University of Virginia Library

XIX. The Library

How were the students supplied with the books which
they required for their regular courses or for supplementary
reading? There were, in the interval between
1825 and 1842, several book-sellers established in the
immediate vicinity of the University, who were ready to
furnish all the volumes that were called for in the classroom.
The principal one seems to have been C. P. McKennie;
and next to him were Street and Sanxey, a Richmond
firm, who, during many years, were represented on
the ground by William Wertenbaker. The collection of
articles temptingly arranged in these two stores was large
and varied; indeed, the polite shopmen endeavored to
satisfy every need of the student in the way of the toilet
as well as of the lecture-room. A pair of morocco
pumps would be displayed in close proximity to the Federalist
and the Resolutions of 1798–9, and a bundle of
cigars or roll of violin strings would half cover an ornate
copy of Don Quixote or Gil Blas. Soap, shoes, quills,
sealingwax, bear's oil, hose, snuff-boxes, powder, razors,
brushes,—all were for sale with the latest text-books in
law, medicine, natural philosophy, and the ancient languages.
Whether the student sought to gratify his taste
for smoking, letter-writing, or foppishly adorning his person,
or whether he wished to add to his collection of
books for study or private reading, it was to these accommodating
stores that he first directed his foot-steps.

It would be presumed that, with the University
library at his service, he would not have been forced to
spend much money in purchasing for the pleasure of independent
reading, but, as we shall now see, the volumes
of that library,—at first, at least,—were reserved for
consultation only. It was not a storehouse of literature

for pastime; on the contrary, it was originally gathered
up with the most inflexible reference to its practical usefulness
in complementing the work of the lecture-room.
The plan for its formation was drafted by Jefferson himself.
This plan, like the one for the extension of the
buildings, allowed of the library's indefinite expansion
along the same general lines. The collection was to
embrace: (1) books of great reputation which were too
costly for the average purse; (2) the most authoritative
volumes in exposition of each science; (3) tracts marked
by special merit; (4) books that were valuable because
written in rare languages; (5) several editions of the
same classic, which were esteemed each for its own excellence;
(6) translations of superior elegance in themselves,
or opening to readers works in an abstruse tongue;
(7) books that were valuable as relating to some subject
that had been but little treated.

There were two conspicuous features in this scheme
which were highly characteristic of Jefferson: (1) all
volumes that were designed for amusement only were
to be shut out; (2) the only religious books to be let in
were to be those that were so free from controversial
taint that persons of every sect could read them with
approval. Indeed, so jealous was he of all ecclesiastical
interpretations that he refused to accept any work on
geology that could be made the basis of theorizing on
the evolution of the globe through purely material
agencies. The subdivisions adopted by him show how
thoroughly he had, in his own mind, considered every section
of the field which the volumes of a university library
should cover. They are worthy of repetition as offering
further evidence of the breadth and exactness of his
practical intellect.[19]

         

History		Philosophy
Civil	Physical	Mathematical	Moral
1 Ancient 2 Modern, Foreign 3 British 4 American 5 Ecclesiastical	6 Physics, Pure 7 Agricultural 8 Chemical 9 Anatomy and Surgery 10 Medical 11 Biology 12 Botany 13 Mineralogy 14 Technology 15 Astronomy 16 Geography	17 Arithmetic 18 Geometry	19 Ethics 20 Religion 21 Law—Nature and Nations 22 Law—Equity 23 Law—Common 24 Law—Merchant 25 Law—Maritime 26 Law—Ecclesiastical 27 Law—Foreign 28 Law—Civil Polity
Fine Arts
29 Architecture 30 Gardening, Painting, Sculpture, Music 31 Epic Poetry 32 Romantic Poetry 33 Pastoral Poetry 34 Didactic Poetry		35 Tragedy 36 Comedy 37 Dialogue and Epistolary 38 Rhetoric 39 Criticism in Theory 40 Bibliography 41 Philology

The largest number of volumes in the library, as provided
for by Jefferson, related to the two subjects, in
which,—if we leave out natural history and natural
philosophy,—he felt the most penetrating interest;
namely, ancient languages and the science of law. There
were, in the first list submitted by him, four hundred
and nine titles touching the classics, and three hundred
and sixty-seven touching jurisprudence in all its branches.
Modern history followed with three hundred and five;
religion and ecclesiastic history, with one hundred and
seventy-five; pathology, with one hundred and sixty;
philology and literature, with one hundred and eighteen;
and the remaining subjects in dwindling proportions.

