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Liberum Veto

he received a popular vote of 62,300, 15,812 of which were cast in N. Y., 10,860 in Mass., and 8,050 in Ohio. The contest of that year, between the Democratic candidate, Polk, and the Whig candidate, Henry Clay, was exceedingly close, and it is reasonably certain that if the Liberty Party had not nominated candidates, a large proportion, at least, of the political Abolitionists would have voted for Clay, who would thus have received the electoral votes of New York and the election to the presidency. The Liberty Party thus, indirectly, elected Polk, who was unquestionably more subservient to the slave interests than Clay would have been. In subsequent campaigns the Liberty Party ran no independent candidates, but the political Abolitionists, or most of them, supported first the Free Soil and later the Republican nominees. See Smith, The Liberty and Free Soil Parties in the Northwest (1897); Birney, Life and Times of James G. Birney (1890), and Hume, The Abolitionists (1905).

Liberum Veto. This was the power which any nuntius had of bringing the proceedings of the Polish Diet to a close by uttering the word Nie pozwalam ('I forbid'). The first occasion on which this was done was in 1651, when Sicinski, a deputy from Upita in Lithuania, pronounced the fatal syllables. The germ of this custom can be traced back as far as the time of Alexander, king of Poland (1501-6). Unanimity of vote was a great feature of Slavonic assemblies. It was characteristic of the Russian sobori and the meeting of the veche at Novgorod.

Libitina, an ancient Italian deity, goddess of the earth and its delights, especially gardens. She also presided over funeral rites and burial.

Libmanán, tn., Ambos Camarines prov., Luzón, Philippines, 11 m. N.W. of Nueva Cáceres, on the Libmanán R. It has important hemp and rice industries. Pop. (1903) 17,416.

Libocedrus, a genus of evergreen coniferous trees, bearing oval, obtuse, woody cones. L. decurrens, is found on the Pacific coast of the United States, and is an ornamental evergreen, with glossy, scale-like leaves. It is called the 'white cedar,' in California, and its yellowish wood is more durable than that of redwood. It grows to a height of about 140 ft., having no branches for more than half the distance.

Libourne, tn. and riv. port, cap of Gironde dep., France, on the r. bk. of the Dordogne, 17 in. N.E. of Bordeaux. It was one of the ancient free towns founded by

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the English in 1269. The principal manufactures are liquors, sugar, and woollen goods. There are vineyards in the vicinity. Pop. (1901) 19,175.

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Libra, an ancient constellation, and the seventh sign of the zodiac, characterized by the symbol The Greeks called it Chelæ, the 'Claws' (of the Scorpion); the Romans, Jugum, the 'Yoke,' or Libra, the latter title finally prevailing through its adoption in the Julian calendar. The sign is entered by the sun about September 23; the constellation, not until October 29. Its leading star, called Kiffa Australis, the southern Tray' of the Scale, is of Sirian type and widely double, a2 being of 2.7, a of 5.4 magnitude. Kiffa Borealis, or 8 Libræ, is a greenish helium star of 2.7 magnitude. Due south of it lies the globular cluster Messier 5, known to contain 85 short-period variables. The variability from 5.0 to 6.2 magnitude of Libræ is due to eclipses by a dark companion revolving in 2 days 8 hours.

Libraries. Library (Lat. librarium) is a collection of books gathered for study and reference; the place where they are kept. The earliest known library is that of the school for Babylonian savants at Sippara of the Sun, on the banks of the Euphrates, founded forty-one centuries ago by the companions of Xisuthros when they returned and unearthed the tablets of baked clay, buried by his orders, on which were recorded, in cuneiform letters, all antediluvian knowledge and the account of the deluge. Similar chambers of records were found at Nineveh, in the palace of Assurbani-pal, king of Assyria, where, on shelves of slate, classified and catalogued, were kept like tablets recording the archives and literature of the empire. Law, history, literature, business and religion were leading subjects of study at Sippara, and women received precisely the same instruction as men. The signature of Amatbaou to a contract drawn up by her as a womanscribe places her as the earliest of learned women on record in history. These early libraries were doubtless the king's own and possibly open for the use of subjects. Each temple had its collection of books; in Egypt, of rituals and works on agriculture and medicine. According to Diodorus Siculus, Osymandyas (Ramses I. 1400 B.C.), king of Egypt, formed a rich collection of books to which he gave the name "Medecine for the Soul;" its contents included annals, sacred poetry, poetry addressed to the king, travels, works on agriculture, irrigation and astronomy, correspondence, and fiction, especially folk-tales. Two officials of his time are called

Libraries

librarians. At the temple of Jerusalem were the books of the Law and the sacred writings, and Hezekiah assembled in his library much of the literature of the Northern Kingdom.

