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The UNIVERSITY of PENNSYLVANIA
LIBRARY CHRONICLE
Volume VI
1938
The University of Pennsylvania Library
Philadelphia, Pa.
CONTENTS
Vol. 6 No. 1 (March)
PAGE
The Retiring President and the New 1
Francis Hopkinson, Musician, Poet and Patriot,
1737-1937. Otto E. Albrecht 3
A Scholar's Library on Aristotle. William N. Bates 16
A Scholar's Progress. E. A. Speiser 19
Vol. 6 Nos. 2-4 (June, October, December)
Building for Larger Service 1
The Dial-Statue of the Shakespeare Garden. Felix E. Schelling 27
Newton on Blackstone 33
Oriental Studies at Pennsylvania. IV. Norman Brown 34
Chief of the English Heroic Romances. Thomas P. Haviland 40
The Stansfield Memorial 49
Address by Felix E. Schelling 50
Address by Henry N. Paul 54
Gift of the French Government. Albert Schinz 65
Other Recent Gifts 69
Illustrations
The Bodleian Library frontispiece, June.
Dial-Statue (Ariel) " October.
Proposed Enlargement of the Shakespeare Garden. p. 30, October.
Courier de I'Amerique frontispiece, December.
INDEX
Vol. 6 No. 1 (March, 1938)
Albrecht, Otto E., Francis Hopkinson, Musician, Poet and Patriot,
1737-1937, 3-15.
Bates, William N., A Scholar's Library on Aristotle, 16-18.
Hopkinson, Francis. Exhibition, 3-15.
Montgomery, James A. Presentation of portrait, 19-23.
Newton, A. Edward. Resignation as president of the Friends, 1.
Penniman, Josiah H., The Retiring President and the New, 1-2.
Speiser, E. A., A Scholar's Progress, 19-23.
Stevenson, John A. President of the Friends, 1.
Vol. 6 Nos. 2-4 (June, October, December, 1938)
Bay, J. Christian, Newton on Blackstone, 33.
Brown, W. Norman, Oriental Studies at Pennsylvania, 34-39.
Building for Larger Service, 1-21.
Haviland, Thomas P., Chief of the English Heroic Romances, 40-45.
Lewis, John Frederick, Jr. (Gift), 69.
Martin, Luther, 3rd (Gift), 69.
Newton, A. Edward, Newton on Blackstone, 33.
Paul, Henry N., Address at presentation of sun-dial, 54-64.
Schelling, Felix E., The Dial-Statue of the Shakespeare Garden, 27-32 ;
Address, 50-53.
Schinz, Albert, Gift of the French Government, 65-69.
Stansfield, V^illiam. The Stansfield Memorial, 27-32, 49-64.
Stotesbury, Mrs. Edward T. (Gift), 69.
mmmmm?^:^'^; ^ ' ''mim ^
The University of Pennsylvania
LIBRARY CHRONICLE
The University of Pennsylvania Library
Philadelphia
Vnr f^ Nn 1 MaRCH. 1938
4
The University of Pennsylvania
LIBRARY CHRONICLE
Issued Four Times a Year
By and For the Friends of the Library
Of the University of Pennsylvania
C. Seymour Thompson, Editor
Vol. 6 No. 1 March, 1938
THE RETIRING PRESIDENT AND THE NEW
With great regret the Friends of the Library received
in December, 1937, the resignation of Dr. A. Edward New-
ton as President of the organization. Dr. Newton had
brought to this office, in which he succeeded the late John
Cadwalader in 1935, his whole-hearted enthusiasm for every-
thing pertaining to books and libraries. Through his active
interest the Friends of the Library enjoyed several rare op-
portunities to see some of the many treasures from the libraries
of Dr. Newton himself and other lovers and collectors of
books, and to hear memorable talks concerning them. The
informal addresses by ElHs Ames Ballard on his KipHng col-
lection and by Dr. Newton on the English Novel and on Blake,
are still recalled with pleasure by members who were present,
as is, also, the exhibit that was held in commemoration of the
printing of the Coverdale Bible. Throughout the three years
of his presidency Dr. Newton gave most generously, both of
money and of time, to further the interests of the Library
and its organization of Friends. We owe him much.
The Executive Committee invited Dr. John A. Stevenson
to become the successor to Dr. Newton, and it is with great
pleasure that we announce his acceptance. Dr. Stevenson,
who Is Vice-President of the Penn Mutual Life Insurance
Company, has long been prominent as an educator and a
bibliophile, as well as in business. He has served as a super-
intendent of schools, as lecturer in education at the University
of Wisconsin, assistant professor of secondary education and
director of the summer session at the University of Illinois,
and professor of education at Carnegie Institute of Tech-
nology. He is the author of several books on education and
on business, and has long been an ardent collector of books.
Dr. Stevenson's active association with the work of the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania began in 1932 when he was appointed
an associate trustee of the University, and since that time he
has served continuously on the trustees' board of teacher
training. A year ago he accepted the chairmanship of the
Insurance division In the Philadelphia Committee of the Uni-
versity's bicentennial organization. To his new office Dr.
Stevenson brings the same enthusiastic interest that has charac-
terized all his connection with the University, and particularly
with the Library and its needs which the "Friends of the
Library" was organized to serve.
J. H. P.
FRANCIS HOPKINSON
MUSICIAN, POET AND PATRIOT
1737-1937
By Dr. Otto E. Albrecht
To celebrate the bicentennial of the birth of Francis
Hopkinson, the first graduate of the University of Pennsyl-
vania, the Library held an exhibition during December of
books and manuscripts which revealed the many-sided activi-
ties of the man who has been called "next to Franklin, the
most versatile American of the eighteenth century." Through
the generous cooperation of Mr. Edward Hopkinson, Jr., a
great-great-grandson, the exhibition included many priceless
manuscripts and documents that have been preserved in the
family, and a large quantity of books and music from the
library of Francis Hopkinson. The widespread interest in the
exhibition caused the time to be twice extended, so that it did
not close until January 21.
Other libraries sent precious manuscripts or rare books,
and the splendid portrait of Hopkinson by Robert E. Pine,
lent by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and hung on
a pillar overlooking the exhibition cases, was a notable ad-
dition to the literary and musical items.
Hopkinson's claim to be the first American composer,
made in his lifetime in the dedication of his Seven Songs, has
been amply substantiated in our own time by the eminent
musicologist, Oscar G. Sonneck. The musical side of Hopkin-
son's genius was very thoroughly represented in the exhibition.
The place of honor was accorded to the manuscript song-book,
lent by the Library of Congress, a collection of songs and
opera arias in Hopkinson's hand, containing six songs of his
own composition. All of the songs in this book seem to have
been written down in 1759-60, and "My Days Have Been So
Wondrous Free," to a poem by Thomas Parnell, is generally
considered to be the earliest composition by a native American
musician. Although the composer published a group of songs
some thirty years later, none of those in this early manuscript
were included, and this first American song, which possesses
considerable charm in addition to its historical importance,
had to wait nearly one hundred and fifty years to appear in
print. The young composer's excellent musical taste is amply
demonstrated by the works he chose to copy into this note-
book. Of the more than one hundred compositions repre-
sented, nearly all are the work of eighteenth-century com-
posers and sixteen are by Handel, the foremost composer
living during Hopkinson's youth. (Hopkinson's ignorance of
Johann Sebastian Bach need occasion no surprise, as the latter
was scarcely known during the second half of the eighteenth
century.) Other important names which figure among the
composers whose work it has been possible to identify are the
English composers Purcell, Boyce, and Dr. Arne, and the
famous Continental musicians Hasse and Pergolesi.
The same composers are found in another manuscript in
Hopkinson's hand in which the youth of eighteen, still an
undergraduate at the College of Philadelphia, wrote down a
number of his favorite operatic arias. The collection is dated
in Hopkinson's youthful hand: 1755. Unfortunately only a
fragment of this book has been preserved, but in it are several
of the songs used in the ambitious performance of Dr. Arne's
Masque of Alfred by the undergraduates during the Christ-
mas holidays in January, 1757. The text by the poet James
Thomson was arranged by Provost William Smith, and the
young Hopkinson, then already a virtuoso harpsichordist,
was active in the arrangement and performance of the music.
Contemporary accounts seem to suggest that he composed one
or two extra numbers, but if he did, no trace of the music has
been discovered. The impression which this student perform-
ance created in colonial Philadelphia could readily be seen
from the extensive account in four numbers of the Pennsyl-
vania Gazette, furnished by the Curtis Collection of Franklin
Imprints in the University Library. Next to them was shown
a contemporary copy of the full score of the masque, given
to the Library many years ago by the late Professor Hugh A.
Clarke.
Another important musical manuscript was a collection
of keyboard music which Hopkinson apparently made while
studying the harpsichord with James Bremner, a Scottish
musician who was long active in Philadelphia. In addition
to compositions by Bremner, there are works, either original
or arranged from orchestral compositions, by the greatest
composers of the century: Handel, Scarlatti, Stamitz, Gemin-
iani, Corelli, Vivaldi and Galuppi.
"Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at grave and gay!
I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play."
This is almost certainly the book that lay on the organ rack
when Hopkinson furnished the music at the several College
Commencement exercises after the organ was installed in the
old College Hall in 1760. This exhibition presented ample
evidence for the claim that no American university in the
eighteenth century enjoyed nearly so much and such good
music as did the University of Pennsylvania, and Francis
Hopkinson was more than anyone else responsible for its
flourishing state in his alma mater.
Despite a very active public life, Hopkinson never gave
up his interest in music. In 1788 he published a set of Seven ^
Songs for the Harpsichord (an eighth song was added after
the title-page was engraved) to poems of his own. In an
interesting dedication to his friend George Washington he
begs the latter's "favourable acceptance" of his work, and
correctly claims "the Credit of being the first Native of the
United States who has produced a Musical Composition."
