THE HARVARD LIBRARY.

The main contents of the visitors room are huge folios which are "not to be handled without permission. "By way of relics, there is a brand new book carved out of a piece of wood taken from the Washington Elm. On the back is a picture of the old tree with its affluent branches, making a "cavern of cool shade." Below the roots of the tree is a pretty little scene representing a very wooden-looking soldier about to charge into the mouth of an innocent-looking cannon which protects a camp of wigwam-like tents. This book has a feature which many a freshman wishes could apply to his physics or analytics - it cannot be opened. Another interesting relic in the room is a plaster cast of Cromwell's face made from the mask taken after death by the sculptor, Thomas Woolner. After passing through the hands of Carlyle and Charles Eliot Norton, it finally found a permanent resting-place in the library in 1881. If any one has any doubt as to Cromwell's unsympathetic treatment of Charles I., one look at this cold, pale face will decide him. A more cheerful ornament lately added is a finely executed pen and ink sketch of the study of Darwin.

A numismatic collection, presented by Robert N. Toppan, '58, is one of the most interesting contents of the room. There are eighty-five Roman coins well arranged in a handsome ebony case. The dates range from 400 B. C. to 337 A. D., including specimens of the silver, gold and copper coin of the ancient Romans. The collection is excellent, as showing the progress of the Roman art of coinage, and though not as complete as could be desired is still very instructive. The coins are all well preserved. The most interesting coins in the collection are specimens of the as: The oldest is placed at the date 400 B. C. It weighs six ounces, is worth, intrinsically, about ten cents and is made of copper. Half a dozen of them would make a pocketful of change, and if one had occasion to carry five dollars' worth of as's about a horse and team would be almost a necessity. In an historical light, also, this collection is very interesting. There are coins struck in honor of Sulla, of Brutus and of Pompey. One of the copper coins contains the liead of Gordianus Africanus II., who reigned forty days. Another shows the ill-fated features of a sixty-six-day emperor. Had these monarchs been as slow in securing their counterfeit presentments as a Harvard senior of today is, the collection would be poorer by several brave heads. Another larger but more miscellaneous numismatic collection consist of several hundred English, French, Spanish, East Indian and Chinese coins. Although most of these are later by several centuries than the Roman coins, they are still not so well preserved.

Among the British coins are a number of tokens struck in honor of such dukes as Warwickshire, John of Gaunt, and Wellington. Also there are some silver tokens struck by large mercantile houses.

But the coins cannot compare in interest with the manuscripts and manuscript letters in the room. There are four plain cases which contain these literary rarities. Perhaps the most valuable and most incomprehensible to the majority of visitors are the Biblical manuscripts. There are about ten in one case, not the least of which cost three hundred francs. They range from the eighth to the seventeenth century. The oldest purports to be of the eighth century, and, "if so, is the oldest manuscript on the American continent." The majority are pictured manuscripts, and the gorgeousness of illustration is indescribable. Especially notable is the diversity of colors. Indeed, the chief aim of the artists seems to have been to produce a contrast. Thus, green, red and yellow are often in most uncomfortable proximity. But there is an evident originality in the way that the sea nymphs, cherubs, thistles and insects are grouped around the edge of a page. One, "a chained monastic," is bound with oaken covers and a pig-skin back. The finest manuscript is one in Dutch, bound in velvet, with back covered with brass of arabesque pattern, having jewels inlaid and some bone figures carved in alto relievo.

The most interesting case of all, perhaps, is that containing autograph letters and poems. Here are collected letters from O. W. Holmes. Jefferson, Washington, John Quincy Adams, and a note from A. Lincoln, inviting the Hon. C. Sumner to accompany him "for half an hour" to the inaugural ball, March 5, 1865. There is also a finely written letter, dated London, April 28, 1758, in which Franklin begs the college (Harvard) to do him the favor "to accept a Virgil I send in the case, thought to be the most curiously printed of any book hitherto done in the world." Some letters from Emmanuel Kant to the grandfather of Prof. H. A. Hagen of Harvard are here preserved. Here, too, is Longfellow's first draft of "Excelsior." dated "Sept. 28, 1841. Half-past three in morning." It is written on the back of a letter addressed to him by Charles Sumner. The two lines,

"Above, the spectral glaciers shone

And from his lips escaped a groan,"

originally stood:

"And far above the glaciers shone

His lips repressed the rising groan."

Even excelling Longfellow's handwriting in beauty is a letter from Robt. Burns to the Earl of Buchanan, Jan. 7, 1794, containing the famous epic lines:

"Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled."

In a first edition of Pope's Essays on Man we see that originally the oft quoted line, -

"A mighty maze but not without a plan"

reads:

"A mighty maze of walks without a plan."

In Byron's copy of Ossian's Poems are a number of critical and eulogistic notes which seem to have shown Byron's great appreciation of Macpherson's talent as a poet, and this appreciation is more directly shown by the fact that Byron gives a rythmical version of Ossian's address to the sun, beginning thus:

"O thou! who rollest in you azure field

Round as the orb of my forefather's shield -

Whence are thy beams?"

This poem is said to be unpublished. There is also a book published in Mexico in 1566 and the card states that the library contains no book printed in America before this. Perhaps the most interesting of Americana is the "earliest engraved map" which was supposed to follow the map made by Columbus, now lost. The date is 1508.

Among the other interesting curiosities is a Hebrew Bible used by President Dunster. It contains on a fly-leaf a note by Josiah Quincy, stating that this "valuable relic" will be carefully preserved in the archives of the college library associated as it is with the memory of one of its earliest, most faithful, highly esteemed and learned presidents and benefactors.

This is but a brief summary of the contents of a room whose every nook discloses some rare and antique object. To give but a list of what it contains would fill a volume.

R.