To Greece belongs the credit of having the first library open to the public, founded at Athens by Peisistratus in the sixth century B.C., largely increased by the Athenians themselves; subsequently, according to Aulus Gellius, it was carried to Persia by Xerxes and later was restored to the Athenians by Seleucus, Nicator Euripides, Plato and Aristotle were book collectors, the latter, Strabo says, 'being the first whe made a collection of books and taught the kings of Egypt how to arrange a library.' Plato called Aristotle's house 'the house of the reader' and Euripides had a slave, a skilled scribe, who copied the most noteworthy works for the library of his master. Another and one of the largest collections of the time was that of Clearchus, tyrant of Heraclea. The famous library at Alexandria, for centuries the literary centre of the world, was founded by Ptolemy Soter, with the assistance of Demetrius of Phaleros, the rhetorician, who came to his court 290 B.C. and seconded his efforts to procure books to the number of 200,000 vols. Ptolemy Philadelphus, it is said, added to these the library of Aristotle, and he is known to have procured valuable works from all parts of Asia and of Greece. The larger portion of these great collections was destroyed when Cæsar burned his fleet in the harbor of Alexandria, which loss Cleopatra possibly made good when she gave to Alexandria the rival library of the kings of Pergamum, captured and presented to her by Mark Antony. This library, founded by the Attali at Pergamum, probably kept in the Bruchium after its removal to Alexandria, seems to have been destroyed by the Christians in the 4th century; the rest of the great collection was finally destroyed by the Turks, the iconoclasts of all monuments of art or of learning. A library gathered at Antioch was destroyed or dispersed after the Roman occupation of Syria.

There is abundant information regarding libraries among the Romans, made up at first exclusively, and for centuries largely, of works written in Greek. Cicero was a great collector of MSS. and declares that a country house could not be complete without a library. Seneca wailed at the fashion that ranked a library with a bathroom as a necessary ornament of a house. Some of the grammarians had large private collections. Cæsar projected a public library for Rome and

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1 Bates Hall, reading room in the Boston Public Library. (Copyright, 1895, by N. L. Stebbins, Boston, Mass.) 2. Columbia University Library. 3. Reading Room of the Congressional Library, Washington, D. C. (Copyright, 1904, by Detroit Photographic Co.)

Libraries

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used. Cicero writes to Atticus: 'Your men have made my library gay with their carpentry-work and their titles.'

When Constantine (306 A.D.) removed the seat of empire to Constantinople he laid the foundations of an imperial library which under his successors acquired a collection of 120,000 vols. Theodosius provided for this library a staff of seven copyists under the direction of the librarian. It included among its treasures a famous Homeric MS. written in gold on serpents' skins joined together in a roll 120 ft. long.

Libraries were established in connection with the larger early Christian churches, notably that at Cæsarea founded by St. Pamphilus, where 30,000 vols. were collected, and that at Hippo, for the preservation of which St. Augustine made a dying request, and to which he bequeathed his own collection.

Libraries

times. These copies were sold and exchanged and thus were slowly accumulated collections afterward famous. To the monks of the Order of St. Benedict in particular are we moderns indebted for their devotion to ancient literature and the preservation of its monuments in such form as a thousand years later served as 'copy' for the presses of Gutenburg, Aldus, Froben and Stephanus. The monastery of Monte Cassino, near Naples, was founded by St. Benedict in 529, and two years later that of Vivaria or Viviers, in Calabria, by Cassiodorus. Cassiodorus was the first to establish a scriptorium, which served as an incentive and example to Benedict, who, for a time had been his associate. Naturally the later monasteries of the Benedictines took that of Monte Cassino for their model. On Monte Cassino was bestowed the rich collection made by its

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The New York Public Library. (Photographed from the Architects', Carrere and Hastings, Model.)

at Herculaneum in which were found nearly 1,700 manuscripts and fragments of MSS., 400 of which have been partially unrolled and deciphered. In these early library rooms rows of shelves from 3 to 6 feet in height, often inlaid with different kinds of woods, were built against the walls, and divided by uprights into pigeon-holes (nidi), with cornices at the top. Into these receptacles the rolls (volumina) of papyrus or parchment were placed singly, or in bundles when they formed part of a work. There was also a table or low book-case, in the centre of the room. On the ends of the rolls were fastened tickets (titulus or index). The roll was kept closed by strings or straps, and if specially valuable had a jacket or wrapper of bark or parchment. Above the shelves in panels of the walls were portrait medallions of authors, with their names, and busts were freely

VOL. VII.-20

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abbot, Didia, during his travels in Egypt, Persia, Chaldea and India; it still has 800 vols. of MSS. of the 11th and 12th centuries. Catalogues have been printed of the library at Bobbio, famous for its palimpsests, a part now in the Ambrosian library at Milan and others in the Vatican, and of the library of Pomposa, near Ravenna, the finest of its time (1100) in Italy. La Chiusa and Novalese had fine collections.

