fail to become a fine library. It has been greatly improved and enriched of late, by the very superior intelligence of the present librarians, Mr. Van Pract, and Mr. De Bure; but it is apprehended, not always by the most justifiable means; but in that respect, no blame attaches to them; they have had the merit of pointing out the articles that were wanted;-how they were obtained was not their concern. On that subject there was a very good story told by the auctioneer, at the sale of the duke of Roxburghe's library, immediately before Valdarfer's edition of the Decameron of Boccacio was sold. -It seems the gentleman who had the care of the Imperial Library, as it was then called, was asked, which of the two desiderata of the library he would prefer, the Psalter of 1457, or the Decameron of 1471? His answer was, "the Decameron, for that is in England, and can only be obtained by fair purchase. Of the Psalter, the king of Bavaria has got a copy: it is true, we are at present good | friends with him, but it is very likely we may soon quarrel with him, and then we shall take the Psalter." This library is not only very rich in printed books, but possesses a very large number of curious MSS. in all languages; insomuch, that it may perhaps be called the most valuable library in the world. A catalogue of it in folio was commenced many years ago, and several volumes printed; the first so early as 1739; but it is not, even now, finished. It is to be hoped, that when common sense shall again obtain its influence in that country, this library, and a catalogue of it, will be attended to, as a great national object. For what can be such a boast to any nation, as to possess a library which con. tains the whole circle of human knowledge. * One of the most magnificent private libraries of Europe was possessed by a Count M-Carthy now deceased, but for forty years a resident of Thoulouse in France. The catalogue embraces two stout volumes in octavo. The count had a particular passion for works printed on vellum, and made the most numerous and precious collection of them ever formed by an amateur. There are 825 volumes of this description, the greater part exceedingly rare, ancient, and splendid. Of these the Bible of Jenson of 1476 is unique; unparalleled for the multitude and richness of the miniatures with which it is ornamented. The series belonging to McCarthy's library, of the first books printed at Mayence at the commencement of the art of printing, is more complete than that of which any other library, private or public, can boast, except the Royal Library of Paris. The manuscripts on vellum are, likewise, very numerous and of the greatest possible beauty in the characters and miniatures. His first editions are abundant, and in a state of perfect preservation. They comprise the rarest description of books;— those engraved on plates of wood, and those in Gothic characters so eagerly sought after, and so very scarce. The classics, chronicles, histories, works on natural history, &c. are complete, and among the first specimens of art which Europe can furnish. M'Carthy was * What follows is from the Editor of this Register. in the habit of buying, when he could procure them, several copies of the most costly works, and selecting their best leaves so as to form one more perfect. He induced an able binder of London to establish himself at Thoulouse, and employed him exclusively, for many years, on his library. The catalogue which he left in his own hand-writing proves him to have been a man of the most extensive acquirements, and furnishes excellent materials for the study of literary history. This collection, the last of the kind remaining in France, is offered for sale by the children of M'Carthy. Several of the cities of the United States of America, although they cannot boast of collections of books equal in extent or value to those enumerated above, possess, however, very respectable public libraries. The university of Cambridge, near Boston, has a rich fund of the ancient classics and biblical works: the Athenæum of Boston is well supplied with general modern literature, particularly history. The library of the Historical Society of New-York contains much curious matter appropriate to the character of the society. But the most extensive of all our repositories of the kind is the Philadelphia Library, of which the number of volumes is not less than twenty thousand. It is a miscellany of all branches of knowledge, and abounds in curious tracts on the early history and revolutionary struggle of North America. Great care has been taken to procure for it the principal works in general literature that have been published of late years in England, and these comprise many very costly editions. The part of it which is called the Loganian library,-a donation from the celebrated William Logan of Pennsylvania-is chiefly composed of the most rare and valuable of the ancient classics, besides much of the European literature of the seventeenth century. There is wherewithal to form an accomplished scholar, and to satisfy the most recondite enquiry. The library of the American Phi. losophical Society in Philadelphia is destined to supply the great desideratum in the western hemisphere, an ample store of works in science, and the techknical arts. It already possesses the best elementary treatises, and the transactions of most of the learned societies of Europe. This establishment will be very soon, in the department of physical science, what the Loganian collection is in erudition. There will not be wanting in Philadelphia abundant food of the choicest kind both for the savant and the scholar of Europe. Baltimore has a miscellaneous public library of several thousand volumes selected with judgment and knowledge. This city has a particular merit on this score, when we take into view the freshness of its date, and the rapidity of its growth, the fruit of commercial enterprise alone, allowing of course but little opportunity for attention to literary objects. The regular library of the con. gress of the United States was burnt in the capitol at Washington, at the time of the barbarous conflagration of that edifice by the British. It consisted of the best English works in history, politics, and polite literature, and of the records of the federal administration. It is now replaced by a much more valuable collection--the library of the ex-president Jefferson, which the federal government purchased from him at the sum much importance to the contents of the chapters under that title in Mr. Jefferson's catalogue. There is in the most attractive and splendid form, all that could be desired,-especially in architec ture, where we are most lame,— for the diffusion of techknical knowledge and the improvement of the public taste. of twenty-five thousand dollars. | advanced,-we cannot attach too There would have been something more satisfactory in this transaction, had the legislature of Virginia been the purchaser and bestowed it as a gift on the federal government. However this may be, it was an inestimable acquisition. There are, in all, about six thousand two or three hundred volumes. Mr. Jefferson, while in Europe, at the commencement of the American war, spared no pains nor expense, in collecting from every quarter, whatever could serve to elucidate or complete American history. He was indefatigable, too, in accumulating the best materials, in the shape of memoirs, abridgments, &c.