There were certain aspects of this original catalogue
which revealed very plainly the bent of Jefferson's tastes

as a student and as a reader. The number of volumes
which it contained relating to ancient history were nearly
double the number of those relating to modern,—only
seven titles bore on English history and only six on
American. The former included the works of Hume
and Smollett; the latter, of Robertson, Marshall, and
Botta. Only one of the six volumes bearing on natural
history and zoology was written in the English language;
only two of the nine bearing on botany; and only
two of the nine also bearing on the mechanical arts.
All the volumes descriptive of architecture, painting,
sculpture, and music, were written in Italian. Of the
twenty-five titles relating to astronomy, five only were
written in English. All the works in epic poetry belonged
to foreign tongues. No copy of the Paradise
Lost is to be found in the original list. Was this because
that great poem was, in his opinion, tainted with the
spirit of ecclesiastical, not to say, sectarian, aggressiveness?
It was perhaps too orthodox and too controversial
in its flavor to be really palatable to him. The
numerous volumes containing odes and pastorals were,
with one remarkable exception, written either in the
Latin or the Italian tongue; B. M. Carter's Poems was
that exception, for this provincial author seems to have
rushed in where Milton's angels had feared to tread.
All the didactic poetry was in the Greek or Latin language.

Shakespeare gained an entrance under the head of
Tragedy, but no English author enjoyed the like distinction
under the head of Comedy. As the plays of
Sheridan, Goldsmith, and Congreve could claim no
higher usefulness than an ability to tickle the sense of
amusement, they were rejected, and the Latin Humorists
enthroned in their stead. Chesterfield, in English, and

Sevigné, in French, were admitted under the head of
Epistles, and Professor Tucker's Essays under the head
of Criticism. Bacon, Locke, Selden, Gibbon, Johnson,
Berkeley, Blair, and Darwin were represented in their
most famous works; Sterne, strange to say, only in a
volume of sermons. Pope,—except in his translation of
Homer's Iliad,—Gray, and other illustrious English
poets, were not represented at all.

From the point of view of the ancient classics, the
library, in its original selections, was of extraordinary
value; its value from a scientific point of view was hardly
less; but from the point of view of English belles-lettres,
it was so starved and spindling as to be undeserving of
praise. There was a moral and a practical explanation
for this disproportion: first, Jefferson seems to have relished
but little the delights of the classics of his native
language; and second,—and this is the more important
reason of the two,—the University's means were so
narrow that he was compelled to restrict his purchases to
the collection of a working library for the professors and
students. He, perhaps, thought that the study of the
ancient classics would ripen the literary taste of the young
men without the need of bringing in the works of the
principal English writers. Had there been, at the start,
a separate chair of history and literature, it is quite possible
that he would have swelled his list with a greater
number of books bearing on the authors of his own
tongue, for such a school, once created, would have required
as many authorities as the School of Latin and
Greek. A supplementary list removed some of the
English deficiencies of the first list, for in it we discover,
not only Roscoe's Leo X, O'Meara's Napoleon, and
Wirt's Patrick Henry, but also Thomson's Seasons,
Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, and Butler's Hudibras; and

in addition, the most famous works of Swift, Molière,
Voltaire, and Franklin.

Thoughtfully and precisely as Jefferson's classification
had been drawn, it was not employed as a guide in the
final arrangement of the library. The one really followed
contained several important modifications; instead
of the titles being distributed under forty-two heads,
they were compressed under twenty-nine,—which was
effected by reducing, under a single head, subjects that
had, at first, been assigned to several. Law was not subdivided
at all, and religious history and ecclesiastical history
were united. Medicine, on the other hand, was
expanded under half a dozen heads. This new classification,
however, was attended with a loss of analytical
lucidity.

The books that were purchased before Jefferson's
death were obtained through the agency of either Francis
Walker Gilmer or William Hilliard, of Boston. A large
proportion arrived at the University in time for his personal
inspection. These were hauled up from Richmond
by wagon under the supervision of W. B. Garth, who, in
March, 1826, delivered seven hundred and thirty-three
volumes in two boxes, and in July, three additional cases.
It is a proof of the closeness of Jefferson's scrutiny, that
he descried a defect in the title of one of the books after
they had been assorted on the shelves in an apartment
of the present Colonnade Club.[20] He had ridden over
from Monticello, and so soon as he entered the room, he
began to take up and look through one volume after another.
After some time thus spent, he called Mr. Wertenbaker

to his side; pointing to a copy of Gibbon's Decline
and Fall, he said, "You should not have accepted
that copy of that book. It should have been returned
at once." "Why, sir?" asked the librarian in surprise.
"It is a very handsome edition." "That may be so,"
replied Jefferson, "but look at the back." An inspection
revealed that the title, instead of being Gibbon's
Roman Empire, as it should have been, was Gibborn's
Roman Empire.

