United States. As the work of a cultivated and intelligent foreigner, it
has all the more claim to our acknowledgment, and also to our indulgence
where we discover omissions or inaccuracies.

The second volume whose title stands at the head of our article would
demand no special notice from us, were it not for the admirable manner
in which it is executed and the judgment evinced in the selection of the
books which it catalogues. The Boston Library may well be congratulated
on having at its head a gentleman so experienced and competent as
Professor Jewett. He has hitherto distinguished himself in a department
of literature in which little notoriety is to be won, his labors
in which, however, are appreciated by the few whose quiet suffrage
outvalues the noisy applause of the moment. His little work on the
"Construction of Library Catalogues" is a truly valuable contribution to
letters, rendering, as it does, the work of classification more easy,
and increasing the chances of our getting good general directories to
the books already in our libraries, without which the number of volumes
we gather is only an increase of incumbrance. It is a great detriment to
sound and exhaustive scholarship, that the books for students to read
should be left to chance; and we owe a great deal more than we are apt
to acknowledge to men who, like Mr. Jewett, enable us to find out the
books that will really help us. Dr. Johnson, to be sure, commends the
habit of "browsing" in libraries; and this will do very well for those
whose memory clinches, like the tentacula of zoöphytes, around every
particle of nourishment that comes within its reach. But the habit tends
rather to make ready talkers than thorough scholars; and he who is left
to his chances in a collection of books grasps like a child in the
"grab-bag" at a fair, and gets, in nine cases out of ten, precisely what
he does not want.