-of European history, particularly the diplomatic. Hence the catalogue which he furnished to congress presents a multitude of books equally curious and useful, which would have been unattainable for this body in any other way. The deficiencies which are, no doubt, considerable are, however, such that they may be. readily supplied. There is but a slender provision of the historical and political literature of the last ten years. What the proprietor received as an homage to his character and taste, is, for the most part, of no value. Most of the great works and celebrated elementary treatises, in the mathematical and physical sciences, are included in this collection. Three fourths, indeed, of the whole number of volumes are of the highest reputation and of acknowledged authority. A better nursery or substratum for a great national library could not be found, and it surely will be admitted that nothing less is to come within the aim of congress, both on the score of pride and patriotism. If it could be done by no other agency, it was a sort of duty with this body to transfer the literary treasures of Mr. Jefferson to a spot where they would be easily accessible to them and the nation, and stand out as a monument of the national taste and discrimination. There is an absolute obligation on the part of the federal government, to provide, in the federal metropolis, in the shape of a library, a great reservoir of instruction in all the depart ments of human knowledge for the use of the public as well as of its own members; and the library, certainly, may be so administered as to be open to the one, without at all interfering with the studies or The collection is exuberant in the ancient classics; richly stocked with the best classical history ancient and modern, in the principal languages of Europe. The titles History Ancient and Modern, Politics, Geography, and Criticism, of the catalogue, are particularly full and select. The head of Criti- | researches of the other. The idea cism presents a number of precious works relating to the Anglo-Saxon and old British languages. When we advert to the real condition of the Fine Arts in the United States, -whatever may be the pretensions of an establishment of the kind set apart, and peculiar in the charac ter of its materials, for the use of congress, could only spring either from great poverty of invention as to the discipline of such establish ments, or a very imperfect view of | Party-spirit darkling and chafing spoke the language of an auctioneer or a chapman, and erred egregiously even in its huckstering calculations; for Mr. Jefferson's library was worth, and would, in all likelihood, have brought, in the market, at least double the sum allotted by congress to the purchase. We should be at a loss to fix a proportion between the price and the acquisition, if we took into the account the value of the latter in other points of view. This will be one day duly appre the qualifications of an accomplished legislator and statesman. It is not for congress to presume that there is any branch of human science for which a body so universal in its possible composition, will not hereafter furnish, in some or other of its members, a cultivated and active taste; or that there is any branch which may not fall within its immense scope of constitutional action, so as to make the possession of all the best means of judgment, that is the best treatises on it, highly desira-ciated, without looking to the time ble, if not indispensable. The next generation will, we confidently predict, blush at the objections made in congress to the purchase of Mr. Jefferson's library. when the Bibliomania may rage in the United States; a period which may be descried, although at the end of a long vista. GENERAL REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE OF CONTINENTAL EUROPE. OF MOREAU-by Garat, member of the French Senate and of the Institute. Paris, 1815. The author was an intimate acquaintance of Moreau, and aims at tracing his private character. author to say a few words of his present subject-the most truly illustrious of the military characters of the French revolution. The public, European life of general Moreau, has been treated of in a great number of publications, and his pre-eminence as a general seems to be almost universally admitted. M. Garat has done justice to his private character as exhibited in Europe, but no one has adequately described it, as it ap peared in the United States, during the period of his honourable exile. We pass over with the contempt it deserves, the feeble sketch of the Russian gentleman, M. Svinine, who accompanied him on his return to Europe, and whose principal object is not to paint Moreau, but to offer incense to the emperor Alexander. The Life, political, military, and private, of General Moreau-by Alphonse Beauchamp. Paris, 1815. A compilation hastily executed, as are most of the works of this animated writer, but bearing the stamp of his usual intelligence and honourable feeling. The history of the war of La Vendée and that of Brazil from the same pen, are highly respectable performances, displaying great powers of research, arrangement, and description; a nervous picturesque diction which would raise the possessor to the level of the first historians of his time, had he patience or leisure for the regular It was here, in his modest retreat maturation of his literary enter- at the village of Trenton in New prises. An implacable enemy of Jersey, in his familiar intercouse Bonaparte and his administration, with our domestic life, that his he could not neglect the oppor- private virtues had their natural tunity of following him through play, and shone with their clearest his adversity, and has, accordingly, lustre. Easy, unaffected, homogepublished detailed accounts of the neous, as it were, in every society, campaigns of 1814, and 1815-free from all ostentation and prewhich, though not free from inac- tension, incapable of dissimulacuracies, are altogether the most tion or design on any subject, satisfactory furnished by the Pa- Moreau made us forget the rerisian press. His "Catastrophe of nowned military commander to Murat" is another important his- think only, with familiar but warm tory-piece. attachment, of the amiable, and instructive companion. Few men We shall, however, leave the |