M. Kopitar is an invaluable labourer in this bibliographical vineyard.  I had formerly seen him while he was in England; when he came with Mr. Henry Foss to St. James’s Place, to examine the Aldine volumes, and especially those printed upon vellum.  He himself reminded me of the chary manner in which I seemed to allow him to handle those precious tomes.  “You would scarcely permit me (said he smilingly) to hold them half a minute in my hands:  but I will not treat you after the same fashion.  You shall handle our vellum books, whether in ms. or in print, as long and as attentively as you please.”  I felt the rebuke as it became a preu chevalier in bibliography to feel it.  “I am indebted to you, M. Kopitar, (said I, in reply) in more senses than one—–­ on this my visit to your Imperial Library.”  “But (observed he quickly) you only did what you ought to have done.”  All power of rejoinder was here taken away.  M. Kopitar is a thoroughly good scholar, and is conversant in the Polish, German, Hungarian, and Italian languages.  He is now expressly employed upon the Manuscripts; but he told me (almost with a sigh!) that he had become so fond of the Fifteeners, that he reluctantly complied with the commands of his superiors in entering on the ms. department.

Before I lay my Catalogue Raisonne of such books as I have examined, before you, it is right and fitting that I make some mention of the REPOSITORY in which these books are placed.  In regard to the dimensions of the library, and the general leading facts connected with the erection of the building, as well as the number of the books, my authority is perhaps the best that can be adduced:  namely, that of Mons. de Bartsch himself.  Know then, my good friend, that the Imperial Library of Vienna is built over a succession of arched vaults, which are made to contain the carriages of the Emperor.

You ascend a broad staircase, to the left, which is lined with fragments of Greek and Roman antiquities.  Almost the first room which you enter, is the Reading Room.  This may hold about thirty students comfortably, but I think I saw more than forty on my first entrance:  of whom several, with the invincible phlegm of their country, were content to stand—­leaning against the wall, with their books in their hands.  This room is questionless too small for the object to which it is applied; and as it is the fashion, in this part of the world, seldom or never to open the windows, the effect of such an atmosphere of hydrogen is most revolting to sensitive nerves.  When the door was opened ... which at once gave me the complete length view of the GRAND LIBRARY ...  I was struck with astonishment!  Such another sight is surely no where to be seen.[112] The airiness, the height, the splendour, the decorative minutiae of the whole—­to say nothing of the interminable rows of volumes of all sizes, and in all colours of morocco binding—­put