shals his fantastic sprites:
Then we seem again to hear
War-whoops echoing 'midst the hills,
And old Hendrick's lusty cheer
As the wind his canvas fills.

As Mohegan, ages old,
Though for ever self-renewed,
Through unbroken forests rolled
All thy floods in solitude:
But as Hudson, now and ever,
Distant lands repeat thy name,
And the world, O glorious river!
Stands the guardian of thy fame.

JAMES MANNING WINCHELL.

PUBLIC LIBRARIES IN THE UNITED STATES.

Many a mickle makes a muckle, says the proverb, and whoever looks into
the operations of society on the great scale will find how true the
saying is. A national debt, a national crop, the cattle feeding on the
hills of a broad continent, the school-going children of a populous
commonwealth, the number of its vagabonds and criminals at large or in
jail, all need such an array of figures for their expression that the
amounts really convey no impression to the mind. The number of books
collected in public libraries does not reach such unwieldy proportions
as these, but it is still very large. The information gathered by the
Bureau of Education for the purpose of exhibiting the condition of
American society at the end of the first century of our independence
shows that the libraries which are classed as "public" number 3,682 in
the United States, and contain 12,276,964 volumes and 1,500,000
pamphlets.

Of our private libraries little is known. In 1870 the census-takers
reported 107,673 collections of this class, containing in all 25,571,503
volumes, but these numbers are known to be much below the truth. The
acute and practical superintendent of the ninth census declared that
this part of his work had no value, and even said that "the statistics
of private libraries are not, from any proper point of view, among the
desirable inquiries of the census." What a commentary upon the progress
of society is contained in this opinion of the most accomplished
statistician ever engaged in studying our social movements! It is but a
short time since the owning of books was a mark of superior station in
the world. What has produced the change?

We can perhaps learn the cause of it better by a comparison than by
direct study of bibliographical history. In Voltaire's time thermometers
were so great a rarity that the owner of one of them was considered to
be a savant. Time and social progress have so completely