University of Vermont - Ariel Yearbook (Burlington, VT)

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and travels, and the remaining third as philology, natural science, political economy, theology and works of reference. In August, 1844, Mr. Marsh, in a letter to Charles Lanman, wrote from memory the following description of his library, which is copied, with important typographical corrections, from the Liz'- emry IV01'!ci for October 21, 1882. At the time of this writing Mr. Marsh had published none of his books except the Icelandic Grammar. The list, it will be noticed, gives no hint of the direc- tions taken by his later collecting. ,My library consists of something less than five thousand vol- umes, and is such a heterogeneous collection as of course so small a one, if suited at all to the purposes of a scholar of rather multi- farious than profound reading, necessarily must be. It is meager in all departments except that of Scandinavian literature, in which I suppose it to be more complete than any collection out of the northern kingdoms. In old Northern literature it contains all the Arna-Magnaian editions of the Icelandic Sagas, all those of Suhm, all those of the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries, and, in fact, all those printed at Copenhagen and Stockholm, as well as in Iceland, with scarcely an exception. I possess also the great editions of Heimskringla, the two Eddas, Kongs-Sknugg-Sio, Konunga Styrilse, the Scriptores Rerum Danicarum, Scriptores Rerum Svecicarum, Dansk Magasin, the two complete editions of Olaus Magnus, Saxo Grammaticus, the works of Bartholinus, Toriaeus, Schoening, Suhm, Pontoppidan, Grundtvig, Petersen, Rask, the Atlantica of Rudbeck, the great works of Sjceberg, Lil- jegren, Geijer, Cronholm, and Strinnholm, all the collections of old Icelandic, Danish, and Swedish laws, and almost all the writers, ancient and modern, who have treated of the language, literature or history of the ancient Scandinavian race. In modern Danish literature, I have the works of I-Iolberg, Ewald, I-Ieiberg, Bag- gesen, CEhlenschlxger, Ingemann, Nyerup, with other celebrated authors, in Swedish, those of Leopold, Qxenstjerna, Bellman, Franzen, Atterbom, Tegner, Frederika Brem er, and indeed almost all the belies Zeffnfs authors of Sweden, the transactions of the I7

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Tneagoneg ot the Msngh Llbnsny. HE private library of America's distinguished scholar and diplo- mat, the Hon. George P. Marsh, has now, after many Wander- ings, found ahnal and fit abode in the magnificent room designed for it in the Billings Library of the University of Vermont. The story of the gathering of this collection, with the journeys of por- tions of it as they followed their owner to his various posts of honor in Washingtoiu, Constantinople, Turin, Florence and Romeg the long storages of unused portions, and the Final assemblage and orderly rearrangement of the volumes in their present commodi- ous and permanent quarters, would in itself form an entertaining article. But the space of the present paper is restricted to an account of the special rarities and most valuable features of the collection. Interesting as some of its volumes are, the library as a whole is of proportionately greater value than any of its parts. The cost of every book was a matter of serious consideration to its pur- chaser, and no volume was bought that could be spared. As a result of this enforced economy, the collection includes only the best books in its different departments. It is emphatically a working library, being the material employed by Mr. Marsh in the preparation of his treatises on Scandinavian and English philology, physical geography, the history of Romanism, and the minor topics discussed in his various pamphlets. But the sub- jects represented by the twelve thousand volumes of his library, though clustered about these nuclei, really cover almost all the departments of human knowledge. Une third of the library may be classed as literature, one third as history, including biography 16

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Royal Academy of Science Cmore than one hundred volumesj, those of the Swedish Academy, and of the Royal Academy of Literature, and many collections in documentary history, besides numerous other works. In Spanish and Portugu ese, besides many modern authors, I have numerous old chronicles, such as the Madrid collection of old Spanish chronicles in 7 vols. 4to, the Portuguese Livros Ineditos da Historia Portugueza, 5 vols. folio, Fernam Lopez, de Brito, Duarte Nunez do Liam, Damiam de Goes, de Barros and Couto, Albuquerque, Castanheda, Resende, Andrada, Osorio, also de Menezes, Mariana, Ponz Viage de Espana, Navarrete and others, in Italian, most of the best authors who have acquired a European reputation: several hundred vol- umes of French works, including many of the old chroniclers, a respectable collection in German, including many editions of Reyneke de Vos, the Nibelungen, and other works of the Middle Ages, in classical literature, good editions of the most celebrated Greek and Latin authors, and in English, a respectable collection of the best authors, among which I may notice as rare in this country, many of the old chroniclers Qincluding Lord Berners's Froissartj, Roger Ascham, the Worlcs of King James I, John Smith's Virginia Qedition of 16245, Amadis de Gaul, and Palmerin of England. In Lexicography, I have the best dictionaries and grammars in all the languages of VVestern Europe, and many bio- graphical dictionaries and other works of reference in various lan- guages. I have also many works on astrology, alchemy, witch- craft, and magic, and a considerable collection of Works on the situation of Plato's Atlantis and the Elysian Fields, such as Rud- beck's Atlantica, Goropius Becanus, De Grave Republique des Champs Elysees, Ramus Ulysses et Outinus unus et idem, and others. 4 To represent the accumulations of the succeeding thirty-eight years the above list would need to be greatly extended. Under the single subject of Forestry the catalogue shows 183 titles, and under Catholic Church over half as many. But space fails for more than a mere mention of the distinctively rare books, not I8'