Jefferson had been dead only a week when we discover
Hilliard himself in the library busily assisting Wertenbaker
in opening the boxes which contained the final
instalment of the volumes that had been last bought.
They were found to be in perfect condition, and, in
number and title, in conformity with the invoices.
"The amount furnished for the purchase of the books,"
Hilliard reported to the Faculty, "was altogether inadequate
to the accomplishment of the catalogue made
out." The most expensive works, indeed, had to be
omitted at first because there was only a sum of ten
thousand dollars reserved for the purchase. As the commission
on this amount was too small to assure Hilliard
a satisfactory compensation for his exertions and loss of
time, the Faculty consented to his firm's establishing an
agency in Charlottesville, which was to supply the students
with text-books, and the library with all future additions
to its collection. So great, however, was the
dissatisfaction caused by the failure of the firm to furnish
the German editions needed by some of the classes, and
also by its dilatoriness in general, that the Faculty complained
to the Board of Visitors and urged that New
York booksellers should be employed, as they were in
much more regular and frequent communication with
Europe than those of Boston. The committee reported

in September, 1826, that the present collection was "an
excellent foundation for a public library, especially in
ancient works," but that "it was deficient in modern publications";
and they earnestly recommended that numerous
additions should be made to it in the two departments
of literature and science.

By what means was the number of volumes in the
library gradually increased? In his will, Jefferson bequeathed
to the University all the books that should
belong to him at the time of his death. In spite of the
sale of the choicest volumes to Congress, the residue still
contained works of extraordinary interest and value; but
owing to the debts for which his estate was liable, his
executor, his grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, was
reluctantly compelled to sell this important remainder.
"Feelings of the most affectionate devotion to my grandfather's
memory," he said to the Faculty, "would induce
me as his executor to gratify his wishes upon these points
at all risks but that of injustice to his creditors, and the
fear that his memory might be stained with the reproach
of a failure to comply with any of his engagements. An
assurance is, therefore, given that, when his debts are discharged,
however much his family may be straitened in
their circumstances, no consideration of pecuniary interest
in their individual distress will bar immediate compliance."

The only books that had belonged to Jefferson which
found their way to the shelves of the library were presented
by him during his life-time. These were but four
in number, and were not of uncommon interest beyond
their association with Monticello. The library also
failed to acquire the collection previously the property of
Francis Walker Gilmer. At his executors' request,
these volumes had been inspected and appraised by a

committee of the Faculty, but the Board of Visitors declined
to purchase them for the reason that the funds
at their disposal would not justify it. It is possible
that many of these books were duplicates of some already
in the library's possession, and that few of them were
modern enough to supply that deficiency in works on
science and literature which had already become a ground
of complaint.

The first gift of importance was from Bernard Carter,
in 1826, which consisted of one hundred volumes. In
the course of the next year, Christian Bohn, of Richmond,
presented five hundred more; and about the same year,
Joseph Coolidge, of Boston, eighty-four of a miscellaneous
character. An addition of some value was made
by purchase from Dr. Dunglison.[21] Dunglison, accustomed
to the English university libraries, was acutely impatient
over the absence of new books in the library of
the University of Virginia. "It is impossible for the
professors to keep pace with the advancing state of
science," he wrote Cabell, in January, 1829, "unless the
necessary materials are furnished them, and none have
been received here since the year 1824. For a period, we
may retain a respectable footing, but unless we can obtain
new materials, the period must arise when our capability
of communicating instruction will fall below the
existing state of knowledge." Lomax had already expressed
the same apprehension. "Certain books," he
said to Cocke, "are indispensable to me, and among them
are Wharton's Reports of Cases in the Supreme Court of
the United States, which are not to be found in the
library." "Without these reports," he added, "instruction

upon some of the most important and interesting
subjects must fail."

