[FN#423] The following telegram from the Vienna correspondent of “The Times” (November 16, 1886), is worth quotation:—­

“The Committee of the Vienna Congress (of Orientalists) is now preparing a memorial, which will be signed by Archduke Renier, and will be forwarded in a few days to the trustees of the British Museum and to the Secretary of State, praying that a Bill may be introduced into Parliament empowering the British Museum to lend out its Oriental MSS. to foreign savants under proper guarantees.  A resolution pledging the members of the Oriental Congress to this course was passed at the Congress of Leyden, in 1883, on the motion of Professor D. H. Muller, of Vienna; but it has not yet been acted upon so thoroughly as will be the case now.

“The British Museum is the only great library in Europe which does not lend out its MSS. to foreigners.  The university and court libraries of Vienna, the royal and state libraries of Berlin and Munich, those of Copenhagen and Leyden, and Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris all are very liberal in their loans to well-recommended foreigners.  In Paris a diplomatic introduction is required.  In Munich the library does not lend directly to the foreign borrower; but sends to the library of the capital whence the borrower may have made his application, and leaves all responsibility to that library.  In the other libraries, the discretion is left to the librarian, who generally lends without any formalities beyond ascertaining the bona fides and trustworthiness of the applicant.  In Vienna, however, there has occasionally been some little excess of formality, so a petition is about to be presented to the Emperor by the University professors, begging that the privilege of borrowing may be considered as general, and not as depending on the favour of an official.

“As regards Oriental MSS., it is remarked that the guarantees need not be so minute as in the case of old European MSS., which are often unique copies.  According to the learned Professor of Sanskrit in this city, Herr George Buhler, there are very few unique Oriental MSS. in existence of Sanskrit—­perhaps not a dozen.”

[FN#424] (1.) “On Lending Bodleian Books and Manuscripts” (not published).  June 10, 1866; (2) Appendix.  Barlow’s Argument.  June, 1866; (3) On Book-lending as practised at the Bodleian Library.  July 27, 1886; Baxter, Printer, Oxford.  The three papers abound in earnestness and energy; but they have the “defects of their qualities,” as the phrase is; and the subject often runs away with the writer.  A single instance will suffice.  No. i. p. 23 says, “In a library like the Bodleian, where the practice of lending prevails as it now does, a man may put himself to great inconvenience in order to visit it; he may even travel from Berlin, and when he arrives he may find that all his trouble has been in vain, the very book he wants is out.”  This must have been written during the infancy of Sir Rowland Hill, and when telegrams were unknown to mankind; all that the Herr has to do in our times is to ask per wire if the volume be at home or not.