ignot,
who gives us this information, does not accompany it with
some account of the nature and merits of the work--which
probably grew out of the _Histoire Litteraire des Pays
Blas_, 1725, in three folio volumes. _Bibl. Curieuse_, p.
10.----BODLEIAN. _Catalog. Libr. Bibl. Publ., &c., in Acad.
Oxon._, 1605, 4to. _Catal. Libr. Impr._, 1674, fol.
_Catalogi Libror. MSS. Angl. et Hibern._, 1697, fol.
_Catalogus Impress. Libror. Bibl. Bodl._, 1733, fol., two
vols. Although none but catalogues of foreign public and
private collections were intended to be noticed in this
list, the reader will forgive a little violation of the rule
laid down by myself, if I briefly observe upon the
catalogues of the Bodleian library and the British Museum.
[For the latter, vide 'MUSEUM.'] The first of these Bodleian
catalogues contains an account of the MSS. It was prepared
by Dr. James, the editor of the Philobiblion of De Bury
(vide p. 30, ante), and, as it was the first attempt to
reduce to "lucid order" the indigested pile of MSS.
contained in the library, its imperfections must be
forgiven. It was afterwards improved, as well as enlarged,
in the folio edition of 1697, by Bernard; which contains the
MSS. subsequently bequeathed to the library by Selden,
Digby, and Laud, alone forming an extensive and valuable
collection. The editor of Morhof (vol. i., 193, n.) has
highly commended this latter catalogue. Let the purchaser of
it look well to the frontispiece of the portraits of Sir
Thomas Bodley and of the fore-mentioned worthies, which
faces the title-page; as it is frequently made the prey of
some prowling Grangerite. The first catalogue of the
_Printed Books_ in the Bodleian library was compiled by the
celebrated orientalist, Dr. Hyde: the second by Fisher: of
these, the latter is the more valuable, as it is the more
enlarged. The plan adopted in both is the same: namely, the
books are arranged alphabetically, without any reference to
their classes--a plan fundamentally erroneous: for the chief
object in catalogues of public collections is to know what
works are published upon particular subjects, for the
facility of information thereupon--whether our inquiries
lead to publication or otherwise: an alphabetical index
should, of course, close