A REPLY. By THE EDINBURGH EDITION OF SIDNEY'S 'AR- CADIA.' BY HENRY R. PLOMER THREE BINDINGS WITH LITTLE GIDDING STAMPS. INCUNABULA AT GRENOBLE. By R. PROCTOR THE MORISONS OF PERTH. By JOHN MINTO THE BRITISH MUSEUM REVISED RULES FOR CATALOGUING. By HENRY B. WHEATLEY THE REPUTED FIRST CIRCULATING SUBSCRIPTION LIBRARY IN LONDON. BY ARCHIBALD CLARKE PAMPHLETS AND THE PAMPHLET DUTY OF 1712. ENGLISH ROYAL COLLECTORS. By W. Y. FLET- SCIENCE NOTES. By R. STEELE, 113, 239; NOTES ON BIBLIOGRAPHY, LITERARY HISTORY ST. AUGUSTINE'S "CITÉ DE DIEU" Binding of a BIBLE, CAMBRIDGE, 1629 No. 1, VOL. I. DEC. 1, 1899. THE LIBRARY. RICHARD GARNETT. N presenting its readers with the first of what, it is hoped, may prove a long series of portraits of eminent bookmen (a comprehensive term, under which we include librarians, private collectors, and biblio graphers), "The Library" has been spared a doubt which under other circumstances might easily have arisen, the doubt as to with whom such a series would most fitly begin. In the year 1899, by the unanimous judgment alike of his fellow-librarians and of the literary public to whose needs they minister, Dr. Garnett stands out as the most prominent representative of the library world, and one out of the many marks of esteem which he received on laying down his office has furnished us with an admirable portrait, here reproduced by the kind consent of the artist, the Hon. John Collier.1 In escaping one difficulty we have perhaps fallen on another, for in the brief biographical sketch which it is intended to offer with these portraits it is not easy in this case to mention anything which is not already well known to most of our readers, nor can we hope to offer any tribute of gratitude which will add aught to the weightier words of Mr. Leslie Stephen. All our little world knows how, on March 1st, 1Our thanks are due to Messrs. Henry Dixon and Co., who have made a specialty of photographing from pictures, for permission to make our photogravure from their photograph. 1851, when Richard Garnett was but a couple of days over sixteen, the influence of that kindly tyrant Panizzi procured his appointment as an assistant in the library of the British Museum. His father, the Rev. Richard Garnett, a philologist of some distinction and a contributor to the Quarterly," after twelve years in the service of the Trustees, in the course of which he became AssistantKeeper of Printed Books, had died in the previous September, and, to the great benefit of the Museum, Panizzi showed his esteem for his former colleague by giving his son an early opportunity of following in his footsteps. When Dr. Garnett writes his memoirs we shall doubtless know more of his early days at the Museum. At present we can only guess that he used his leisure, both in and out of the Library, in laying the foundations of that wide knowledge, both of literature and history, to which, in his case, the epithet "encyclopædic" is not inappropriate. After a time it fell to his lot to act as " placer," i.e. to determine the shelf on which, in accordance with its subject, every new book should stand, and the appointment gave him further opportunities of adding to the stores of knowledge without a large share of which its duties could not be efficiently performed. Meanwhile, he had made his start in literature in orthodox fashion by publishing a thin volume of verse ("Primula, a Book of Lyrics," issued in 1851), and this met with sufficient success to elicit a second book ("Io in Egypt, and other Poems") the following year. Cary, the translator of Dante, had started a tradition of poetry in the Museum, which had been more than maintained by Coventry Patmore, and, before many years, in O'Shaughnessy (to whom tardy justice was lately done in the second series of Palgrave's "Golden Treasury "), Mr. Marzials and Mr. Gosse, Dr. Garnett gathered round him quite a little band of poets. With more fidelity to the Muses than most men of letters, to whom the more profitable paths of prose are open, are wont to show, he followed up his early successes with "Poems from the German |