The accuracy of these numbers, however, is very uncertain. It is not clear that the numbers of volumes in those libraries have ever been actually counted, nor that the same principles of enumeration have been adopted, so that those libraries to which the largest numbers are attached may not be really so much larger than some of the others as would at first sight appear. It has been calculated that the printed books in the British Museum Library occupy ten miles of shelf. It contains 60,000 pamphlets on the subject of the French Revolution alone.

King George IV. is kept intact at the British Museum. | Brera library, at Milan, 200,000; Göttingen 200,000." Immediately upon his accession to the throne, King William IV. commenced the formation of a new library; various collections belonging to the crown were brought together and amalgamated; many deficiencies have since been supplied by judicious purchases silently and unostentatiously made; and already Her Majesty and her illustrious consort appreciate and enjoy at Windsor Castle a splendid library of 35,000 volumes, occupying the whole of Queen Elizabeth's Gallery, and King Henry the Seventh's and King Charles the Second's rooms; to which library is attached an almost unrivalled collection of drawings by the ancient masters, including that of Cardinal Albani. The Roxburghe collection has, by its dispersion, enriched the noble libraries of the Duke of Devonshire, Lord Spencer, and Mr. Grenville, all of them, but particularly the last, formed with regard to the value of the books, and not the number of the volumes, numerous though they be. We doubt if all Europe could produce another individual gentleman who in his ardour for collecting books and manuscripts, has disbursed, like Sir Thomas Phillips £100,000, or 2,500,000 francs."

On the effects upon literature of the book-collecting mania, the writer of the article thus remarks:-"The passion for collecting books which many individuals have displayed has, all things considered, worked well for literature; to the credit of book-collectors it must be said, that in general their stores have been available to the use of others. Some collections formed by distinguished bibliomaniacs, to use Dr. Dibdin's phrase, yet remain entire; others dispersed after their owner's death, have enabled many a student to obtain some rare volume necessary to the perfection of his subject. Roscoe acknowledges his obligations on this account to the Crevenna and Pinelli sales. Of the libraries so dispersed some are on record in a good catalogue, whilst others perhaps of greater merit are almost forgotten, 'carent quia vate sacro.' The late Mr. Heber accumulated a vast library, or rather, a chaotic mass of books, which, certainly from no want of liberality in the possessor, but from various circumstances, produced in his lifetime little good. He had some few favourite classes of literature which he endeavoured to complete: but in general all books were books to him, and greedily purchased. He stopped not at duplicates, nor triplicates, nor at a tenth copy. Of this library, the labour of a life, the expenditure of a fortune, what remains? Some fifteen auction catalogues, with several alphabets in each, all drawn up in haste for the merely temporary use of vendor and purchasers, and for all purposes of consultation perfectly useless. The late Frederick, Earl of Guildford, began early to collect books, and after his return from the government of Ceylon, indulged his penchant largely in the literature of Southern Europe. During his visits to the Continent he purchased the entire libraries of convents; and his collection was singularly rich both in printed books and manuscripts of Italian and modern Greek literature. His aim was to found a university in Corfu, and to deposit there his library. However, upon the earl's death it was dispersed by auction, and like Mr. Heber's is now known only by three or four meagre and ill-digested sale lists. The greater portion of his MSS. are in the British Museum and in Sir Thomas Phillips's library."

One of the greatest difficulties connected with the management of a library, is the preparation of proper catalogues. It is somewhat amusing to see how the dif ficulty has been increased by the practice so common among authors of disguising their real names. "Besides the frequent solecisms which are found in alphabetical catalogues, arising from the compiler's misapprehension of the meaning of a title, such as the 'Relatio felicis agonis' of certain martyrs, being entered as a work by Felix Ago, various difficulties are caused by the fond fancies of authors in translating or euphonising their names. The variety of modes by which names are altered and disguised is great; those which sound harsh or too familiar in their vernacular form are often euphonised by being turned into well sounding Greek: thus, Melancthon, Capnio, Xylander, colampadius, Metastasio, represent Schwartzerd, Reuchlin, Holtzman, Hausschein, and Trapassi; Sophocardius is Wishart, or Wischeart; and Hylacomylus, who first gave the name of America to the then newly discovered continent, is only Martin Waldseemüller, a schoolmaster at the little town of Saint Die, in the department of the Vosges. But one version does not always suffice: Giovanni Vittorio de Rossi, Johannes Victorius de Rubeis, and Janus Nicius Erythræus, are all one and the same person, who writes under the three names. Sometimes a Latin form is taken, or an equivalent it may be: thus Bevilacqua, or Drinkwater is Abstemius, Bridgewater is Aquepontanus, Torquemada is Turrecremata, Smidt is Vulcanus, Leger Duchesne is Leodegarius a Quercu, or Quercetanus, and Vander Bycken is Torrentius. If without meaning, or almost incapable of being tortured into meaning, the cacophonous name is made to sound like Latin: Van der Does is Dousa, Roscoe is Roscius, Owen is Andoenus, and Wilson Volusenus. In English a somewhat similar process is adopted in order to get rid of an objectionable name: for instance, Abraham is made Braham, Israel d'Israeli, Bernales Bernal—and a total change of name is not unfrequently resorted to for the same purpose. The number of writers of one and the same name is another source of error; it would be no easy task to discriminate accurately between all the John Smiths, the Thomas Browns, and the William Allens. These difficulties have caused some writers, such as Fabricius and Nicolas Antonio, who have cast their works into an alphabetical form, to arrange their matter under Christian or first names; but here a new class of obstacles arises, whether John shall be Johannes, Heri Gratia, Theocharis, Giovanni, Jean, Johann, Juan, Joao, Joan, Jonas, or Hans-whether we shall say Egidius or Giles, Ludovicus or Lewis or Louis, Elizabetha or Isabella, Wilbott or Bilibaldus."