The exhibition included one of the two extant copies of this
group of songs, and the holograph letter from Washington
acknowledging the dedication. This letter, which reveals an
unfamiliar side of Washington's nature, deserves to be quoted
in full, but I shall content myself with an extract:
"We are told of the amazing powers of Musick in ancient times,
but the stories of its effects are so surprising that we are not obliged to
believe them ... if they could sooth the ferocity of wild beasts — could
draw the trees and the stones after them — and could even charm the
powers of Hell by their Musick, I am sure that your productions would
have had at least enough virtue in them (without the aid of voice or
instrument) to soften the Ice of the Delaware and Potomack. . .
"If you had any doubts about the reception which your work
would meet with — or had the smallest reason to think that you should
need any assistance to defend it — you have not acted with your usual
good judgment in the choice of a Coadjutor. . . I can neither sing
one of the songs, nor raise a single note on any instrument to convince
the unbelieving.
"But I have, however, one argument which will prevail with
persons of true taste (at least in America) — I can tell them that it is
the production of Mr. Hopkinson."
The only other composition of Hopkinson which has
survived is An Ode from Ossian's Poems, published in Balti-
more about 1794, The only known copy of this edition was
lent to the exhibition by the Harvard Musical Association.
However, his interest in church music is attested by the two
rare collections of psalm tunes which he prepared. The first
of these was compiled by Hopkinson in 1763 for Christ
Church, Philadelphia, of which he was a vestryman and for
a time organist. The setting of the twenty-third Psalm is
the same as that bearing his initials in the manuscript song-
book from the Library of Congress, and it is possible that
the collection contains still other settings by him. The fame
of the Christ Church psalm-book seems to have spread to
New York, for a few years later Hopkinson was asked to
prepare a psalm-book in English for the use of the Dutch
Reformed Church in that city. The Consistory informs the
reader that it has become necessary "by Reason of the De-
clension of the Dutch Language" to perform the service in
English. Hopkinson's work consisted chiefly in lengthening
the familiar versions of the Psalms by Brady and Tate to
conform to the longer metre in use in the Dutch tunes. In a
letter to Benjamin Franklin, Hopkinson reports that he has
been paid 145 pounds for his work, and expects to keep it as
a "body reserve" for a possible trip to England.
Hopkinson's inventive gifts led him to experiment with
various means of improving the tone of the harpsichord, and v
during the last seven years of his life he devoted considerable
attention to the problem. On exhibition were the manuscript
copies of four papers read before the American Philosophical
Society explaining his "improved method of quilling the
harpsichord," as well as the papers as published in the Society's
Transactions in 1786. The correspondence between Hopkin-
son and Jefferson is full of references to these inventions,
which the latter tried to introduce for his friend in France and
England. Although the famous harpsichord maker of
London, John Broadwood, bought the rights to the improve-
ments, which a German historian has called "the last glory
of the harpsichord," they failed to achieve their proper im-
portance because of the superiority of the pianoforte, then
beginning to supersede the older instrument.
One of the most interesting sections of the exhibition was
devoted to the volumes of music which once belonged to the
composer and which have been preserved by his descendants.
Here we find nearly all the important composers of the eigh-
teenth century represented in handsomely engraved editions,
and some compositions of which the copy in the Hopkinson
collection seems to be the only one extant. Among the
volumes are the parts for solo strings of some fifty concerti
grossi of Corelli, Vivaldi, Geminiani, and Alberti, tastefully
bound in full calf. These concerti, many of which still figure y
on concert programs and are beginning to be reprinted, were
performed by Hopkinson and his friends (among them
Governor John Penn, who played the violin) both at private
homes and at concerts in the College Hall. Of Handel there
8
has survived in the Hopkinson collection the volume of Songs,
issued in London in 1750 in five parts, and editions of six of
the oratorios in an arrangement for voice, harpsichord, and
violin, published by Harrison about 1785. An evidence of the
esteem in which Hopkinson was held by his musical colleagues
is shown In the Three Rondos for the Piano-forte, dedicated
to him by the composer, William Brown, in 1787. Finally,
an otherwise unknown work of Giles Farnaby which somehow
had come into Hopkinson's possession, was displayed: the
author's manuscript of The Psalmes of David, to fower parts,
for viols and voyce, the first booke Doricke Mottoes, the
second. Divine Canzonets, composed by Giles Farnaby Bach-
ilar of Musicke with a prelud, before the Psalmes, Croma-
ticke. Farnaby was a well known composer of madrigals
and virginal music, but these harmonizations of psalm tunes
are not mentioned by any writers on music of the period.
Although Farnaby is supposed to have died about 1601, the
dedication of the work to Henry King before he became
bishop of Chichester, permits dating the collection between
1625 and 1642.
If Hopkinson is now remembered chiefly as a pioneer
American musician, he had also an enviable reputation as poet
and essayist, and was a satirist of considerable power. The
Library exhibition contained manuscripts or first editions of
nearly all his literary works, and several unpublished works
as well. Among the rare imprints were the unique copies of
two broadsides, owned by the Library Company of Phila-
delphia, of which Hopkinson was once secretary. These two
poems, A Tory Medley and A Psalm of Thanksgiving (for
the Easter service at Christ Church, 1766), were probably
both set to music, but only the poetic text Is extant. His two
Odes for the College Commencement In 1761 and 1762 were
shown (the music to these is also lost), and the text of The
J Temple of Minerva, an "oratorial entertainment" performed
before General Washington and the minister of France In
Philadelphia In 1781. Hopkinson's printed Account of the
Grand Federal Procession, the narrative of the celebration
in Philadelphia on July 4, 1788, of the ratification of the
Federal Constitution, in which ceremony he played an im-
portant part, was placed beside an unpublished and virtually
unknown account of an Imaginary Grand Anti-Federal Pro-
cession, In which he attacked his enemies, the anti-Federalists.
The parade was led by representatives from Rhode Island
and New York, the two states which had not yet ratified the
Constitution. They were followed by a band consisting of
four hurdy-gurdies, two Jew's harps, and a banjo, playing the
"Dead March" from Saul.
Another manuscript in Hopkinson's hand was the record
of his first In a long series of official positions. This was the
Minutes of Conferences held at Easton in August 1761 with
the Chief Sachems and Warriors of the Onandagoes, Oneida's,
Mohickon's, Tutelo's, Cayuga's, Nanticoke's, Delaware's,
Conoy's." Hopklnson was secretary to this conference, and
his impressions were later embodied in his poem The Treaty.
The Library was also able to show the conference minutes
printed that same year as a pamphlet by Franklin. In 1789,
a few years before his death, after Hopklnson had served
for ten years as judge of Admiralty, he published his decisions
in forty-eight cases, together with a discussion of the six cases
which he considered the most Important. Both the manuscript
and the original edition were displayed.
Many of the manuscripts and pamphlets exhibited had
to do with the early years of the College and Academy of
Philadelphia (later the University of Pennsylvania), of
which Hopklnson was the first graduate. Visitors to the
alumni celebration of Franklin's birthday lingered over the
case containing the University's first diploma, granted on May
17, 1757. One of the books from the Hopklnson collection,
a copy of Terence published in Amsterdam in 1658, has a
note which seems to indicate that the thirteen-year-old Francis
10
was already a student at the Academy in 1751. The book
was presented to Hopkinson on September 15 of that year
by David Martin, first rector of the Academy and its pro-
fessor of Latin, who signed himself "his Master." At any
rate Hopkinson was far enough advanced in his studies by
July of 1753 to prepare a "Declamation to be delivered at
special exercises in honor of the granting of a charter to the
Academy by the proprietaries of Pennsylvania." His youth-
ful effusion was chosen as one of the four best to be sent to
the proprietaries. The unpublished manuscript of these four
declamations was lent by the Historical Society of Pennsyl-
vania.
Five years after his graduation from the College, Hop-
kinson published Science, a poem, which he dedicated to the
trustees and in which he described the various courses of study
and seemed to foretell the removal of the University to the
banks of the Schuylkill a century later. The poem was pirated
by Andrew Steuart, a Philadelphia printer, who at about the
same time published a Latin grammar for the use of the
students of the College. Hopkinson took his revenge by
printing anonymously a pamphlet entitled Errata, or the Art
of Printing Incorrectly, in which he gives a list of "151
Capital Blunders" in Steuart's Grammar, and suggests that
"this our Work may well be called a Key to the said book,
without which it must remain unintelligible." Steuart promptly
countered with another anonymous pamphlet. The Ass in the
Lyon's Skin, luckily discovered by his Braying, in which he
minimizes the importance of his typographical errors: "But
as these Errors consist only in misplaced Letters, or Commas,
and not always that neither, 'tis admireable to hear a HUE
and CRY as if the Grammar was entirely murdered. But
have a little Patience, and examine candidly, and let us see if
this Examiner be not rather a Trifler, or an insignificant
Pedant."
11
Prize medals at the University are a feature of long
standing, going back at least to 1766. In that year John
Sargent, a London merchant and friend of Franklin, offered
a medal in English, which was won by Dr. John Morgan,
Hopkinson's brother-in-law and founder of the Medical
School of the College. Provost Smith, in a note to the pub-
lished edition of four of the dissertations, explains that Hop-
kinson did not intend to compete for the medal and merely
dashed off his composition in a few hours while the formal
entries were being judged. The publication of the four dis-
sertations was at the request of Hopkinson's friends, and the
volume contains an imposing list of subscribers. There is a
certain irony in the subject so convincingly expounded by the
future signer of the Declaration of Independence: The
Reciprocal Advantages of a Perpetual Union between Great
Britain and Her American Colonies.
