A letter to Benjamin Hawes, Esq., M.P., being strictures on the minutes of evidence taken before the Select Committee on the British Museum; with an appendix, containing heads of inquiry respecting the improvement of the Museum / [Edward Edwards].

  • Edward Edwards
Date:
1836
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to Benjamin Hawes, Esq., M.P., being strictures on the minutes of evidence taken before the Select Committee on the British Museum; with an appendix, containing heads of inquiry respecting the improvement of the Museum / [Edward Edwards]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    APPENDIX. No. II. NOTICE OF THE GOTTINGEN LIBRABY, AND ESPECIALLY OF ITS SYSTEM OF CATALOGUES. Extracted from “ Christian Gottlob Heyne's Biographisch dargestellt, von A. H. L. Heeren.” 8°- Gottingen, 1812. After stating, that in the very year in which Heyne came to Gottingen as second librarian, the entire control of the library was committed to him, and he became chief; and that no further proof is needed of the library owing the pre-eminence it attained, in his time, immediately to his own exertions, his biographer proceeds:— The wide, useful, and even glorious field here opened for all his activity, Heyne suffered not to be lost. Happily his early life had familiarized him with libraries and their arrangements; and through the generous liberality of the men who then governed the state in which he lived, he soon saw him¬ self possessed of the means to create an institution which should be alike worthy of the University and of them; and to carry into execution an idea which, at the very beginning, he had conceived, and of which he never lost sight. The idea was none other, than to form a collection which should possess all the sterling works [Werke welche ein Wissenschaftlichen werth haben] in every department of knowledge, and in the literature of every nation, as far as possible, equally: such a collection, formed at a place where a crowd of professors and students were pursuing all the branches of literature and science, promised, he thought, an extensive utility, hardly to be equalled even by the libraries of the greatest capitals.” * * * * “ When Heyne came to Gottingen, it already possessed a library of from 50 to 60,000 volumes, which, compared with those of most universities, was considerable. At his decease, it had increased, according to the most mo¬ derate computation (and without counting recent extraordinary acquisi¬ tions from Helmstadt, &c.), to at least 200,000 volumes. Under Heyne’s librarianship it had been, therefore, quadrupled. But this increase of num¬ ber was its smallest claim to admiration. At the commencement of this period, there were entire departments of learning wholly wanting; at its close, not only were these supplied, but the library had become, in this respect, the first,—in that it was proportionably rich in every department. That in other respects—in number of volumes, in MSS., in curiosities—it is greatly surpassed by other libraries, every body knows.” * * * *
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