and though books are not easily consumed,
yet the small collection of five thousand volumes was overwhelmed in the
general ruin. So were destroyed many books from the early presses of the
mother country, and many of the firstlings of the transatlantic
printers; and though its bulk was but that of an ordinary country
squire's collection, the loss has been always considered national and
irreparable.

It is, after all, a rather serious consideration--which it never seems
as yet to have occurred to any one to revolve--how entirely the new
states of the West and the South seem to be cut off from the literary
resources which the Old World possesses in her old libraries. Whatever
light lies hidden beneath the bushel in these venerable institutions,
seems for ever denied to the students and inquirers of the new empire
rising in the antipodes, and consequently to the minds of the people at
large who receive impressions from students and inquirers. Books can be
reprinted, it is true; but where is the likelihood that seven hundred
thousand old volumes will be reprinted to put the Astorian Library on a
par with the Imperial? Well, perhaps some quick and cheap way will be
found of righting it all when the Aerial Navigation Company issues its
time-bills, and news come of battles "from the nation's airy navies
grappling in the central blue."

In the meantime, what a lesson do these matters impress on us of the
importance of preserving old books! Government and legislation have done
little, if anything, in Britain, towards this object, beyond the
separate help that may have been extended to individual public
libraries, and the Copyright Act deposits. Of general measures, it is
possible to point out some which have been injurious, by leading to the
dispersal or destruction of books. The house and window duties have done
this to a large extent. As this statement may not be quite self-evident,
a word in explanation may be appropriate. The practice of the department
having charge of the Assessed Taxes has been, when any furniture was
left in an unoccupied house, to levy the duty--to exempt only houses
entirely empty. It was a consequence of this that when, by minority,
family decay, or otherwise, a mansion-house had to be shut up, there was
an inducement entirely to gut it of its contents, including the library.
The same cause, by the way, has been more destructive still to
furniture, and may be said to have lost to our posterity the fas