APPENDIX 2: TRANSLATIONS OF THE PREFACES

1723 Catalogue

advice to the reader

Here before your eyes, good Reader, you have the Catalogue of the Books in the Harvard Library, concerning which you should have a word of advice, before perusal.

The books are disposed in cases or housings; and the shelf mark is written on every one, answering their division and distribution by seven levels of height in the cases (which we call classes); and lastly, attached to every case hang indexes of all the books that are in it.

The author of this work, obedient to the commands of the Reverend College Senate, composed the Catalogue in three parts, alphabetically arranged, according to the different formats, by “Folio,” “Quarto,” and “Octavo, etc.” In which he carefully marked not only the case or class, but also the position, so that the location of every book in its case would be quite easy to find. For this purpose, he has placed three separate columns of numbers in the left margin: the first denoting the number of the case, the second of the height, the third of the book. Here one may note that wherever only two numbers appear, you should mentally supply the classis recorded above; and where only one is filled in, you should supply at once the classis and the height previously recorded.

With respect to the authors themselves, they are entered under their family names, wherever possible; but occasionally settled usage seems to demand otherwise. After the family names are set down, next usually follow forenames, and then come the titles of every book that the author (unless I mistake him) is responsible for, just as he devised them.

As for the margin to the right, there should be no need to say anything about the place and date of printing, nor of the absence of either of these, immediately signified by a short line drawn in its place.

Titles with stars, or marked with this asterisk [*] represent books that were missing, for which reason neither their place nor date of printing could be assigned.

The “SUPPLEMENT” contains books that were arranged and shelved after the completion of the Catalogue.

Since anyone with experience in this line of work is aware how prone to occasional error he is in recording numbers and other things of that sort, there can be no objection if here, trusting to the Candor and Humanity of the Reader, I shall snap my thread.

1773 Catalogue

notice

Since the Catalogue of Books in the Cambridge Library is very long, and when Need arises, not to be perused without great expense of time, comprising Books written in nearly every Language and on all Sciences and Arts, the great majority of them beyond the Reach of Junior sophisters; it was thought right to draw up a shorter Catalogue, to wit of Books that are better suited for their use. Hence the following Catalogue includes, beside the Classics, mostly Books in the Vernacular respecting general intellectual culture; and as far as possible it omits those that are of daily use in the College as well as those that are written in exotic Languages, or that treat of particular Disciplines such as Medicine or Jurisprudence. Yet no one should take this to mean that the Students are forbidden a more liberal use of the Library.

The Numbers placed next to each Book designate its place in the Library.

1790 Catalogue

The Harvard Library takes its origin in part from the remains of the former collection, reduced to ashes in January 1764, but chiefly after that date from the munificence of many generous Mæcenases both in Europe and America. A few years ago a Catalogue of selected holdings was published for the use of College students; the following Catalogue embraces the whole library. To be more serviceable to those who wish to consult it, the books in this Catalogue are arranged in alphabetical order under several headings, according to the subject to which they belong. We hope a second edition can correct whatever faults are to be found in it.

1 Alfred Claghorn Potter, The Library of Harvard University: Descriptive and Historical Notes, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, Mass., 1915), pp. 13–15, provides a concise description of the origins and early development of the library, and lists its benefactors.

2 Samuel Eliot Morison, The Founding of Harvard College (Cambridge, Mass., 1935), pp. 263–70, especially pp. 264–66, describes John Harvard’s legacy; see also his Harvard College in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, Mass, 1936), I, 285–97; the inventory of John Harvard’s books is reprinted in Harvard College Records, PCSM, 15–16 (1925) (hereafter cited as “Records”), 158–66.

3 Morison, Founding, pp. 272–89, gives an account of the Old College building, which was begun in 1638 but not completed until four years after the library was installed in it; a conjectural floor plan, drawn by H. R. Shurtleff on the basis of existing documents, faces p. 284. Kenneth E. Carpenter, The First 350 Years of the Harvard University Library: Description of an Exhibition (Cambridge, Mass., 1986), p. 5, reprints this plan, with a rendering of the supposed interior by F. W. Hartwell; but the fenestration of the rendering does not agree with the plan, and there is no evidence for the low lectern-style shelving and benches, typical of European libraries of a much earlier period. The Old College was poorly constructed and much in need of repairs as early as 1651; Cotton Mather noted that its unoccupied ruins still stood in 1695.

4 Shurtleff’s floor plans of Harvard Hall are printed by Morison, 17th Century, facing p. 429; Carpenter, First 350 Years, p. 6, reprints the plan of the second floor.

5 Records, pp. lxxxvii, note 1, 350 and 712.

6 He was a wealthy London Baptist (d. 1731) who never visted America but gave his support to Harvard College as the leading nonconformist foundation in the colonies. He gave the College’s first two endowed chairs, the Hollis Professorships of Divinity (1723) and of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy (1727), sent books to the library, and encouraged others to do likewise. He was the great-uncle of Thomas Hollis of Lincoln’s Inn.

7 Documents from the Harvard University Archive, 1638–1750, ed. R.W. Lovett, PCSM, 49–50 (1975) (hereafter cited as “Documents”), 500–501.

8 See the illustrations in John Willis Clark, The Care of Books (Cambridge, 1901), figs. 110–12.

9 Clark, Care of Books, p. 243: “The word ‘class’ (classis) is used at the University Library, Cambridge, in 1584, instead of the ancient ‘stall’, and afterwards superseded it entirely. For instance, when a Syndicate was appointed in 1713 to provide accommodation for Bishop Moore’s Library, the bookcases are described as Thecæ sive quas vocant classes.” The “Præmonitio” of the 1723 Catalogus calls the cases plutei and adds “quos Classes vocamus,” and the shelf-marks as printed invariably refer to the “Cl[assis].”

