TPER UNIVERSAL CATALOGUE OF PRINTED BOOKS.
WE are a very great people, and a very rich one ; there can be no doubt of that ; but every now and then a very small exertion seems to cost us a very great effort. The Prince of Wales has recently been prompted to suggest to the Society of Arts a very moderate undertaking,—the publication of a Cata- logue of all the books printed in the United Kingdom previous to 1600, and the Council of the Society has taken it up with great heartiness, and expanded it into a proposal for a Universal Cata- logue or Catalogue of all Printed Books. It has consulted ex- perts, and has come to the conclusion that this grander work may ultimately be practicable, but that, as a beginning, it would be well to print the Catalogue of the books in the British Museum, which already exists in manuscript, and, says Mr. Bullen, the present Keeper, is unequalled in the world. This would give to students a Catalogue of about 1,250,000 volumes, comprising not, indeed, all the books in the world, but all not unique or excessively scarce which are of much importance, and supplying a solid basis for the gradual labour which would complete the work, and bring it up, say, to the year 2,000, after which a combination among a certain number of Libraries would keep up the record year by year, until the world, growing again uncivilised, owing to the predominance of Etonians and athletics, began to lose interest in this particular measure of its own progress. That may happen some day, will happen if a soldier-kingdom gets hold of some new de- structive secret; but we must labour on, without anticipating cataclysms. The conclusion is an eminently sensible and practical one, but the Council, after arriving at it, appear
to have been quite staggered by the Titanic character of their own moderate suggestion, They ask, in a sort of tremble, whether the British Government would be pre- pared for the expense. They anxiously consider whether other libraries would subscribe to such a publication, they sanction applications for subscriptions for copies in advance, and they seem to derive comfort from the reflection that there are at least a hundred cities and towns in England which would re- quire the work. Yet the undertaking, if justifiable at all—and it is clearly an absurdity or a very splendid project —does not seem, if studied by the light of modern projects, to be a very gigantic one. We cannot, on the calculations sanctioned by the Council, see how it is to cost more than £50,000 at the outside, the whole of which would probably be gradually repaid by the sale of the Catalogue. The Catalogue is already prepared, and requires only to be copied a certain number of times, and then printed. The cost of copying ought not to be heavy, even although we have to seek out a few amanuenses familiar with little-known languages, for it might ahuost all be done by women ; and the total number of volumes would only be forty-five in quarto, of a thousand pages each. That may sound, to unused ears, an enormous mass, but is in reality nothing very monstrous, nothing, for example, compared to a file of the Spectator since the date of the Reform Bill, which occupies one shelf running along the side or end of a medium- sized room. The cost of copying is, of course, indefinite, but the Council themselves believe that, together with the whole expense of printing, it would be less than £50,000, for they say, if a thousand copies of the forty-five volumes were printed, they could be sold at 17s. a volume ; that is, the cost would be £38,250 in all, and our estimate of £50,000 includes an allowance of 25 per cent. for unlooked-for and incidental expenses. Surely that is not, in a country like this, an unpro- curable sum, even if Sir Stafford Northcote does maintain that he wants every penny he can get from the nation to pay for killing Zulus. We think Lord Beaconsfield, who, to do him justice, would understand the proposal, though his followers might not, would grant the money, and we recommend the Council of Arts to send a deputation to him direct. Even, however, if no national grant were forthcoming, are there not ten million- aires among us who would guarantee £5,000 a-piece for a work which would record their names for ever, and probably not cost them a penny either, the demand for such a book being pro- bably far greater than the Council of Arts imagines? We question if there is a city in Western Europe which would be content to be without it, a library that would not keep it as its most attractive book of reference, or a bibliophile who would not regard it as the first treasure in his collection. Let the Council of Arts just ask four or five of the great publishers what they would give, or what a Syndicate of them would give, for the privilege of publishing such a book at their own prices. That, we admit, is not the way in which such a work should be done ; but the answers would, we think, convince the Council that the risk was comparatively trifling. They under-rate the British fondness for great enterprises, and the interest which would be taken in a work which would tell any competent inquirer after, say, half-an-hour's search, all the accessible books exist- ing upon his special subject. We venture to say that if the Prince of Wales opened a subscription for a fund of 250,000 intended to print the Catalogue, as a basis for a universal Cata- logue of Printed Books, hard as the times are for everybody, he would obtain the money in a month, even if some anonymous donor did not terminate the effort by sending him a cheque for the whole amount. What is £50,000 P—perhaps a twentieth of the sum one single man has been fined by the Glasgow Bank Liqui- dators for the crime of having entertained a benevolent thought. A great project with a practical aim, a begging Prince of Wales, and all journalists eager for success,—who ever heard of a subscription failing under those conditions ? The only de- mand would be for a fixed limit of time, and that might be three years, the single difficulty in the way—the proof- reading—being overcome by a certain expenditure. There is no niechanical difficulty whatever, and would not be, if the Council insisted on the work being done with in six months. Messrs. Spottiswoode would turn out fifty volumes of Blue-books of the size in that time, and not think they had done any very wonder- ful feat.