In 1789 a violent quarrel arose between two professors
of anatomy in the Medical School, Dr. William Shippen and
Dr. John Foulke. As was the custom in those days, it was
carried on in the public prints, until Hopkinson's satirical pen
put an end to it with an anonymous pamphlet called An Ora-
tion Which Might Have Been Delivered to the Students in
Anatomy in the Late Rupture between the Two Schools in
This City. The poet calls upon the followers of the two
professors to put down their dissecting knives, since their
communal efforts in exhuming cadavers in the negro burying-
ground should promote a more fraternal spirit.
Hopkinson was the intimate friend of the greatest men ^
of his time, and the manuscript letters from Washington, ^
Jefferson, Franklin, Robert Morris, Benjamin West and
others lent by Mr. Edward Hopkinson, Jr., would have made
a fascinating exhibition in themselves. Besides Washington's
acknowledgment of Hopkinson's songs, there was shown the
famous series of letters between Washington, Hopkinson,
and the latter's brother-in-law, Duche. Jacob Duche had also
12
been a member of the first graduating class of the College and
the two were intimate friends when Duche married Francis'
sister EHzabeth. As rector of Christ Church and St. Peter's,
Duche at first espoused the Colonial cause, but in the fall of
1777 began to lose hope, and wrote to Washington urging
him to "represent to Congress the indispensible Necessity of
recalling the hasty and ill-advised declaration of Indepen-
dency." Washington turned the letter over to Congress and
the scandal became public property. Hopkinson immediately
wrote to Duche a long letter filled with "Grief and Consterna-
tion," and refuted all his claims. At the same time he wrote
to Washington, enclosing the letter to Duche and asking that
it be forwarded to him, since Philadelphia was then occupied
by General Howe and Hopkinson could not get his letter
through the lines from his residence in Bordentown. Wash-
ington replied, explaining why he laid the letter before
Congress. Some months later, Washington returned Hop-
kinson's letter to Duche to the writer, having been unable to
have it delivered; Duche had meantime sailed for England.
Jefferson and Hopkinson were naturally drawn to each
other by their common versatility, and their correspondence
stretches over the last eight years of the latter's life. Some-
thing of the great variety of their interests was to be seen
from the four Jefferson letters in the exhibition. In 1784 he
writes from Annapolis about the menace of aviation to
military defenses and to tariffs: "What think you of these
ballons? They really begin to assume a serious face. . . Their
discovery seems to threaten the prostration of fortified works
unless they can be closed above, the destruction of fleets and
what not. The French may now run over their laces, wines
&c to England duty free." A few months later he observes
"should we introduce so heterodox a facility as the decimal
arithmetic, we should all of us soon forget how to cypher."
But it is in the letters from Paris, where he succeeded Franklin
as our minister, that the wide range of interests of the two
/
13
men is revealed. Writing on January 13, 1785 he discusses
Hopkinson's improvements in the harpsichord, the threat of
war in Europe, the crossing of the Channel in a balloon, the
periodical variations of light in eta of Antinuous, animal
magnetism, the "dearth of American intelligence" in Paris,
and a portrait of Washington. A year later he talks of an
invention to determine the true time of musical movements,
the use of "the metal called platina" in experiments v^ith the
specula of telescopes, the "different and uncombined mag-
nifying powers" of certain natural crystals, and asks Hopkin-
son to obtain for Buffon, the distinguished French scientist, a
pair of pheasants and two or three hundred "paccan nuts from
the Western country" (meaning Pittsburgh) to add to the
cabinet du roi.
In 1789 Hopkinson, who had been judge in the Court
of Admiralty for ten years, hoped to have a post in the new
judiciary establishment which Congress was discussing during
the summer. Two passages in a letter from Robert Morris
seem strikingly modern, and suggest that some Congressional
habits were formed in the very earliest years of its existence:
"The House of Representatives seem as if they were afraid
to attack the bill for establishing the Courts, like the Boys
with hard tasks they leave the Worst to the last, but it must
soon come on. They want to adjourn but cannot untill all
these Bills are enacted into Laws. They are now playing
with Amendments, but if they make one truly so, I'll hang.
Poor Madison got so cursedly frightened in Virginia, that I
believe he had dreamed of amendments ever since." And as
a postscript, an equally weighty matter: "I wish you would
find out from your son Jos. wether my Son Will, reads and
studies Law in reality, or in appearances only."
Within six weeks of Morris's letter Hopkinson received
his commission as judge in the United States District Court.
The commission and the letter from Washington which ac-
companied it were both shown in the exhibition. The Presi-
14
dent declared: "In my nomination of Persons to fill offices in
the Judicial Department, I have been guided by the importance
of the object — considering it as of the first magnitude, and
as the Pillar upon which our political fabric must rest. I have
endeavored to bring into the offices of its administration such
Characters as will give stability and dignity to our national
Government." Other documents shown, relating to Hop-
kinson's official career, were his admission to practice before
the "Supream Court," the certification of his oath of allegiance
to the Continental cause while he was serving as one of the
Commissioners of the Navy Board, and the resolution of the
Continental Congress in 1778 appointing him Treasurer of
Loans, at a salary of two thousand dollars a year.
A description of the exhibition would not be complete
without some mention of a few of the books from Hopkinson's
large library, now in the possession of his family and lent by
the present owner, Mr. Edward Hopkinson, Jr. Most hand-
some of these was the quarto Vergil presented to Francis
Hopkinson in 1762 by Benjamin Franklin, the first book
printed by John Baskerville (Birmingham, 1757), one of the
greatest printers of modern times. Baskerville was a friend
of Franklin, and in one of his periods of discouragement, once
asked him if he could find a purchaser in France for his print-
ing plant.
A copy of the Discourses on Public Occasions in America
by Provost William Smith, the gift of the author to^Hopkin-
son in 1762, has had an interesting history. In 1776 the Hes-
sians captured Bordentown, New Jersey, where Hopkinson
was then living. Ewald, the captain of the troops, took this
book from Hopkinson's library and inscribed the fact on the
title-page. On the book-plate Ewald added the observation
that he had met the author of the book at his country-seat
near Philadelphia. He added: "This man (Hopkinson) was
one of their greatest rebels, nevertheless if I am to judge
from the library and mechanical and mathematical instruments
15
which I found, he must have been a very learned man." The
book later was returned to Hopkinson in Philadelphia, when
he recorded the fact together with a translation of Ewald's
observations. The Latin inscription on the title-page "Jure
donationis. Cuester (Chester?) 1778" has not been satis-
factorily explained.
Thomas Parnell's Poems on several occasions (Glasgow,
1748) was the source from which the young musician owner
took the words of a "Song" (in later editions of Parnell's
poems called Love and Innocence) now recognized as the
earliest American musical composition. My Days Have Been
So fFondrous Free. The copy of Samuel Butler's Hudibras
(London, 1732) was given Hopkinson by Duche in 1757, the
year in which both young men were graduated from the Col-
lege and Academy in its first class. It is notable for the series
of illustrations by Hogarth, the earliest important work of
the great painter and engraver. Hopkinson also owned
Hogarth's Analysis of Beauty (London, 1753), and had re-
quested Franklin while in London to procure other works for
him. Other familiar works in his library were Avison's Essay
on Musical Expression (London, 1753), Burton's Anatomy
of Melancholy (London, 1676), and Locke's Essay on
Human Understanding (London, 1741), the latter bearing
on its title-page the autographs of six successive generations of
Hopkinsons, from Thomas Hopkinson, father of Francis, and
one of the original trustees of the Academy, including Francis'
son Joseph, the composer of "Hail, Columbia," down to the
present owner, Mr. Edward Hopkinson, Jr.
A SCHOLAR'S LIBRARY ON ARISTOTLE
By Dr. William N. Bates
It is probably not generally known outside of the Greek
Department that that devoted friend of the University Li-
brary, Dr. Charles W. Burr, has for several years past been
quietly enlarging the number of Its books on Aristotle. And
now he has added to his previous gifts a collection of nearly
five hundred special pamphlets or monographs dealing with
various phases of the great thinker's work. Aristotle, It should
be remembered, took all knowledge for his field and made
lasting contributions to every part of it. He was the creator
of logic and of the biological sciences. In fact about half of
his extant writings are devoted to biology and the natural
sciences. His work on government Is so Important that
specialists in that subject must still consult it; and in philos-
ophy and in literary history his name continues to be pre-
eminent. In view of this It is not surprising that the bibliog-
raphy of Aristotle should be something tremendous.
The writings about Aristotle fall Into two main groups.
First there are those which have to do with the establishing
of a correct text. This is something more difficult than might
at first sight be Imagined, as will be presently shown. Second
are the works interpreting and expounding ^he text. Both
classes of works call for a thorough knowledge of the author,
which cannot be obtained from casual reading. It will be
remembered that in late Roman times a thorough commentary
on a single treatise of Aristotle was regarded as a sufficient
achievement for one lifetime.
But why, it may be asked, does the text of Aristotle
furnish particular difficulty? There are several reasons.
First there is the condensed character of his expression. He
takes much for granted. Second Is the fact that with one
exception his extant works were not Intended by him for
publication In their present form. And third Is that strange
17
stroke of fortune which befell his manuscripts after his death.
The last of these reasons calls for explanation and for it we
are indebted to the geographer Strabo. He says that after
the death of Aristotle his library went to Theophrastus who
succeeded him as head of the Peripatetic school. When
Theophrastus died thirty-five years later he left the library to
a pupil named Neleus who took it to Scepsis in the Troad.
At this time the kings of Pergamum were seizing all the books
they could lay hands on for their library, and Neleus, afraid
of losing the manuscripts of Aristotle, hid them in an under-
ground vault. Here they remained about one hundred and
fifty years, when they were taken out and sold to Apellicon, a
wealthy Peripatetic who lived at Athens. They had been more
or less damaged by dampness and worms. In 86 B. C. Sulla
captured Athens and carried the library of Apellicon to Rome.
