o the minute; and
on entering the library, found a sort of BODLEY in miniature: except that
there was a great mass of books in the middle of the room--placed in a
parallelogram form--which I thought must have a prodigiously heavy pressure
upon the floor. I quickly began to look about for _Editiones Principes_;
but, at starting, my guide placed before me two copies of the celebrated
_Liber Nanceidos_:[200] of which _one_ might be fairly said to be _large
paper_. On continuing my examination, I found civil and canon law--
pandects, glosses, decretals, and commentaries--out of number: together
with no small sprinkling of medical works. Among the latter was a curious,
and _Mentelin_-like looking, edition of _Avicenna_. But _Ludolphus's Life
of Christ_, in Latin, printed in the smallest type of _Eggesteyn_, in 1474,
a folio, was a volume really worth opening and worth coveting. It was in
its original monastic binding--large, white, unsullied, and abounding with
rough marginal edges.

It is supposed that the library contains 25,000 volumes. Attached to it is
a Museum of Natural History. But alas! since the revolution it exhibits a
frightful picture of decay, devastation, and confusion. To my eye, it was
little better than the apothecary's shop described by Romeo. It contained a
number of portraits in oil, of eminent Naturalists; which are palpable
copies, by the same hand, of originals ... that have probably perished. The
museum had been gutted of almost every thing that was curious or precious.
Indeed they want funds, both for the museum and the library. It was near
night-fall when I quitted the library, and walked with the librarian in a
pleasant, open space, near one of the chief gates or entrances before
mentioned. The evening was uncommonly sweet and serene: and the moon, now
nearly full, rose with more than her usual lustre ... in a sky of the
deepest blue which I had yet witnessed. I shall not readily forget the
conversation of that walk. My companion spoke of his own country with the
sincerity of a patriot, but with the good sense of an honest, observing,
reflecting man. I had never listened to observations better founded, or
which seemed calculated to produce more beneficial results. Of _our_
country, he spoke with an animation approaching to rapture. It is only the
exercise of a grateful feeling to record this--of a man--whose name I have
forgotten, and whose person I may never see again. On quitting each other,
I pr