The only real question as to such an undertaking is whether a Universal Catalogue is worth completing at all, and we can see no reason for a serious doubt. No doubt the book now proposed
already exists, and in a kind of way is accessible to every student who can convince the authorities of the British Museum that he ought to be allowed to ransack it; but the difference between that privilege and the right of consulting the Catalogue at leisure, in his own city, or even in his own house, with no pre- liminary exertion, no wearied officials about, and unlimited time, is to the student very great indeed. It is a reduction of his labour, and of the obstacles in his way, by at least ninety per cent. The best students are not all collected in London, nor are they all rich enough to " ran up " to the British Museum when they please ; and where one man will make the effort now, ten will make it then, the effort being not to con- sult the books, but to know clearly and thoroughly what books already exist upon the subject in which he is interested. That is the very foundation of serious study by experienced minds, and its difficulty to any one who has. not access to the Museum Catalogue is almost inconceivable. No one who has not made a comparison would believe the Made- qLriacy and incompleteness of any other catalogue in England, or tar, that matter, of almost any combination of catalogues. If any'librarian, proud of his collection, doubts that, let him just fis - upon any subject in his own mind and try ; make up his list from the libraries he can reach, and then compare it with his ideas when he has patiently ransacked the British Museum Catalogue. Almost any subject will do, but if he wants to be satisfied once for all, let him try for a list of books on Mahommedan or Buddhist theology. There is, in fact, scarcely a subject on which the means of light cannot be obtained from that marvellous collection; or if there is, then the discovery of such a hiatus will be a direct good to the Library, and there- fore to the country. Moreover, it is not only from the Cata- logue itself that benefit is to be expected, but from the children of the Catalogue. There is nothing more needed in literature than catalogues of all works existing in the world, or in the languages of Western Europe, upon special subjects. A catalogue, for example, is wanted of all works in existence upon mathematics, or mechanics, or geography, or any other subject of that kind, or of all books earlier than a given date, or referring to the condition and history of man before a given date, and it cannot be compiled. But it could be compiled if the Catalogue of all Printed Books were in existence, and very nearly on some subjects compiled from the Catalogue of the British Museum. The labour, however, is one of a kind which cannot be attempted within the Museum itself, one demanding the patience and the labour of years, and an unlimited right of reference to the store-house of information. No industry, per- haps, in his own department ever rivalled that of Alexander Craden. His task was not only a labour of love, but one, in his own judgment, essential to the world, and after seven years of steady toil it was completed ; but if the only Bible to be con- sulted had existed in the Museum, it would never have been begun. There are many minds, of course, to whom all such efforts seem follies ; who do not see the use of Catalogues of Sub- jects, or of exhaustive lists of books which the student, after all, may never be able to consult; but their objection need not be considered. It is radical, and if well founded, would be fatal to all catalogues whatsoever, and indeed, to all the collec- tions of books to which they make access easy. If a catalogue is worth having at all, a complete one is most worth having, and a complete one can only be framed upon that universal list of printed books which the Prince of Wales has suggested, and which the Council of Arts proposes, by publishing the list of books in the Museum, worthily to commence.
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