I was surprised to be told, the other day, that the city of Munich, although lying upon a flat, apparently of several miles in circumference, is nevertheless situated upon very lofty ground:—­full twelve or thirteen hundred feet above the level of the sea—­and that the snow-charged blasts, from the Tyrolese mountains, towards the end of autumn, render it at times exceedingly cold and trying to the constitution.  But I must now revert to the city, and proceed at once to an account of the most interesting of ALL the public edifices at Munich—­in my very humble, and perhaps capricious, estimation.  Of course you will instantly catch at what I mean.  “What, BUT the edifice which contains THE PUBLIC LIBRARY?” ’Tis wisely conjectured; and to this boundless region of books, of almost every age and description, let us instantly resort:  first paying our respects to the Directors and Librarians of the establishment.

Of the former, the BARON VON MOLL, and MR. FREDERIC SCHLICHTEGROLL are among the principal:  of the latter, Messrs. SCHERER and BERNHARD have the chief superintendence:  of all these gentlemen, more in my next.[47] At present, suffice it to say, that I was constantly and kindly attended during my researches by M. Bernhard—­who proved himself in the frequent discussions, and sometimes little controversies, which we had together, to be one of the very best bibliographers I had met upon the continent.  In the bibliographical lore of the fifteenth century, he has scarcely a superior:  and I only regretted my utter ignorance of the German language, which prevented my making myself acquainted with his treatises, upon certain early Latin and German Bibles, written in that tongue.  But it was his kindness—­his diffidence—­his affability, and unremitting attention—­which called upon me for every demonstration of a sense of the obligations I was under.  It will not be easy for me to forget, either the kind-hearted attentions or the bibliographical erudition of M. Bernhard ...

  “Quae me cunque vocant terrae.”

Be it known to you therefore, my good friend, that the PUBLIC LIBRARY at MUNICH is attached to what was once the College of Jesuits; and to which the beautiful church, described in a few preceding pages, belonged.  On the suppression of the order of Jesuits, the present building was devoted to it by Charles Theodore in 1784:  a man, who, in more than this one sense, has deserved well of his country.  Would you believe it?  They tell me that there are at least half a hundred rooms filled by books and MSS. of one kind or other—­including duplicates—­and that they suppose the library contains nearer four, than three hundred thousand volumes!  I scarcely know how to credit this; although I can never forget the apparently interminable succession of apartments—­in straight lines, and in rectangular lines:  floor upon floor:  even to the very summit of the building, beneath the slanting roofs—­such as I had seen at Stuttgart.  But here it should seem as if every monastery throughout Bavaria had emptied itself of its book-treasures ... to be poured into this enormous reservoir.