure of reflecting that every future student of the less-known literatures of Europe will find riches where I found poverty; though, of course, |Reports of 1861, pp. 17, 18.| the collections in all these languages together form but a small proportion of the vast accumulations that have been added to the Library during your administration and that of your successor.’[[31]]
When the reader comes to add to his estimate of the amount of mental labour thus briefly and modestly indicated by the man who performed it, a thought of the further toil involved in the re-arrangement and careful classification of more than four hundred thousand volumes of books, in all the literary languages of the world (without any exception), he will have attained some rough idea of the public service which was crowded into one man’s life; and that, as we all have now to regret, not a protracted life. He will have, too, some degree of conception of the amount of acquired knowledge which was taken from us when Thomas Watts was taken.
To his works of industry and of learning, the man we have lost added the still better works of a kindly, benevolent heart. Many a struggling student received at his hands both wise and loving counsel, and active help. And his good deeds were not advertised. They would not now have been spoken of, but for his loss—in the very thick of his labours for the Public.
In a precious volume, which was first added to the manuscript stores of the British Museum a little before Mr. Watts’ death, there occurs the rough jotting of a thought which is very apposite to our human and natural reflections upon such an early removal from the scene of labour as that just referred to. When somebody spoke to Bacon of the death, in the midst of duty and of mental vigour, of some good worker or other in the vineyard of this world, almost three centuries ago, he made the following entry in his private note-book:—‘Princes, when in jousts, triumphs, or games of victory, men deserve crowns for their performance, do not crown them below, where the deeds are performed, but call them up. |Lord Bacon’s Note-Book (MS. Addit. B. M.).| So doth God by death.’
Other literary labours of Thomas Watts.
But these several branches of public duty, onerous as they were, were far from exhausting Mr. Watts’ mental activity, either within the Museum walls or outside of them. He was a frequent contributor to periodical literature. To his pen the Quarterly Review was indebted for an excellent article on the History of Cyclopædias; the Athenæum, for a long series of papers on various topics of literary history and of current literature, extending over many years; the various Cyclopædias and Biographical Dictionaries successively edited by Mr. Charles Knight, for a long series of valuable notices, embracing the Language and Literature of Hungary; those of Wales; and more than a hundred and thirty brief biographical memoirs, distinguished alike for careful research and for clear and vigorous expression. These biographies relate, for the most part, to foreign men of letters. To the pages of the Transactions of the Philological Society he was a frequent contributor. His Memoir on Hungarian Literature, first read to that Society, procured him the distinction of a corresponding-membership of the Hungarian Academy, and the distinction was enhanced by his being elected on the same day with Lord Macaulay.