of his class would soon crowd out the more earnest workers.  Here is a student with the thirty or more volumes of the “New England Historic Genealogical Register” piled before him, flanked on one side by the huge volumes of Burke’s “Peerage” and on the other by Walford’s “County Families.”  There are many readers of this class, the library’s department of Genealogy and Heraldry being well filled.  There is a lady here and there at the tables working with a male companion, but, as a rule, they are to be found at the ladies’ tables in the Middle Hall.  There seem to be but two classes of readers here,—­the lady in silken attire, engaged in looking out some item of family history or question of decorative art, and the brisk business-like literary lady, seeking material for story or sketch.  Any student or literary worker who can show to the satisfaction of one of the trustees that he is engaged in work requiring free access to the library receives a card from the superintendent which admits him to the alcoves and places all the treasures of the library at his command.  A register is placed near the distributing librarian’s desk, in which on entering each visitor to the alcove is required to sign his name, and in this register each year is accumulated a roll of autographs of which any institution might be proud.  Famous scholars, scientists, authors, journalists, poets, artists, and divines, both of this country and of Europe, are included in the lists.

Of its treasures of literary and artistic interest it is impossible to give categorical details.  Perhaps the library prizes most the magnificent elephant folio edition, in four volumes, of Audubon’s “Birds and Quadrupeds of North America,” with its colored plates, heavy paper, and general air of sumptuousness.  The work is rare as well as magnificent, and, though the library does not set a price upon its books, it is known that three thousand dollars would not replace a missing copy.  In an adjoining alcove is an equally sumptuous but more ancient volume, the Antiphonale, or mammoth manuscript of the chants for the Christian year.  This volume was used at the coronation of Charles X., King of France.  The covers of this huge folio are bound with brass, beautiful illuminations by Le Brun adorn its title-pages, and then follows, in huge black characters, the music of the chants.  In its immediate vicinity are many of the treasures of the library,—­Zahn’s great work on Pompeii, three volumes of very large folios, containing splendidly-colored frescos from the walls of the dead city; Sylvester’s elaborate work of “Fac-Similes of the Illuminated Manuscripts of the Middle Ages,” in four large folios; and also Count Bastard’s great work on the same, seeming more sumptuous in gold, silver, and colors.  Another notable work is Count Littar’s “Genealogies of Celebrated Italian Families,” in ten folio volumes, emblazoned in gold, and illustrated with richly-colored portraits finished like ivory miniatures.