Another source of error and confusion in assigning We have in the same article an interesting statement books to their true authors arises from the practice of of the number of books contained in the principal libra- authors concealing their names in acrostics and similar ries of Europe. "The number of volumes claimed to puzzles. Of these one of the most curious was the folbe possessed by the twelve greatest libraries of Europe lowing. "Th-s Cl- --s: Midras laoeus." This is as follows (quoted from the Appendix to the Parlia- might have puzzled Edipus himself, had the author not mentary Report on the British Museum). The Biblio- furnished the key to his meaning. The word Midras theque du Roi, at Paris, 650,000; Munich, 500,000 (of he says, is to be read by the word Iaoeus: then as i is which one fifth at the least are duplicates); Copenhagen the third vowel, a the first, o the fourth, e the second, 400,000; St. Petersburg 400.000; Berlin 320,000; and u the fifth, M. i. d. r. a. s. will be transposed into Vienna 300,000; the British Museum 270,000; Dresden | I. R. M. D. A. S. which initials stand for Johannes Robert250,000; the Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal, at Paris, 200,000; son, Medicine Doctor, Abredonensis Scotus !—the the Bibliotheque de St. Genevieve, at Paris, 200,000; the 1h- -s Cls being not Thomas Clowes, nor any

relative of our printer, but Theocharis Cleobulides, which purports to be a translation of John Robertson

The article goes on to enumerate other curious sources of mistake arising from the ignorance of editors and bibliographers. One editor, out of King James's Doron Basilicon, creates an author, Dorus Basilicus; Bishop Walton, editor of the Polyglott Bible, out of the title of the great Arabic dictionary, the Kamoos, or "Ocean," makes an author, whom he calls Camus. The Centones Virgiliani of Proba Faleonia, were printed in 1509 at Paris, as by Proba Falconia Centona; and the Catalogue of the Barberini Library, turns the German weiland into an author of the same name.

This accident happened several times afterwards; some of the floating pieces of ice, to judge from their height out of the water, must have been seventy feet thick beneath the surface. The 4th of June the gallery, six hundred and eighty feet long, was completed, but, as it was twenty feet higher in the middle. it was necessary still to level it. The weather had been very cold, and the lake had not yet reached the height of the gallery; the labourers, therefore, continued lowering it till the 18th, when, towards ten at night, the water began to flow through. The lake continued to rise during several hours; but the next day, at five o'clock in the evening, it had fallen one foot; the morning on the 15th, ten feet; the 16th, thirty feet.

