tesman and his librarian
were the closest of friends; and on the elder Lamoignon's death, the
son, still more distinguished, looked up to Baillet as a father and
instructor.

Men of this stamp are generally endowed with deep and solid learning.
For any one, indeed, to take the command of a great public library,
without large accomplishments, especially in the languages, is to put
himself in precisely the position where ignorance, superficiality, and
quackery are subjected to the most potent test, and are certain of
detection. The number of librarians who have united great learning to a
love of books, is the best practical answer to all sneers about the two
being incompatible. Nor, while we count among us such names as Panizzi,
Birch, Halkett, Naudet, Laing, Cogswell, Jones, Pertz, and Todd, is the
race of learned librarians likely to decay.

It will be worth while for the patrons of public libraries, even in
appointments to small offices, to have an eye on bookish men for filling
them. One librarian differs greatly from another, and on this difference
will often depend the entire utility of an institution, and the question
whether it is worth keeping it open or closing its door. Of this class
of workman it may be said quite as aptly as of the poet, that he is
born, not made. The usual testimonies to qualification--steadiness,
sobriety, civility, intelligence, &c.--may all be up to the mark that
will constitute a first-rate book-keeper in the mercantile sense of the
term, while they are united in a very dreary and hopeless keeper of
books. Such a person ought to go to his task with something totally
different from the impulses which induce a man to sort dry goods or make
up invoices with eminent success. In short, your librarian would need to
be in some way touched with the malady which has been the object of
these desultory remarks.

Bibliographies.

A passing remark is due to the place and function in literature of those
books which act the part of gentleman-usher towards other books, by
introducing them to the notice of strangers. The talk about librarians,
in fact, brings these naturally before us by the law of association,
since the duties of the librarian are congenial to this special
department of the literary world, the work of which has indeed been
chiefly performed by eminent librarians.

The best general name for the class of books which I refer to, is that
of Bibliographies, given to them by the