In France there were renowned collections at Clugny, whose abbot, Peter the Venerable, esteemed books more precious than gold, but whose treasures were carried by the Huguenots tc Geneva; in the abbey school at Fleury, the MSS. of which are now in the library of Orleans; in the library of the monks of St. Require at Centule; at Corbie, noted for the activity of its scribes; and at Clairvaux. In Germany

Libraries

the library at Fulda had four hundred scribes at one time, and received donations from Charlemagne and its abbot Rabanus Maurus; that at Reichenau, noted for its collection of MSS., was destroyed in the Thirty Years' War; in the Swiss abbey of St. Gall, in the 10th century, there were five hundred monks, and later the nuns of St. Catherine were noted as transcribers. The monasteries of Wearmouth and of Yarrow in England were endowed with great libraries, collected by their founder Biscop. in his six journeys to Rome.

Alcuin, at one time librarian of the cathedral library at York, was there trained for his later great work on the continent; the

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didly executed and bound in vel-
vet and decorated with gold and
silver clasps, and the emblems of
the king. It is said to have num-
bered 50,000 vols. After the
death of Corvinus, at the capture
of Buda by the Turks, in 1527,
these treasures were scattered all
over the world. Thirty-five vols.
were returned to Hungary by the
Sultan, in 1877, for which the
Diet returned a vote of thanks.

The invention of printing in the
15th century did more for libraries
and the perpetuation of the liter-
ary treasures of antiquity than
could ever have been possible
otherwise. At the end of the 14th
century Charles V. had organized
the Bibliothèque Nat. of France
on the foundation of the books

Libraries

relative size or importance: The Imperial Library at Vienna, founded by Friedrich II. in 1440; the Royal Library, at Munich, established by Albert v., duke of Bavaria, about the middle of the 16th century, and the Royal Library of Dresden, near its close; the Royal Library of Berlin, founded in 1661; the Royal Library at Copenhagen, dating from the middle of the 17th century, and the Library of the University of Copenhagen; the library of the University of Upsala and the larger Royal Library at Stockholm; the University Library at Christiana, founded in 1811; the Royal Lib rary of The Hague in Holland; the Imperial Library of St. Peters

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collection at Christ Church, Canterbury, was founded by Augustine and Theodore. Many of the monasteries of the Greek Church had libraries in which have been preserved the oldest MSS. known to the world. The treasures of the monastery of Mt. Athos are well known. By the scribe-work of the monasteries of the East and of Africa many Greek texts were preserved. Libraries flourished also under the Arabians after their conquest of Spain. Cordova had a fine library and seventy others are said to have been opened in the cities of Andalusia. Bagdad, Cairo and Tripoli were also celebrated for their libraries. Mention must be made of the celebrated collection of MSS. made by King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, in the 15th century. Every book was splen

Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.
(Copyright, 1902, by Detroit Photographic Co.)
and MSS. collected and be-
queathed to him by his prede-
Cessor, Jean le Bon; from this
foundation has sprung the world's
second greatest collection of
books. The National Library of
Great Britain, commonly known
as the British Museum Library,
was first opened to the public less
than 24 centuries ago, with about
60,000 vols., 15,000 MSS. and
16,000 charters and rolls in its
collections. It has been fostered
by the nation with such care that
it now ranks as the largest library
in the world, increasing annually

at the rate of about 100,000
pieces, made up roughly of 50,000
books and pamphlets, and 50,000
parts, in addition to about a
quarter of a million newspapers.'
We name here a few of the other
great libraries of Europe, without
reference to the order of their

burg, founded in 1714 by Peter the Great and to which in 1795 the great Zaluski library was added, now containing nearly a million and a half of volumes, and 28,000 MSS.; the Biblioteca Nacional, at Madrid, and the Library of the Escurial. To Italy we naturally turn for the oldest libraries and the rarest and most valuable collections, and these we find in the Vatican Library at Rome, dating from the middle of the 7th century, and having had the special favor of a long line of book-loving Popes. It was robbed by the French in 1798, of 500 of its treasures, the greater part of which was restored in 1815, while many of the, Palatine MSS. subsequently went to the University of Heidelberg. The Casanateuse Library takes the next place in value, and its in

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