Here Tyrannion, the learned friend of Cicero, got permission
to arrange the manuscripts of Aristotle, and Andronicus of
Rhodes put the different treatises under proper headings and
edited them. In this way the writings of Aristotle were made
known to the world.
Astonishing as this story is, there is every indication that
it is true. It accounts for many errors in the text and for the
dislocation of certain passages. Part of the work of modern
scholars on Aristotle consists in trying to put back into their
proper context passages which have got out of place, and of
filling such short lacunae as may have been occasioned by the
loss of a word or two here and there. But it must not be
supposed that all difficulties can be cured in this way. Some
breaks are too serious for that.
The second difficulty consists in the nature of the writings
themselves. Cicero speaks of the golden stream of Aristotle's
prose — an expression which does not apply at all to the con-
densed and crabbed style of Aristotle. In fact it was not until
the publication in 1891 of the papyrus containing his Consti-
tution of Athens that Cicero's words could be understood.
18
This work is written in smooth and easy Greek in absolute
contrast to the other writings of Aristotle. The difference is
probably to be explained in this way. Our Aristotle consists
of his lecture notes used with his advanced students and were
not intended for publication. They were his esoteric works
and contained his great contributions to human knowledge.
Diogenes Laertius publishes a list of 146 works of Aristotle,
none of which exactly corresponds in title with the works
which we have, except the Constitution of Athens just men-
tioned. The list of Diogenes probably gives the titles of his
works in the Alexandrian Library, that is, of his popular or
exoteric works. And here must be recorded a most ironical
turn of fate. The great scholars of Alexandria, who made
a more intensive study of all Greek writers than has ever since
been made, or would be possible in modern times, knew the
greatest of Greek thinkers only by his popular works.
From what I have said it will be clear that there is good
reason for the numerous books, monographs, dissertations and
pamphlets published about Aristotle. The collection presented
to the Library by Dr. Burr consists for the most part of
doctoral dissertations, university programs, and other pam-
phlets dealing with special topics. Such publications are often
very hard to obtain, but they are invaluable for research work
on Aristotle. About one-fourth of them have to do with
philosophy, that is with the Ethics, the Metaphysics, etc.; 72
are concerned with the Poetics, the work in which I am par-
ticularly interested; 58 treat of the Politics; while the others
are scattered over the whole Aristotelian field. It is strange
that but 16 have to do specifically with the biological treatises.
Dr. Burr's gift is more than a casual gift to the Univer-
sity Library. It supplements his many previous gifts, but,
more than that, it means that the University is systematically
accumulating a scholar's library in a special field, which will
be of the greatest service to students of Aristotle wherever
they may be working.
A SCHOLAR'S PROGRESS
By Dr. E. a. Speiser
[Read at a meeting held at the Library on Alumni Day, January 22, 1938,
on the presentation to the University of a portrait of Dr. James A. Montgomery.]
The wise Ahiqar, whose sayings were justly celebrated
throughout the ancient Near East, left us in his rich collection
of proverbs this troublesome couplet: "I have borne sand
and carried salt, but I have never found a thing more dif-
ficult than . . " — and here the text breaks off. Later gen-
erations sought to supply the missing phrase, each according
to its own tastes and needs. One doleful editor of pre-
Christian date conjectured "mother-in-law." We need not
follow the disappointed writer in this reading. It seems more
appropriate, at least for our present purposes, to assume that
Ahiqar never intended to complete this couplet. It was the
better part of wisdom to leave it unfinished and thus make it
applicable to all times. For all we know, the Aramaean sage
may have foreseen this very occasion, when a Professor of
Hebrew and Aramaic would be honored in his own home
town, by his own colleagues, pupils, and friends. And to do
this adequately is surely more difficult than bearing sand and
carrying salt.
I am deeply grateful that it is not my task to speak of
Dr. Montgomery's personal qualities. I simply could not do
it. Nor is it a question of evaluating definitively his con-
tributions as a scholar, primarily because his work is as yet
far from completed. His magnum opus, the Commentary on
Kings, is still, after nearly a decade of intensive work on it,
in the process of preparation. What I wish to do at present
is to give some idea of the nature and extent of his contribu-
tions, looking from the outside, so to speak, as a co-worker
in the same general field, and from the inside, as a former
20
student and as one who in many important respects hopes
always to remain his pupil.
Dr. Montgomery is not to be grouped with those writers
who wield a facile pen. This is most fortunate. For, in the
first place, his style does not suffer from that monotony which
is so often the corollary of easy writing. His sentences have
depth and allusiveness and are full of nuances. In addition,
and this is more important in an objective scholarly appraisal,
his work has that penetration which marks it off instantly
from ephemeral contributions. Yet, despite a most painstak-
ing attention to detail, the scope of the field which he has
made his own is amazingly broad. He began with an ex-
haustive study of the Samaritans, a work now out of print,
but still the standard authority on the subject after more than
thirty years. There followed a weighty tome on Aramaic
Incantation Texts from Nippur, diflicult and extremely per-
sonal inscriptions in faded ink on drab bowls, full of folklore
and primitive touches. It was a pioneering effort not only in
linguistics but also in applied psychology. To balance the
chiaroscuro of these incantations. Dr. Montgomery next gave
us a volume on the History of Yaball^ia III and of his Vicar
Bar Sauma, which appeared in the series Records of Civiliza-
tion. It is the story of the first Chinese to visit Europe, in
the thirteenth century A.D., recovered from its Syriac guise, a
charming sidelight on the times of Marco Polo, with the
magic names of Jenhiz Khan and Kublai Khan and Hulagu
enhancing the exotic flavor of the book. Almost simultaneous-
ly there appeared the truly monumental commentary on the
book of Daniel, in which the scholar did much more than
merely to justify his title of Professor of Hebrew and
Aramaic, the two languages employed in the book; it is a
work combining infinite patience with encyclopaedic knowl-
edge lightly borne, and urbane criticism with original points
of view. Then came a book on Arabia and the Bible, the
result of Haskell lectures delivered at Oberlin, the first com-
21
prehensive study of the kind in any language. All these con-
tributions shed new light on old problems. But they do not
cover, by any means, Dr. Montgomery's wide range of in-
terests. A few years ago there were discovered at Ras Shamra,
in North Syria, numerous clay tablets written in a new script
and representing a syncretistic civilization hitherto unknown.
Dr. Montgomery was among the first to apply himself to the
interpretation of these texts, which now constitute one of the
most significant finds that the Near East has yet yielded. In
a short time his study of the material had progressed so far as
to enable him to publish, in collaboration with his pupil, Dr.
Zellig Harris, a book on The Ras Shamra Mythological Texts,
containing a comprehensive grammar, chrestomathy, and
glossary of the new documents.
These are all major works. His monographs and articles
are much too numerous for a rapid survey. It may be added
that he has turned some of the most effective passages in
Isaiah into graceful English verse and that he has made valu-
able contributions to the problem of the original language of
the gospels. Nor is this all. He found time to become inti-
mate with the argot of the French underworld, as reflected
in Les Miserables, tracing some of the colloquialisms of
Marseilles to Levantine and Assyrian sources. As a diversion
he reads Arabic novels. Perhaps there is a good reason for
the choice of language in this case. For the contents of the
novels seem to render them unfit to be left lying around in a
good Germantown home. One of the books, as I discovered
recently to my amazement, had much to do with six-shooters,
and such weapons, even in an Arabic context, betray Dr.
Montgomery's fondness for dangerous, if not subversive,
literature.
It can be seen readily that Dr. Montgomery's publica-
tions, diversified as they may be In character, yield a rich and
harmonious pattern when regarded as a whole. They testify
to broad and generous Interests, ranging as they do from the
haunts of Jenghiz Khan to the port on the Syrian coast where
22
Anat, the Lady of the Sea, watched over Mycenaean and
Phoenician sailors. And even as his interests are not bounded
by narrow channels, so is his influence not limited to his city
and his country. A few years ago he was made member of
an exclusive British society of scholars. To me, one personal
experience emphasizes beyond anything else his international
reputation. It was towards the end of one summer in the
late 'twenties that I stopped in Jerusalem on my way home
from Iraq. When in Jerusalem, I never fail to visit Pere
Vincent, the well-known authority on the archaeology of
Palestine. I paid my respects also that summer. The day
before, Palestine had been shaken up by an earthquake of
considerable proportions. It was the sole topic of conversa-
tion. But when I called on Pere Vincent, he seemed to be
blissfully unaware of such trifles as earthquakes. He had just
finished reading Dr. Montgomery's Daniel, all 488 pages of
it, and could not be bothered with anything else. The warmth,
the joy, with which that great Dominican scholar spoke of
this Biblical commentary gave me a thrill which I can never
forget. The incident showed that ^r. Montgomery had done
much not merely to maintain but also to add notably to the
reputation which the Group of Oriental Studies of the Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania has long enjoyed abroad.
In a similar light we may view the request of an English
journal published in Shanghai for permission to reprint a talk
given by Dr. Montgomery before a small gathering in Wilkes-
Barre. And there are numerous other instances of his in-
fluence in various quarters. The Jewish Institute of Religion
gave him an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters, while the
Moslem JForld, a prominent American publication dealing
with Islam, wishes to honor him by publishing his likeness
with that of a very few others who have been most active
in the promotion of Arabic studies in this country.
His effect as teacher is plain to those who have been
privileged to work with him. He has been at all times a
23
sensitive guide to the intricacies of the Semitic languages.
But this is perhaps the least important of his contributions as
teacher. Far more valuable is the stimulus contained in his
interests and writings, his philosophy of humanities in general
and of Oriental studies in particular. The burden of that
philosophy is the underlying unity of human learning. Linguis-
tic work is but the preliminary step to a great goal: the under-
standing of ancient civilizations through a knowledge of their
historical, political, religious, legal, and artistic aspects, and
the appreciation of modern cultures through an examination
of their roots in antiquity. And this is a philosophy which
could be made a fit motto for all humanities.