10 See further below, p. XXVI. Hugh Amory suggests, on the basis of the entry of “Francisci Lamberti” as “Scilambertus, Fran.,” in the 1723 Catalogus (p. 92), that authors’ names were written in direct order in the compiler’s source.

11 Documents, p. 556.

12 For a facsimile of the broadside, and of the title page of the only book now surviving from John Harvard’s gift, see The Houghton Library, 1942–1967 (Cambridge, 1967), pp. 2–3.

13 Not fifty-eight, as stated in the broadside.

14 Potter, Library, pp. 122–24, lists the most substantial benefactors.

15 Carpenter, First 350 Years, p. 19, reproduces a plan of the new library room; the rendering of “The Library as it probably looked in 1790” on p. 18 is, however, fanciful.

16 First 350 Years, above, n. 3.

17 The Alcove Lists of about 1765, written in stitched folio pamphlets, are preserved in the Harvard University Archives (UA III.50.15.31.5); they are much worn, and interlined or otherwise revised, and clean and somewhat simplified copies were required a few years later, which also survive (UA III.50.15.40).

18 Thomas Hollis V died on January 1, 1774, and had ceased sending wholesale lots of books to Cambridge several years earlier; his friend and heir Thomas Brand Hollis continued the family benefactions (later shelved in Alcove 2.5, 4.5, and 6.5).

19 Thomas Jay Siegel, “Governance and Curriculum at Harvard College in the 18th Century,” Harvard Ph.D. Thesis, 1990, University Microfilms microfiche 90-35554 (1995).

20 Quoted in Potter, Library, p. 16.

21 UA III.50.15.39 (A, B, & C).

22 See the graph in Carpenter, First 350 Years, p. 199.

23 See Potter, Library, p. 169 for the roll of early 19th-century librarians.

24 I, xiii, note; an annotated copy in the Harvard University Archives has been helpful in identifying some elusive entries in the earlier catalogues.

25 Quoted in Clark, Care of Books, p. 195.

26 Daniel Neal, The History of New-England (London, 1720), pp. 183–84; apparently basing his account on Mather’s Magnalia.

27 A unique copy of the catalogue is in the Boston Public Library.

28 Samuel Eliot Morison, Harvard in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1936), p. 291.

29 Documents, p. 388.

30 Records, p. 195.

31 “Library Papers: Chronological series”, Harvard University Archives, UA III.50.27.14vt.

32 So in Government printing, the bills were made out to the bookseller, not to the printer. Rollo G. Silver, “Government Printing in Massachusetts Bay, 1700–1750,” PAAS, 68 (1958), [135]–62, at pp. 144–45.

33 Rollo G. Silver, “Publishing in Boston, 1726–1757,” PAAS, 66 (1956), 17–56, at p. 24.

34 Records, p. 503; the bill, from the “Library Papers”, is transcribed in Appendix 1, below, courtesy of the Harvard University Archives. Calculated in pounds, shillings and pence (£.s.d.): £1 = 20s.; 1s. = 12d.

35 Printed in Lawrence C. Wroth, The Colonial Printer, 2nd ed., rev. & enl. (Charlottesville, Va., 1964), p. 184; Wroth’s comparison of colonial and London charges unfortunately ignores such concealed costs.

36 Records, p. 699.

37 Records, p. 503.

38 Documents, p. 543; a copy of the letter is in the Massachusetts Historical Society, Misc. MSS.

39 Ibid., p. 558.

40 llustrated in Blickling Hall (London: National Trust, 1987), p. 55; I am grateful to David McKitterick for bringing this reference to my attention; interestingly, Harvard had hoped to acquire this library in 1741.

41 For the present location of these copies, I use the library symbols of the pre-1956 National Union Catalog.

42 Documents, pp. 500 and 560.

43 “Library Papers,” Harvard University Archives.

44 Records, p. 646.

45 Siegel, “Governance of Harvard,” p. 276.

46 Corporation Records, Harvard University Archives, UA 1.5.30.2, v. 2 (1750–78), pp. 395–95A.

47 Memoir of Hezekiah Packard D.D. (Brunswick [Me.], 1850), p. 18.

48 “Library Papers,” transcribed in Appendix 1, below, courtesy of the Harvard University Archives.

49 I am most grateful to Mr. Jerome Anderson for allowing me to examine this copy, in his collection.

50 Corporation Records, Harvard University Archives, v. 3, pp. 371–72.

51 Houghton Library, call no. X 16.98.

52 This manuscript is in the American Antiquarian Society Library.

53 Siegel, “Governance of Harvard,” p. 317.

54 Houghton Library, call no. *AC7.B8188.Zz711p: a collection of 10 plays by Susanna Centlivre and others, 1692–1711, with Browne’s note, “bound 1752”. The earliest student drama society dates from 1758.

55 Elizabeth C. Reilly, “The Wages of Piety: The Boston Book Trade of Jeremy Condy,” in Printing and Society in Early America, ed. W. L. Joyce et al. (Worcester, Mass., 1983), pp. [83]–131; see also Siegel, “Governance of Harvard”, pp. 313–15.

56 Cf. Samuel Eliot Morison, The Intellectual Life of Colonial New England (Ithaca, N.Y., 1956, repr. 1987), pp. 148–50.

57 A contemporary list of these is in the University Archives. Many of the books themselves were identified by John Langdon Sibley, and a shelflist (by the original shelf mark) of those in Houghton is maintained on fiches, known as the “Old Library” file. I am not aware of any systematic search for survivors outside Harvard, however.

58 James Gilreath, “American Book Distribution,” PAAS, 95 (1985), 524–25.