During the session of 1827–28, there was no lack of
periodicals at least; all the principal American and English
reviews and professional journals were then sent to
the library by Hilliard, Gray, and Company, of Boston,
at an annual cost of over one hundred dollars; but the
subscriptions could not have been renewed, for, in April,
1829, the Faculty adopted a resolution that each member
should order one or more periodicals at his own expense,
to be retained by him for three weeks, and then
deposited in the library for general use. The number
to which the library itself subscribed had fallen from
forty-two to six. Hilliard gave up his agency, and
Wertenbaker suggested that, thereafter, the domestic
journals should be taken through a bookseller at the
University, and the foreign through one with a shop in
a seaport. In 1830, the number of volumes stored in
the library was supposed to be eight thousand. It appears
that, in July of the preceding year, the Board of
Visitors had directed that a large sum standing to the
University's credit in the hands of Baring Brothers, of
London, should, after deductions to meet existing engagements,
be expended in the purchase of new books.
The surplus to be devoted to this end could not have
amounted to much, for, in 1832, the Faculty endeavored
to enlist the powerful influence of Governor Floyd,—
who had shown a friendly interest in the institution,—in
their effort to persuade the General Assembly to make an
annual appropriation for the benefit of the library. The
Board of Visitors had begun, in 1829, to apply a small
sum to its use. This, in that year, was five hundred dollars;
but in 1834–5, it was only three hundred. Money
was now very urgently needed for other purposes.

Heavy rains had fallen in 1834, and so excessive was
the dampness which had followed in the library-room
that it was feared that the entire collection would be
irretrievably damaged. When the librarian, Thomas
Brockenbrough, was sent for by the Faculty, in their
anxiety to stop the progress of the threatened ruin, he
was found to be absent from the University, and a temporary
substitute had to be appointed to take the measures
called for at once. The same dampness had
occurred in 1827; and so great was the apprehension
then of injury to the books stored in the galleries that
they had been removed for the winter.

An addition to the library was made in 1834 by a
friend of Jeremy Bentham, who had, for this purpose,
discriminately picked out the most interesting volumes
among the productions of that philosopher. Two boxes
of books were also presented by the English Government.
To a committee appointed by the Faculty was now referred
the choice of such volumes as the University
could afford to purchase. Bonnycastle was at the head
of this committee in 1836, and his keen critical judgment
in English belles-lettres was shown in his selections,
which comprised such works of established reputation as
Selden's Table Talk, Sir Thomas More's Utopia, De
Tocqueville's America, and Count Hamilton's Memoirs.
Jefferson's principle that the shelves of the library should
not be lumbered with books that were only intended for
amusement, did not appeal to this highly educated English
literary and scientific scholar; and on every occasion
open to him, he continued to increase the miscellaneous
collection by adding to it classical English works that had
found their chief reason for a prolonged popularity, not
in pedagogic utility, but in the gratification of cultivated
tastes. It became customary in time for each professor

to hand in a list of books which he considered desirable,
and from the entire number of these lists, a selection was
made for actual purchase. By this means, the heavy linguistic,
scientific, and professional character of the original
assortment was further diminished, to its great improvement
for the general and casual reader.

The first endowment fund for the library's benefit
had its origin in a provision of Madison's will: he bequeathed
it the sum of fifteen hundred dollars; but with
the restriction that the interest accruing from that amount
should alone be used. He also left it a legacy of about
one thousand volumes out of his own collection. The
Board of Visitors instructed Wertenbaker to send Mrs.
Madison a catalogue, in order that, in picking out these
one thousand volumes, she might be able to avoid the selection
of duplicate copies; but this spirit of helpfulness fell
upon stony ground, for Mrs. Madison not only neglected
to comply with the Board's request at once, but, as we
shall see, deferred all attention to it so long that it was
found necessary to threaten a law suit.

The largest addition to the library made previous to
1842 was embraced in the gift of Christian Bohn, of
Richmond. The books which comprised it included
many volumes that were either duplicate copies or valueless,
for we are told that a committee, headed by Gessner
Harrison, was, for this reason, appointed by the
Board to inspect and assort them with unusual care.
Those decided to be suitable for the library were deposited
on shelves specially reserved for that purpose,
while the rest were packed in boxes and stored away for
future disposition. There were discovered many periodicals
belonging to complete or broken series, and for the
most part unbound. In the course of the following year,
Dr. Joseph Togno, the tutor in the School of Modern

Languages, gave the library a portrait of Cosmo di
Medici; a large portfolio with a handsome engraving
in it; and numerous casts of club-feet,—a present more
appropriate to a collection of anatomical specimens than
to a collection of books, unless, by a stretch of the imagination,
it was supposed to be reminiscent of Byron's deformity.