Now we have gathered to witness the presentation of
Dr. Montgomery's portrait to the University. There are
many and ample reasons for this action. Personally, I would
single out this one : Dr. Montgomery is a genuinely humble
and modest man. He does not think in terms of what he
has accomplished. But we, his colleagues and pupils and
friends, his University, wish to think in these terms. We
know why we do so and want him to be reminded, want him
not to have a chance to forget, that we are happy and proud
to think in these terms.
■X.
<
<
The UNIVERSITY of PENNSYLVANIA
LIBRARY CHRONICLE
Issued four times a year
by and for the Friends
of the Library of the
University
C. Seymour Thompson Editor
BUILDING FOR LARGER SERVICE
cA Brief relation of the most remark-
able Events in the firft Five Years
of the Society call'd FrIENDS of
the Library.
1 o which is added some Account of the present
State of the Library; as alfo of new
and bigger Flans now being form'd in
connection with the Bicenten-
nial of the Univerfity of
Pennsylvania,
Vol 6 No 2 June 1938
The frontispiece in this
issue is a reproduction of
hand colored etching of
The Bodleian Library
in Ackermann's History of
the University of Oxford.
-^
BUILDING FOR LARGER SERVICE
Friends of The Library
"A good store of friends" was the thing most sought
for the Hbrary of Oxford University by its founder,
Sir Thomas Bodley. "Reformers" of the mid-six-
teenth century had swept away the choice hbrary of
an earlier benefactor, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester;
but before the century had ended Sir Thomas had
grown to manhood, and after a long career as courtier,
diplomat, and scholar, was seeking opportunity for
further service. The "Public Library" of his Uni-
versity still "laye ruined and wast," and he resolved
to restore it to the use of students; "to make it fitte,
and handsome with seates, and shelfes, and deskes,
and all that may be needfull, to stirre up other mens
benevolence, to helpe to furnish it with bookes," The
success of his undertaking was commensurate with his
zeal and with his own liberality. The library of Ox-
ford University is still, and always will be, known as
The Bodleian; its chief administrative officer is still,
and always will be, "Bodley's Librarian,"
Through more than three centuries the Bodleian
was richly blessed by the benefactions of many friends.
In 1925 it occurred to some of these "to act upon our
founder's advice," in the words of Bodley's present
Librarian, "and organize good will." A society was
formed, the Friends of the Bodleian, "with the object
of providing by means of annual subscriptions an in-
come for the purchase of rare and desirable books and
manuscripts, for the acquisition of which the statutable
funds of the Library are insufficient."
At the University of Pennsylvania the Library, like
the Bodleian and all other great libraries, has always
been dependent in large measure upon the benefactions
of its friends. No university can appropriate regular-
ly from its general funds enough money to build up
and maintain an adequate library. An infinitesimal
part of today's need was recognized in 1749, and a
crude precedent for the Friends of the Library was
established, when it was announced that donations
would be "cheerfully and thankfully accepted" for the
purpose of providing "Books of general Use, that may
be too expensive for each Scholar; Maps, Draughts,
and other Things generally necessary for the Improve-
ment of the Youth." And in February, 1933, we
followed Oxford's example when a group of twenty-
four men met at the invitation of Provost Penniman,
and organized the Friends of the Library of the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania.
The purposes of the Friends of the Library, as set
forth in their constitution, are "to foster an interest
in books; to keep the members informed in regard to
the University of Pennsylvania Library, its collections
and its needs; to establish, by voluntary annual con-
tributions, a fund to be devoted to the purchase of
books and to such other needs as the officers may from
time to time feel important from the standpoint of
the permanent value of the Library, special emphasis
being given to expenditures for such purposes as would
not normally be provided for by the Library's current
funds."
This idea, which traces its real origin back to the
scholarly Sir Thomas, has been of great value to the
University, not only in the gifts which members of the
Friends have generously made, but through a gradual
widening of the Library's circle of friends, and by
intensifying their interest in its welfare. It now seems
appropriate that in this issue of the Library Chronicle
the activities of the first five years of the organization
should be viewed in perspective; and because of the
far-reaching plan for further development of the
Library's service, which is a part of the University's
Bicentennial program, the occasion is equally suited
to consideration of the expanding opportunities of the
Library and of the Friends.
In meeting the larger responsibilities of the future
the Library will need, more than ever before, "a good
store of friends." An earnest invitation is therefore
extended to all readers of this issue of the Chronicle
to join the Friends of the Library, if they are not now
members, and thus have an active part in promoting
the Library's success. To our present members we
say: We thank you for the assistance and encourage-
ment you have given us; you have inspired us to hope
and plan for a larger and better future.
Membership in the Friends, on an annual basis, is
open to everyone who contributes to the organization
the sum of five dollars or more; or books suitable for
a university library, of five dollars or more in value.
A payment of one hundred dollars entitles to Life
Membership.
The society's first president was the late John Cad-
walader. Dr. A. Edward Newton was elected to the
office in 1935, after the death of Mr. Cadwalader,
and served until the end of the year 1937. He was
succeeded by Dr. John A. Stevenson, whose selection
was announced in the last issue of the Chronicle.
Our Meetings
During the last five years a number of interesting
meetings have been held, each of which was featured
by the participation of a speaker distinguished in some
field of literature. These meetings, and the exhibits
that have been displayed in connection with them, have
been informative and enjoyable occasions for all who
attended, and have helped to promote an interest in
books and to foster a closer relationship between book-
lovers and the Library of the University.
One memorable occasion was a meeting in Sep-
tember, 1934, when we had the unusual opportunity
of hearing from Bodley's Librarian himself. Dr. H.
H. E. Craster, of the past and present of the world-
renowned institution, of its future plans, and of the
origin and activities of our prototype, the Friends of
the Bodleian. Dr. Craster's talk was followed by some
highly entertaining remarks from Dr. William Pepper,
who told of the recent acquisition for the Library,
through the contributions of a number of Friends, of
an unpublished poem by Benjamin Franklin, an "Elegy
on my Sister Franklin."
This poem, neatly written on four pages of note-
paper, was presumably composed by Franklin before
he was sixteen, for it seems certain that it antedated
his humorous "Receipt to make a New England Fun-
eral Elegy" which he published at that age. It prob-
ably was written when he was about twelve or thirteen,
when, as the Autobiography tells us, he "took a fancy
to poetry, and made some little pieces." Dr. Pepper
read the famous "Receipt," and followed this with
enough of the Elegy to illustrate its style, which was
probably the inspiration, a few years later, for the
"Receipt." .
Warm from my Breast surcharg'd with Grief & Woe,
These melancholy strains spontaneous flow
— SO the effusion begins. The elegy was published in
facsimile in the Library Chronicle of October, 1934,
and Dr. Craster's address on the Bodleian appeared
in March, 1935.
Of equal interest was a delightful address by Dr.
A. S. W. Rosenbach, at another meeting, on Early
American Children's Books. Dr. Rosenbach's com-
ments concerning the reading provided for children
in colonial days and later, particularly in Puritan New
England, were accompanied by a most effective read-
ing of excerpts from some of the "classics" among the
books of this type.
Rare Americana was the subject of an interesting
address, illustrated by lantern slides, given by Mr.
Henry Oliver Evans, of Pittsburgh. Speaking of
"Three Notable Collectors of Americana" (John
Carter Brown, Henry E. Huntington, and William
L. Clements), Mr. Evans showed views of the present
homes of the libraries founded by these great and
public-spirited collectors, and of the title-pages of many
of the rare items.
At a meeting held in the Furness Memorial Dr.
Felix E. Schelling talked on Shakespeare and Biog-
raphy, pointing out in entertaining style the difficulties
that beset the writer who attempts to "perpetrate a
full-length Life of William Shakespeare." Dr. Schel-
ling's address was published in full in the Library
Chronicle of December, 1934. At the same meeting
Dr. John C. Mendenhall spoke briefly of the remark-
ably fine collection of eighteenth-century English fic-
tion, composed chiefly of epistolary novels, which had
been acquired by the late Godfrey F. Singer and pre-
sented to the Library by his parents. The collection
was open to view for the first time, in the enclosed
alcove which had been provided for it in the Reading
Room.
Another meeting gave the members of the Friends
opportunity to view an exhibition of some forty or
fifty treasures from the library of Dr. Newton, first
editions of masterpieces of fiction, from the first
English translation of Don Quixote in 1612 to Huckle-
berry Finn in the first English and the first American
edition. Here were a precious "first" of Pamela; of
Clarissa and Tom Jones and Tristram Shandy ; of the
first American novel. Power of Sympathy ; of Pickwick
Papers in the original parts, and many others. The
books had been lent by Dr. Newton to illustrate the
informal talk which he gave at this meeting on books
which are landmarks in the development of the English
novel.
A similar privilege was enjoyed when another
"capacity audience" came to hear Mr. Ellis Ames
Ballard talk, informally and delightfully, concerning
Kipling. The exhibition cases were filled, on this oc-
8
casion, with treasures lent by Mr. Ballard from his
unrivaled Kipling collection. The display included
Kipling's own copy of his first book, Schoolboy Lyrics,
privately printed by his father before Kipling was six-
teen; one of five known copies of The Smith Admin-
istration, which was suppressed by Kipling; and the
only known copy of another suppressed volume, The
City of Dreadful Night and Other Sketches.
