“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.