y-house library should occasionally
be weeded out and overhauled. The libraries which were formed in past
generations cannot be expected to suit present-day requirements. In a
great many country-house libraries there is little else than a great
mass of turgid theology, but very often buried among these are really
valuable books. Upon the death of the head of a family, the library
should be carefully gone over in order that the new owner may get an
idea of the books--a collection which he may be excused from knowing
much of as he did not collect it. The books should then be re-arranged
to suit the views of those who are most likely to use them, and certain
rejected volumes should be disposed of and others put in their places.

How much this is necessary might be illustrated by many anecdotes.

_The Catalogue._

I have said, under the heading 'Classification,' that it is not
advisable or necessary to attempt any rigid classification upon the
shelves. One good reason for this is that by so doing you are trying to
do what can so much better be done by a catalogue. No one who uses books
very much but sooner or later becomes grateful for the existence of an
alphabet and an arrangement by A B C. Carlyle once said, 'A library is
not worth anything without a catalogue; it is a Polyphemus without any
eye in his head, and you must confront the difficulties, whatever they
may be, of making proper catalogues.'

'The classification of Pepys' library was to be found in the catalogues,
and as Pepys increased in substance he employed experts to do this work
for him.'[37]

No catalogue is of any use unless you can tell from it (1) All that the
library possesses of the known books of a known author at one view, as
well as (2) All that it possesses, by whomsoever written, on a known and
definite subject.

The old catalogues were mostly very bad. Old methods have now given way
to newer and better bibliographical systems, and, to take the case of a
large country house, where books are scattered about in many rooms, a
catalogue is most essential. The catalogue should, in most cases, be in
MS., and not typewritten. Such an arrangement admits of additions being
made more easily. The printed catalogue is adopted where the library is
of special value, or if it has any particular class of books
predominating to make it of use as a bibliography of a special subject.
Lord Crawford's sectional catalogues of his library, already referred