An evening which will not be forgotten by any of
the large audience present was devoted to William
Blake. For this occasion Dr. Newton had lent many
of the most choice items from his Blake collection, and
Dr. Rosenbach and Mr. Lessing J. Rosenwald had
lent many books and paintings from theirs. Probably
never before had Philadelphia had opportunity to see
so comprehensive and so valuable a display of Blake's
work; and the privilege was made many times greater
by the pleasure of hearing Dr. Newton talk — inform-
ally, with a spontaneity born of his enthusiasm and
appreciative knowledge — of Blake, "perhaps the most
imaginative artist" that England has produced; the
man who, in his own words, was "really drunk with
intellectual vision." Most appropriately, everyone
felt. Dr. Newton closed his talk with a quotation from
Blake's Jerusalem:
I Lhave given J j'ou the end of a golden string;
Only wind it into a ball,
It will lead you in at Heaven's gate,
Built in Jerusalem's wall.
In addition to the exhibits prepared in connection
with these meetings, the Library has had numerous
other displays of interesting and valuable books. Most
notable of these was the Francis Hopkinson exhibit
of last December, arranged with the co-operation of
Mr. Edward Hopkinson, Jr., the Library of Congress,
and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. This was
fully described in the Library Chronicle of March,
1938, by Dr. Otto E. Albrecht, who had kindly made
all arrangements for procuring and arranging the
books, manuscripts, and portraits pertaining to the
work of the University's first graduate.
Plans for the future contemplate an increasing num-
ber of interesting meetings, which should be a natural
rendezvous for book-lovers. While the future pro-
grams will depend on the enthusiasm of the members
themselves, we hope to have not only formal meetings,
with eminent speakers, but informal gatherings which
may be in the form of "experience meetings," where
members may have an opportunity to tell of the
romance relating to the acquisition of some of the
interesting books that they own.
The Chronicle
All members of the Friends receive the Library
Chronicle, which has been published quarterly since
the organization of the society. In this are given
notes concerning activities of the Library and some of
the more Important books recently acquired by pur-
chase or gift, and articles on the Library's rich re-
sources in various fields, written by specialists in these
subjects. Among the treasures which have been thus
described are the Henry C. Lea Library of Medieval
History; the Horace Howard Furness Memorial; the
Spanish and Italian collections, which have been ac-
quired through the generosity of Francis Campbell
10
Macaulay and of Mrs. Sabin W. Colton, Jr.; the
Edgar Fahs Smith Memorial Library on the History
of Chemistry, given and endowed by Mrs. Smith; the
Singer Memorial; the collection of 100 volumes given
by Louis XVI in 1784; and some notable volumes of
eighteenth-century music.
The Library of the University is far richer in its
resources than is realized by many of our friends, and
through the Chronicle we are endeavoring to make
our possessions better known. Now in its sixth volume,
this appears for the first time, in this issue, in a new
and, we hope, more pleasing format. The many ex-
pressions of appreciation that have been received en-
courage us to think that the publication has been use-
ful, and we hope to enlarge and improve it as rapidly
as conditions permit. With sufficient aid from the
Friends, it can be made a publication of much interest
to book-lovers and of bibliographical value.
Gifts Received
Through the gifts that our members have made our
collections have been very greatly enriched by the ad-
dition of many costly books which we could not other-
wise have procured.
Mention has already been made of Franklin's
"Elegy," which was purchased with money contributed
for the purpose by thirty-two members. We have also
referred above to the extremely valuable collection of
eighteenth-century English fiction, containing more
than 1500 volumes, which was presented in 1934 by
Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Singer. This collection had been
formed by their son, Godfrey F. Singer, a member of
11
the English Department of the faculty, a young scholar
of unusual attainments and of great promise, and at
the time of his death secretary of the Friends of the
Library. The books which he had so lovingly and so
wisely collected are now most fittingly known as the
Godfrey F. Singer Memorial. The collection was
described by Dr. John C. Mendenhall in the Chronicle
of June, 1934. Since its installation in the room pro-
vided for it, liberal gifts of money for its enlargement
have been made by Dr. Singer's parents.
Most grateful acknowledgment is made to Dr.
Charles W. Burr, who was very largely instrumental
in bringing about the organization of the Friends of
the Library, and has continued in ever-increasing
measure the kind interest and generosity which has
meant so much to the Library, and to the entire Uni-
versity, over a long period of years. In 1932 Dr.
Burr presented more than 19,000 volumes from his
own library. These supplemented innumerable previ-
ous gifts, and have since been supplemented, in turn,
with many volumes of great value and with gifts of
money, either for specific or for general purposes. He
has given liberally toward building up what is now the
largest collection of Sanskrit manuscripts in America.
From him have come more than six hundred works
relating to Aristotle, including many early editions and
important commentaries and translations, with the
result that our Aristotelian collection is undoubtedly
one of the strongest in this country. He has made
many important additions to our holdings in seven-
teenth and eighteenth century English drama, and in
other fields. Space does not permit mention here of
12
many of the individual works which he has given, and
we must content ourselves with naming but a few of
the most notable of the last few months. These in-
clude a copy of the first edition of Holinshed's
Chronicles (described for us by Dr. Schelling in our
issue of December, 1937) ; unusually complete and
perfect copies of Ackermann's History of the Univer-
sity of Cambridge and History of the University of
Oxford; a splendid copy of the Nuremberg Chronicle
(described in our issue of November, 1937) ; and a
copy of the Kelmscott Chaucer, in perfect condition
and beautiful binding.
In 1934 we received about 1400 books from the
Misses Vankirk, in memory of their father. Rev. John
Vankirk, and in 1935 the late Mrs. John Frederick
Lewis presented 625 volumes. Both collections con-
tained many books of unusual value. Another im-
portant gift came in 1937, comprising more than 1200
volumes on the French theater, the library of the late
Professor Albert F. Hurlburt, presented by Mrs.
Hurlburt in his memory. Nearly three thousand
books have very recently been received, a part of the
bequest of Mr. Arthur H. Lea. Mr. Henry Reed
Hatfield has given liberally each year, both in a con-
tribution for general purposes and in money for im-
portant additions to the Walter Hatfield Library of
Chemistry. Five valuable volumes of incunabula have
been presented by Dr. A. S. W. Rosenbach. To Mr.
John Frederick Lewis, Jr., we are indebted for very
liberal gifts of money for purchase of books, particu-
larly works of scientific interest.
13
The Library^s Needs
As is well known, and as the foregoing pages in-
dicate, the Library of the University ranks high in
the size and in the value of its collections. We now
have, including the libraries of all Schools and De-
partments, 858,995 volumes. In nearly every field we
are strong, and in many subjects we have few rivals.
But in the last two decades and more we have been
steadily falling behind in comparison with other
American universities. As is shown in the accompany-
ing chart, in 1916 we still ranked sixth in size. In
THE DECLINE IN RANK OF PENNSYLVANIA'S LIBRARY
DATING OF THE I E A D I N C. U N I V E ft S I T T UIDaDIES
ACCORDINC TO THE NUMBER OF VOLUMES
yiH ji
6'»
8'"
lO'" ir
I90M
I9IO
1916
1922
1928
I9BM
1937
1922 we had fallen to seventh, and in 1928 to ninth.
This position we maintained, with a steadily decreasing
margin, until the last academic year, 1936-'37. At
the close of that year we learned that we had fallen
14
from ninth place to eleventh, having been passed dur-
ing the year by Princeton and the University of
Minnesota.
The following table gives the number of volumes
contained in 1937 in the largest twelve university
libraries:
Harvard 3,863,050
Yale 2,663,063
Columbia 1,563,167
Chicago 1,196,118
Illinois 1,086,212
Michigan 987,921
Cornell 985,262
Cahfornia 981,471
Minnesota 910,469
Princeton 898,836
Pennsylvania 858,995
Stanford 685,735
Among universities which differ greatly in age and
in size, comparisons of this sort may seem to be of
uncertain value. Perhaps the number of faculty mem-
bers and students should be taken into consideration.
On this basis, the records show that in the number of
volumes per capita contained in our Library we rank
ninth. And in the amount per capita now being spent
annually for books and periodicals, we are last among
the largest eleven university libraries. Herein we have
the reason for our steady loss in the comparative
tables.
What is the significance of these figures, which sound
so much like a race? We are not racing with our
sister institutions. We entertain no feeling of rivalry,
15
and are not striving to amass a larger number of
volumes than some other library possesses. The sig-
nificance of the figures lies in this: that many other
universities have been more successful than we in the
endeavor to keep abreast of the constantly increasing
needs of research and instruction; and the fact that
they have been more successful indicates that we have
not done as well as we should.
In regard to provisions for housing our valuable
collections and for giving proper service to those who
desire to use them, we are in even greater need of
relief. The building now occupied by the Library was
erected in 1890, when we had less than one-tenth of
the number of volumes we now have. It is the oldest
structure now housing any of America's great univer-
sity libraries, for it antedates by a year the library
building at Cornell. It has been so many times en-
larged, by exterior additions and by interior altera-
tions, that it can be enlarged no further with satis-
factory results. It is truly, as we have characterized
it In a previous issue of the Chronicle, "inadequate in
space, obsolete in arrangement, and Inexpressibly un-
suited to the requirements of a modern university."
The vital Importance of better provision for Penn-
sylvania's collection was expressed by Professor Ed-
ward Potts Cheyney In an address in 1934, following
out an often-repeated figure of speech. "The Library,"
said Dr. Cheyney, "Is the heart of the University.
The circulation of books is much like the circulation
of blood. If, as now demonstrated, the difference
-between an Inferior and a superior brain Is a matter
of blood supply, so the intellectual activity of a uni-
16
versity may be closely connected with the abundant
flow of books and periodicals that can be pumped from
the Library into the thinking organs. No greater
foundation in the University, no finer memorial or
more evident proof of appreciation of higher things,
could be given by any alumnus or friend of the
University, or citizen of Philadelphia, than the erec-
tion and endowment of a great Library, like the
Bodleian at Oxford, the Widener Library at Harvard,
or the Sterling Memorial at Yale."
