Mr. Carnegie has given the library of the late Lord
Acton to Mr. John Morley, in absolute property, to dispose of in the way he thinks most advantageous to literature or learning. It appears that the philanthropist millionaire, finding Lord Aston oppressed by the magnitude of his collection, which exceeded a hundred thousand volumes, purchased it some years ago, but left it with him for life,—a courtesy very rare, though not quite unprecedented, in the history of literature. We hope Mr. Morley may see his way to retain the library for his life, for he is probably the only Englishman living who can use it as well as Lord Acton, and that it may find its place of final rest in Cambridge or Oxford, preferably the former, since the collection was formed by a Cambridge Professor. It is by a singular irony that a library collected by one of the first of Liberal Roman Catholics falls to a writer of Mr. Morley's opinions ; but he may readily reply that learning and literature are always catholic.
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