CHAPTER 24.

POETRY OF THE LIBRARY.

THE LIBRARIAN'S DREAM.

1.

He sat at night by his lonely bed,
With an open book before him;
And slowly nodded his weary head,
As slumber came stealing o'er him.

2.

And he saw in his dream a mighty host

Of the writers gone before,

And the shadowy form of many a ghost
Glided in at the open door.

3.

Great Homer came first in a snow-white shroud,

And Virgil sang sweet by his side;

While Cicero thundered in accents loud,
And Caesar most gravely replied.

4.

Anacreon, too, from his rhythmical lips
The honey of Hybla distilled,

And Herodotus suffered a partial eclipse,

While Horace with music was filled.

5.

The procession of ancients was brilliant and long, Aristotle and Plato were there,

Thucydides, too, and Tacitus strong,

And Plutarch, and Sappho the fair.

6.

Aristophanes elbowed gay Ovid's white ghost,
And Euripides Xenophon led,

While Propertius laughed loud at Juvenal's jokes,
And Sophocles rose from the dead.

7.

Then followed a throng to memory dear,

Of writers more modern in age,

Cervantes and Shakespeare, who died the same year, And Chaucer, and Bacon the sage.

8.

Immortal the laurels that decked the fair throng,

And Dante moved by with his lyre,

While Montaigne and Pascal stood rapt by his song, And Boccaccio paused to admire.

9.

Sweet Spenser and Calderon moved arm in arm,
While Milton and Sidney were there,

Pope, Dryden, and Molière added their charm,
And Bunyan, and Marlowe so rare.

10.

Then Gibbon stalked by in classical guise,

And Hume, and Macaulay, and Froude,

While Darwin, and Huxley, and Tyndall looked wise, And Humboldt and Comte near them stood.

11.

Dean Swift looked sardonic on Addison's face,

And Johnson tipped Boswell a wink,

Walter Scott and Jane Austen hobnobbed o'er a glass, And Goethe himself deigned to drink.

12.

Robert Burns followed next with Thomas Carlyle,

Jean Paul paired with Coleridge, too,

While De Foe elbowed Goldsmith, the master of style, And Fielding and Schiller made two.

13.

Rousseau with his eloquent, marvellous style,
And Voltaire, with his keen, witty pen,

Victor Hugo so grand, though repellent the while,
And Dumas and Balzac again.

14.

Dear Thackeray came in his happiest mood,
And stayed until midnight was done,

Bulwer-Lytton, and Reade, and Kingsley and Hood,
And Dickens, the master of fun.

15.

George Eliot, too, with her matter-full page,

And Byron, and Browning, and Keats,

While Shelley and Tennyson joined youth and age, And Wordsworth the circle completes.

16.

Then followed a group of America's best,
With Irving, and Bryant, and Holmes,

While Bancroft and Motley unite with the rest,
And Thoreau with Whittier comes.

17.

With his Raven in hand dreamed on Edgar Poe,
And Longfellow sweet and serene,

While Prescott, and Ticknor, and Emerson too,
And Hawthorne and Lowell were seen.

18.

While thus the assembly of witty and wise

Rejoiced the librarian's sight,

Ere the wonderful vision had fled from his eyes,
From above shone a heavenly light:

19.

And solemn and sweet came a voice from the skies,

"All battles and conflicts are done,

The temple of Knowledge shall open all eyes,
And law, faith, and reason are one!"

When the radiant dawn of the morning broke,
From his glorious dream the librarian woke.

Interior. The residue, when removed to the Capitol, were found to number 23,070 volumes, a much smaller number than had been anticipated, in view of the length of time during which the copy tax had been in operation. But the observance of the acts requiring deposits of copyright publications with the Clerks of the United States District Courts had been very defective (no penalty being provided for non-compliance), and, moreover, the Patent Office had failed to receive from the offices of original deposit large numbers of publications which should have been sent to Washington. From one of the oldest States in the Union not a single book had been sent in evidence of copyright. The books, however, which were added to the Congressional Library, although consisting largely of school books and the minor literature of the last half century, comprised many valuable additions to the collection of American books, which it should be the aim of a National Library to render complete. Among them were the earliest editions of the works of many well-known writers, now out of print and scarce.

The first book ever entered for copyright privileges under the laws of the United States was "The Philadelphia Spelling Book," which was registered in the Clerk's Office of the District of Pennsylvania, June 9, 1790, by John Barry as author. The spelling book was a fit introduction to the long series of books since produced to further the diffusion of knowledge among men. The second book entered was "The American Geography," by Jedediah Morse, entered in the District of Massachusetts on July 10, 1790, a copy of which is preserved in the Library of Congress. The earliest book entered in the State of New York was on the 30th of April, 1791, and it was entitled "The Young Gentleman's and Lady's Assistant, by Donald Fraser, Schoolmaster."

Objection has occasionally, though rarely, been made to what is known as the copy-tax, by which two copies of each publication must be deposited in the National Library. This requirement rests upon two valid grounds: (1) The preservation of copies of everything protected by copyright is necessary in the interest of authors and publishers, in evidence of copyright, and in aid of identification in connection with the record of title; (2) the library of the government (which is that of the whole people) should possess and permanently preserve a complete collection of the products of the American press, so far as secured by copyright. The government makes no unreasonable exaction in saying to authors and publishers: "The nation gives you exclusive right to make and sell your publication, without limit as to quantity, for forty-two years; give the nation in return two copies, one for the use and reference of Congress and the public in the National Library, the other for preservation in the copyright archives, in perpetual evidence of your right."

In view of the valuable monopoly conceded by the public, does not the government in effect give far more than a quid pro quo for the copy-tax? Of course it would not be equitable to exact even one copy of publications not secured by copyright, in which case the government gives nothing and gets nothing; but the 'exaction of actually protected publications, while it is almost unfelt by publishers, is so clearly in the interest of the public intelligence, as well as of authors and publishers themselves, that no valid objection to it appears to exist. In Great Britain five copies of every book protected by copyright are required for five different libraries, which appears somewhat unreasonable.

Regarding the right of renewal of the term of copyright, it is a significant fact that it is availed of in comparatively