The Bicentennial Plan
The University of Pennsylvania is today preparing
for the celebration of its two hundredth anniversary
in 1940. One important phase of the Bicentennial
Program, which will culminate in a series of scholarly
and educational events of world-wide significance dur-
ing the Bicentennial year, is a plan for development
of the University's plant, and the strengthening of its
endowment to meet present needs and opportunities
and those which our third century will bring. Out-
standing among these present needs, and accordingly
conspicuous among the Bicentennial objectives, is the
erection and endowment of a new building for the
Library. This, the plan contemplates, will not be just
another, larger storehouse for the shelving of books,
soon to be outgrown and outmoded by the swelling
stream of literary production and publication; it is
being planned, rather, as an eflicient coordinating
center for all of the materials of scholarship and re-
search within the Philadelphia area.
For in planning to meet the library needs of its
17
students and faculty members, the University is con-
fronted with a challenging opportunity to serve a vital
need of scholarly and business interests throughout this
section. Although the area is rich in scattered library
resources, there being some two hundred noteworthy
libraries within twelve miles of Philadelphia, the com-
munity has been denied much of the potential benefit
of these resources for want of a coordinating center
which would make them quickly accessible at one cen-
tral point. A central reservoir of information con-
cerning the materials contained in these numerous col-
lections has recently been made available through the
compilation of the Union Library Catalogue of the
Philadelphia Metropolitan Area, and this has pointed
the way to still further advances in co-ordination of
resources and co-operation in service.
The University of Pennsylvania, with its splendid
basic collection and its existing cooperative arrange-
ments with other institutions, has the one Library
capable of development to meet the need for a central,
coordinating agency.
The Bicentennial library plan, which is being devel-
oped by a committee organized under the supervision
of Dr. Conyers Read, executive secretary of the
American Historical Association, embraces four
objectives.
1. A new library building, so designed as to antici-
pate space requirements over a long period of years,
and to accommodate, in addition to reading and ref-
erence rooms and storage facilities, these new provi-
sions: A. Rooms for the use of faculty members from
other institutions, wherein they may carry on what-
18
ever work brings them to the University Library, or
to which, on occasion, they may bring classes or
seminars. B. Storage and indexing of a comprehensive
micro-film library, and a projection room containing
ten to twenty stalls, each with its plug socket, screen,
and portable projection machine. C. Facilities for
reference to the Union Library Catalogue.
2. The best possible bibliographic and duplicating
equipment.
3. An expert informational and advisory service,
and a messenger service to expedite the exchange of
materials between the University and other institutions.
4. A substantial endowment to provide an adequate
staff, and repairs, replacements, and additions to the
Library's equipment as well as to its collections.
The contemplated library would afford students and
the community at large the full benefits of the Uni-
versity's rich stores of recorded learning and culture,
representing two centuries of careful selection. Be-
yond making the present collection more accessible,
however, the proposed building would open to science,
industry, business, the professions, and learned so-
cieties, research possibilities not comprehended by
older ideas of hbrary service. The Union Library
Catalogue would enable users of this center to de-
termine quickly the location of material in any im-
portant collection in or near Philadelphia. In con-
junction with messenger service and reproduction
facilities, it would provide in a central place virtually
any desired material in the entire community for the
use of teachers, scholars, students, and research
workers.
19
Your Opportunity
To the members of the Friends of the University
of Pennsylvania Library, the proposed community
library and bibliographical and research center offers
the opportunity to exert a telling influence for the
advancement of cultural and scholarly activity, scien-
tific attainment, and industrial growth throughout a
wide community. Through this society, the opportun-
ity in this phase of the University's Bicentennial Pro-
gram is offered to all members of the community who
may be interested in membership and the important
work, to which the society is dedicated. Since Penn-
sylvania's new library, as planned, would be the first
university library to serve a modern scholarship and
research on a community basis and on the scale sug-
gested in the preceding pages, members of this society
and those who may now be attracted to membership
will have the opportunity to pioneer in a wider field
than any similar group has served up to this time.
The desirability of a larger membership in the so-
ciety, for more effective service in the larger work of
which it is to be a vital part, is obvious. All those
interested in books and in the improvement of the
University Library are cordially invited to member-
ship. The opportunities which lie before us constitute
a challenge to all members to enlist their friends; and
to those of like interests who are not yet members, to
join the society now. Never have the benefits of mem-
bership in such a group been more attractive, in op-
portunities for personal development and enjoyment,
and in the satisfaction which accompanies the perform-
20
ance of a broad and enduring service to a great in-
stitution and a great community.
It should not be beyond our powers to reach an ob-
jective of one thousand "Friends" as a part of the
Bicentennial observance. The greater the enthusiasm
generated by the group, the greater the good that
would accrue to the University.
If you are not now a member of the Friends of the
University of Pennsylvania Library, fill in the enclosed
membership application form and mail it with your
check to Mr. C. Seymour Thompson, Secretary,
Friends of the University of Pennsylvania Library,
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
21
-^
THE RETIRING PRESIDENT AND THE NEW
(For the information of readers who may not have received the March
issue of the Chronicle, we reprint here the following announcement.)
With great regret the Friends of the Library re-
ceived in December, 1937, the resignation of Dr. A.
Edward Newton as President of the organization. Dr.
Newton had brought to this office, in which he suc-
ceeded the late John Cadwalader in 1935, his whole-
hearted enthusiasm for everything pertaining to books
and libraries. Through his active interest the Friends
of the Library enjoyed several rare opportunities to
see some of the many treasures from the libraries of
Dr. Newton himself and other lovers and collectors of
books, and to hear memorable talks concerning them.
The informal addresses by Ellis Ames Ballard on his
Kipling collection and by Dr. Newton on the English
Novel and on Blake, are still recalled with pleasure
by members who were present, as is, also, the exhibit
that was held in commemoration of the printing of the
Coverdale Bible. Throughout the three years of his
presidency Dr. Newton gave most generously, both of
money and of time, to further the interests of the
Library and its organization of Friends. We owe him
much.
The Executive Committee invited Dr. John A.
Stevenson to become the successor to Dr. Newton, and
it is with great pleasure that we announce his accep-
tance. Dr. Stevenson, who is Executive Vice-President
22
of The Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company, has
long been prominent as an educator and a bibliophile,
as well as In business. He has served as a superinten-
dent of schools, as lecturer in education at the University
of Wisconsin, assistant professor of secondary educa-
tion and director of the summer session at the Univer-
sity of Illinois, and professor of education at Carnegie
Institute of Technology. He is the author of several
books on education and on business, and has long been
an ardent collector of books. Dr. Stevenson's active
association with the work of the University of Penn-
sylvania began in 1932 when he was appointed an
associate trustee of the University, and since that time
he has served continuously on the trustees' board of
teacher training. A year ago he accepted the chair-
manship of the insurance division in the Philadelphia
Committee of the University's bicentennial organiza-
tion. To his new office Dr. Stevenson brings the same
enthusiastic interest that has characterized all his con-
nection with the University, and particularly with the
Library and its needs which the "Friends of the
Library" was organized to serve.
J. H. P.
*<^sM^^^^
23
%
Dial-Statu5
(ARIEL)
Beatrice Fenton
The UNIVERSITY of PENNSYLVANIA
LIBRARY CHRONICLE
Issued four times a year
by and for the Frieiids
of the Library of the
University
C. Seymour Thompson
Editor
CONTENTS
The Dial-Statue of the Shakespeare Garden.
Felix E. ScheUing.
Newton on Blackstone.
Oriental Studies at Pennsylvania.
IV. Norman Brown.
Chief of the English Heroic Romances.
Thomas P. HavUand.
Vol 6 No 3
October 1938
1»
-^
THE DIAL-STATUE OF THE SHAKESPEARE
GARDEN
By Dr. Felix E. Schelling
Readers of the Library Chronicle will recall that
the issue of June, 1936, was interestingly devoted to
an account of the Shakespeare Garden which the fore-
sight and taste of several friends of the University
made possible of realization. There a little strip of
ground, fittingly adjacent to the Horace Howard Fur-
ness Memorial, has been appropriately laid out with
a formality characteristic of gardens in the Eliza-
bethan age, and flowers and shrubs of Shakespeare's
mention have been planted, each labeled, that the
Garden may not only be a spot of beauty but convey
as well that information which even in the smallest
matters belongs properly to a university. As to the
nature and extent of this happy endeavor, the reader
is referred to Dr. Krumbhaar's charming and inform-
ing article in the issue of the Chronicle alluded to
above. There will be found recounted the suggestion
that the present conventional pedestal supporting a
sundial in the midst of the Garden be replaced by one
designed to symbolize the relation of the Garden to
the poet. Omitting details, this thought has been
materialized, happily combining with the symbolism a
memorial to a distinguished organist, a son of the
University in the degree in music which he achieved
27
as the crown of a notable career.
William Stansfield was reared in the honorable tra-
dition of English music, a tradition sacred and secular,
that extends unbrokenly back to the days of Byrd,
Bull, and Campion, contemporaries of Shakespeare,
and further deep into the Middle Ages. A student
of music in Victoria University, Manchester; recipient
of the diploma of Fellow of the Royal College of
Organists, London; examiner to the Royal College of
Music, and holder of a degree in music from Durham
University, Dr. Stansfield served successfully as organ-
ist and choirmaster in several English parish churches
and cathedrals, later to transfer his talents and the
practice of his profession to America. Here he con-
tinued a distinguished career at the Church of St. John
the Evangelist, Boston; St. James Episcopal Church
in Philadelphia; and the First Congregational Church
of Washington. At the time of his death Dr. Stans-
field was organist of St. James Episcopal Church,
Atlantic City. Dr. Stansfield was notable for his
success in the training of choirs and the conducting
of choral singing, talents which he exercised to the
full as conductor of the University Glee Club and the
chorus of the Mask and Wig. Nor was he without
honored recognition as a composer, as attested alike
by his compositions for the organ which he himself
brilliantly interpreted, and by the difficult and intricate
composition for orchestra and chorus, his thesis in
the University's School of Music. Dr. Stansfield was
.ever active in musical circles wherever his abode, as
his presidency of the Musical Alumni of the Univer-
28
sity, his fellowship in the American Guild of Organ-
ists, and his membership in the Manuscript Society
and the American Organ Players Club, all go to show.
