ll guarantee
better curators. The actual generation of librarians, or so-called
librarians, is the product of inefficient committees of control and
selection; and the worst part is that some of these gentlemen receive
salaries which would almost enable their employers to secure the
services of qualified officers.

I am not personally of the opinion that those institutions are an
unmixed blessing. For already there was a marked tendency to a decline
in the taste for collecting among the middle classes in the United
Kingdom, available resources being devoted to other outlets more
generally acceptable to families; and the facilities afforded by the
Free Library virtually amount to each individual parishioner being
enabled, without appreciable cost, to possess books on a far larger
scale than if he had a collection actually his own. The unfavourable
operation of this state of affairs is twofold: it injures the literary
market, and it promotes superficiality of study in the case of books
which should be owned, not borrowed, to be thoroughly mastered and
understood.

The range of choice, which embraces the writers of the modern school
in prose and verse, is both wide and difficult. During many years past
the number of authors within these lines has been continually on the
increase, yet, while merit and value may be questions of opinion,
there can be no serious or legitimate doubt that the output of
literary work of high character is not greater than it was, if indeed
as great. In the course of a quarter of a century many popular names
have either fallen or faded out of remembrance, alike of authors who
belonged to antecedent generations, and of those who have enjoyed a
transient and artificial celebrity, and have come and gone, as it
were, under the eyes of their immediate contemporaries. With the
advantages offered by lending libraries, it appears to be imprudent on
the part of any one who cannot conveniently form an extensive
collection of modern books to buy on the recommendation of the press
or the trade new favourites; for literary acquisitions are
unfortunately apt to occupy space, and, save in very exceptional
cases, to deteriorate in value. Even the original editions of the
later works of Tennyson are not in great demand, and the high figures
realised by one or two of his early productions are explainable in the
same way as those given for Byrons and Shelleys.

The Modern Side of collecting is classifiable into nu