Some ages hence, if the favourites of the present day live so long, similar confusion may arise from the prac- At two o'clock on that day, the length of the lake tice now prevailing of adopting pseudonymes. There was diminished one thousand nine hundred and fifty will be no difficulty about Sir Walter Scott, so long as feet; for the gallery wearing down as fast as the lake our language survives; the most ignorant catalogue- lowered, the water ran freely, but without the Dranse maker will scarcely attribute any of his works to Waver- overflowing; and a very few days would have sufficed ley, Dr. Dryasdust, or Jedediah Cleishbotham; but we to drain this great reservoir. Loud explosions, howshould not wonder, if some difficulty did arise in adjust-ever, announced that large masses of ice were loosened ing the respective claims of Wilson and Christopher from the dyke by their specific lightness diminishing North, Dickens and Boz, Procter and Barry Cornwall, its thickness towards the lake, while the current, as it or Thackeray and Michael Angelo Titmarsh. flowed from the gallery, wore away this same barrier on the opposite side, and threatened a sudden rupture. The danger increasing, the engineer sent, from time to time, to warn the inhabitants to be on their guard. As the water began to make its way under the ice, the crisis appeared inevitable, and not far distant. At halfpast four in the evening a terrible explosion announced the breaking up of the dyke; and the waters of the lake rushing through, ali at once formed a torrent, one hun dred feet in depth, which traversed the first eighteen miles in the space of forty minutes, carrying away one hundred and thirty chalets, a whole forest, and an immense quantity of earth and stone. When it reached Bagne, the ruins of all descriptions carried along with it formed a moving mountain, three hundred feet high, from which a column of thick vapour arose, like the smoke of a great fire. An English traveller, accompanied by a young artist, Mr. P. of Lausanne, and a guide, had been visiting the works, and on his return was approaching Bagne, when, turning round by chance, he saw the frightful object just described coming down, the distant noise of which had been lost in the nearer roar of the Dranse; he clapt spurs to his horse to warn his companion, as well as three other travellers who had joined them; all dismounting, scrambled up the mountain precipitately, and arrived in safety beyond the reach of the deluge, which, in an instant, filled the valley beneath; however, Mr. P. was no longer to be found; during several hours they believed him lost, but they learned afterwards that his restive mule, turning at the sight of an uprooted tree, perceived all at once a still more threatening sight, and dashing at once up the mountain, had carried him beyond the reach of danger.

INUNDATION OF THE VALLEY OF BAGNE.1 THE valley of Bagne, long, narrow, unequal in breadth, and confined by high mountains, is situated in the canton of Valais, on the left side of the Rhone; and it is remarked of the simple and industrious race who inhabit it. that for a century past there has not been a punishable crime committed among them, nor even a law-suit. The torrent of the Dranse, issuing from the glacier of Chermontane, at the upper extremity of this valley, forms one of the outlets of that series of glaciers, forty leagues in length, which extend from Mont Blanc to the sources of the Rhone; almost dry in winter, it becomes swollen during the spring, by the melting of the snow. The people of the valley. surprised to see it always so low during the month of April last, and suspecting something extraordinary, ascended to its source, and found that an unusual quantity of ice, fallen from the glacier of Getroz, on Mount Pleureur, blocked up the valley, and that the waters of the Dranse, accumulated behind this dyke, already formed a large lake. Upon their report, the alarm was spread, not only throughout the canton of Valais, but even in Italy; travellers feared to take the route of the Simplon, being aware that when the ice gave way there would be a sudden inundation, which would overflow the whole country. The government sent an engineer, who found that the dyke across the valley was six or seven hundred feet in length, four hundred feet high, and three thousand feet broad at its base; the lake was seven thousand two hundred feet in length, and six hundred in breadth, and had already risen to half the height of the dyke, that is, to two hundred feet. He decided upon opening a gallery through the ice, beginning fifty-four feet above the actual level, to give himself time to finish the work before the lake rose up to it; its daily increase being from four to five feet, according to the temperature. On the 11th of May he began to work at the two extremities of the gallery, fifty men, relieving each other alternately, laboured night and day, in continual danger of being buried alive in their gallery by some of the avalanches, which fell at short intervals: several were wounded by pieces of ice, others had their feet frozen, and the ice was so hard as to break their tools. But, notwithstanding all these difficulties, the work advanced rapidly. On the 27th of May, a large portion of the dyke rose upwards, with such a frightful noise, that the workmen believed the whole was giving way, and fled precipitately, but soon returned to their labour.

(1) From Simond's Switzerland.

From Bagne the inundation reached Martigny, four leagues in fifty minutes, bearing away in that space thirty-five houses, eight wind-mills, ninety-five barns, but only nine persons, and very few cattle; most of the inhabitants having been on their guard.

The village of Beauvernier was saved by a projecting rock, which diverted the torrent; it was seen passing like an arrow by the side of the village without touching it, though much higher than the roofs of the houses. The fragments of rocks and stones deposited before reaching Martigny, entirely covered a vast extent of meadows and fields. Here it was divided, but eighty buildings of this town were destroyed and many were injured; the streets were filled with trees and rubbish, but only thirty-four persons appear to have lost their lives at Martigny, the inhabitants having retired to the mountains. Below Martigny, the inundation spreading wide, deposited a quantity of slime and mud, so considerable, as it is hoped will redeem an extensive swamp. The Rhone received it by degrees, and at different

THE RED-CROSS KNIGHT.

THE SHAWL MANUFACTURE OF PAISLEY.