Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 31:121 (Jan 1874)
Article: Book Rarities At Washington
Author: Frederic Vinton

BSac 31:121 (Jan 1874) p. 97

Book Rarities At Washington

Frederic Vinton

The life of a librarian is full of drudgery, yet sweetened by continual delight. It is in the very nature of his vocation, to be walking up and down the paths of literary history, meeting ever and anon with agreeable company, and now and then being awed by majestic shades. What a life of laborious enjoyment was that of Audiffreddi, who passed twenty-seven years in the Casanata library at Rome, settling, with abundant learning, every question relative to the incunabula beneath his hand, yet carrying his catalogue no farther than the letter-if. What entertaining discoveries attended every step, while he composed such works as his Catalogus historico-criticus Romanarum editionum saeculi xv, and his Specimen editionum Italicarum saeculi xv. Nor let it be thought that he was a harmless drone, employed only in frivolous trifles, worthy a Dominican monk; for Audiffreddi was

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also an astronomer, and wrote scientific theses, sure to be read again before the approaching transit of Venus. The illustrious names found in the list of European librarians, past and present, — of Bentley and Lessing, of Magliabecchi and Mai, of Daunou and Van Praet, of Heyne and Panizzi, and many others, dignify the profession in the eyes of all men of learning; while thoughts of its intrinsic usefulness half erect it into a priesthood.

Minor pleasures are continually coming to a librarian’s lips, in the joy of constant acquisition, inseparable from the due fulfilment of his trust. Nowhere else is the Spanish proverb so true: “He that sells oil anoints his own hands.” The newest book may afford unexpected illustrations of literature long familiar; and the oldest book may contain the manuscript name of a famous scholar some way connected with it.1

It is our design in the pages which follow, to revive and to communicate some of the pleasures which some years’ handling of old books has enabled us to enjoy.

Every great library possesses books which have come as duplicates from famous collections, or been owned by celebrated men. It is well known that the basis of the present Library of Congress was the admirable collection of Thomas Jefferson; rich in classics, in works on philosophy, in political and social science, in history, and various literature. Its catalogue was printed by the government in 1815, and it yet enables us to judge of the correctness of the estimate he put upon his library, as expressed in a letter to Thomas

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Cooper, shortly before it was sold to the United States. He spoke of it as “one of...