It was in the nature of things that a man so con-
spicuous and successful in his chosen career should
be fittingly commemorated. Accordingly, when the
writer of this article received a letter of inquiry from
Mrs. William Stansfield as to the possibility of such
a memorial at the University, the Shakespeare Garden
in mind, it was suggested that we combine the base
of a sundial of appropriate symbolism, with the mem-
orial of a man identified with the University and
with English music in the honorable tradition which
has extended from Shakespeare's day on to our own,
and from England to us in our younger brother's
inheritance of that great tradition. To this sugges-
tion Mrs. Stansfield, in wifely devotion, most gener-
ously responded. And here must not be omitted
mention that Mrs. Stansfield, born Mary T. Snowden,
comes of a distinguished Philadelphia family, which has
been deeply in touch with the University in interest,
scholarship, and oflSce, through several generations.
Mrs. Stansfield's sister, Dr. Louise Hortense Snow-
den, rendered valuable services for some years as Ad-
visor of Women at the University, besides making an
honorable name for herself as a scholar.
To return to the dial-statue, in the design and com-
pletion of which in bronze the University has been
fortunate in the services of Miss Beatrice Fenton,
whose excellent portrait bust of the Honorary Curator
of the Furness Library has already introduced her art
29
IF ^
,,-?'• >^?^;
■^^^'-^i
■;%,«
^^
z
u
Q
< H
o ^
< y
X cj
a
O <
^ J-
fTl I— I
O P-i
Bi
Z Bi
til ^
en "5
a, ^
o
Hi
-V
to University circles. Miss Fenton, whose work is
too well known to need praise of mine, is peculiarly
happy in the possession of a delicate and sympathetic
fancy which enables her again and again to translate
the symbolism of a figurative idea into the idealized
reality of an exquisite human form. Such are her
charming figures of childhood which adorn the portals
of the Children's Hospital, in this city; those of her
several delightful fountains; and that of the beautiful
memorial to our American poetess, the late Lizette
Woodworth Reese, for the Lizette Woodworth Reese
Memorial Association of Baltimore, on which Miss
Fenton is now engaged. The dial-statue designed to
embellish the Shakespeare Garden at the University
belongs to this type of Miss Fenton's work, as will
be seen by the reader from the cuts which accompany
this article better than from any description. Al-
though, crouched in his leafy hiding-place beneath the
dial, our dial-figure may seem to have borrowed his
pipes from Pan, he is really Ariel, momentarily the
guest of our Garden, breathing into it the spirit of
beauty, in an instant to float away in a soft zephr and
pass invisibly into the eternal open spaces. All honor
to the artistry which has been able so to catch and
symbolize fleeting beauty, and press it into the mould
of a lovely human figure.
I am sure that I voice the feeling of the University
as to this latest embellishment of our campus when I
offer the acknowledgments and appreciation of us all
for the thought of a Shakespeare Garden; for the
carrying out of that happy idea, so far as we have
31
been able to realize it, in the care to procure and
label the many specimens of Shakespeare's flowers and
shrubs; and now for this our happy dial-statue, the
product of a delightful fancy, commemorating not only
Shakespeare and his flowers but likewise a distin-
guished man, who earned well of his time, and is here
devotedly remembered by the good lady whose ready
insight, co-operation, and generous liberality have
made possible our undertaking.
I commend to the consideration of the Friends of
the Library and other readers of this article the cut,
here reproduced, suggesting an enlargement and pos-
sible bettering of the present somewhat limited area
of the Shakespeare Garden, for beauty ever begets
more and greater beauty. I understand that plans for
the rehabilitation of our Library building would make
an immediate procedure to such an enlargement of the
Garden inexpedient. Let us keep it in mind with
other aspirations, the mere thinking on which often
brings a happy realization.
32
1»
NEWTON ON BLACKSTONE
(The following lines were written by the well-
known bibliographer and librarian, Dr. J. Christian
Bay, of Chicago, on receiving from Dr. A. Edward
Newton an inscribed copy of his Newton on Black-
stone; the address delivered by Dr. Newton at the
mid-year Convocation in 1935, when he received from
the University the degree LL.D. On that occasion
Dr. Newton presented, for the Library, a copy of the
first edition of Blackstone's Commentaries. We take
pleasure in printing this unique tribute to our friend
and past-president.)
When Blackstone sheathed his pen and took a rest,
He sighed and added: "I have done my best,
"But Law is dry, nor counts my work a whit
"Until inspired by Newton's hearty wit.
"I qualify as counsel and as proctor,
"But Newton is at heart a Legum Doctor.
"Wait till the Letter'd muse he wins and marries,
"And you will understand my Commentaries."
(This note I read by a prophetic vision
in an unexpurgated first edition,
— and underneath, in letters neat and minion:
"Blackstone's own writing," signed by Frederic Kenyon!)
33
^
ORIENTAL STUDIES AT PENNSYLVANIA
By Dr. W. Norman Brown
A representative group of Oriental studies in an
American university offers courses dealing with man
and his works in a range of territory extending from
the Atlantic coast of Africa in the west to Japan or
even farther east in the Pacific. More than a billion
people live in this area, over a half of the world's total
population. China alone is estimated to have over 400
millions; India and Burma have over 350 millions;
Japan has 90 millions; Persia, Irak, Arabia, and
Turkey have still another 40 millions. And in addition,
there are Egypt, North Africa, Central and North
Asia, Siam, Indo-China, Sumatra, Java, the latter alone
having 60 millions, and many islands of the Pacific that
may come within the view of the orientalist.
In this large region developed all three of the world's
ancient civilizations: ( 1 ) the Egypto-Babylonian, from
which derive the Islamic and, through the Aegean area
and Palestine, the modern European-Christian; (2)
the Indie; and (3) the Chinese, or P^ar Eastern. Two
of these ancient civilizations still continue with unim-
paired vitality in India and the Far East; the third,
through Islamic civilization, has no rival in the Near
East and northern Africa, is active in other parts of
Asia and Africa, and even has blocks of adherents in
Europe.
34
The time period covered Is from the beginning of
cIvIHzation, if not rather from the primitive stone age
cultures preceding it, down to the present. Records f)r
material remains of urban civilization exist from the
fifth millennium B.C., and the same instructor who dis-
cusses with his students the archaeological finds of the
fifth, fourth, and third millenniums B.C. may also in-
troduce those same students to the spoken Arabic,
Chinese, or Hindi of today.
The subject matter of study in such a department
begins with language and literature and always has
them as the largest part of its offerings. But with them
as the basis it continues also, within the limitations of
its staff, to a treatment of archaeology, art, history,
and religion. In some cases an Instructor may write or
lecture on sociological or economic aspects of the region
he represents.
In this University Oriental studies use the full teach-
ing of six instructors and part of the teaching of two
from other departments. The courses represent the
culture of ancient Egypt, the ancient and modern
Semitic world, including the Sumerlans, HIttltes, and
Hurrians, the Indo-European portion of India, China,
ancient Persia, and the Aegean area. The major fields
not represented are the areas In which Turkish is
spoken and its affiliates, Japanese, the non-Aryan, that
Is the Dravidlan and Munda, languages of India,
Tibetan, and the Siamese, Cambodian, Javanese, and
other speeches used in and near the Malay peninsula.
It Is evident that, even In the fields represented here,
the staff can make only a selective coverage, each man
35
offering certain work, especially linguistic, which is
fundamental, and adding to that according to his own
productive interests. Although the total number of
instructors in Oriental studies is less here than in two
other great American universities, the coverage is
wider and more even than in the one which has the
largest Oriental staff, and not far short in either respect
of the other.
This group is a confederation of departments rather
than a single department. Its various subdivisions
have even more dissimilarity than that between Roman-
ics and Germanics or between English and Greek.
They have associated themselves here in a single group,
partly because of their small number when standing
separately, but more because of a community of interest
in Oriental subjects, which becomes increasingly impres-
sive as archaeology continues to provide more abundant
evidence of relation between their cultures in the five
millenniums preceding the Christian era.
There are special facilities for work in Oriental sub-
jects at this University which make it one of the most
obvious seats of such studies in America. The Uni-
versity Museum is one such important asset. It has
accumulated, by archaeological excavation and pur-
chase, collections of prime importance from Egypt,
Mesopotamia, Persia, and China, with less abundant
materials from India, Japan, and other regions in the
Orient. It conducts excavations which constantly en-
large these collections, and its accumulations contain a
perennial supply of scientific source material. On the
Museum staff are workers with the Oriental objects
36
whose presence and studies are often indirectly of value
to the Instructional staff of the University, while of
this Instructional staff two members are officially serv-
ing on the Museum staff and others are from time to
time used for consultation. Besides the University
Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art has Oriental
collections, especially of Chinese, Indie, and Persian
material, which are at the free use of the University
staff, and are valuable for its teaching and research.
The materials in the museums are not only objects of
artistic and archaeological value, but, above all in the
case of clay tablets from Mesopotamia, contain lin-
guistic material of the first value, with much ancillary
information about legal procedure and economic
conditions.
Through the interest of Provost Penniman, and then
of the late Mr. John Gribbel, Dr. Charles W. Burr,
and the Faculty Research Committee, the University
Library has accumulated during the past ten years the
largest collection of Indie manuscripts in the United
States. These were briefly described in the Library
Chronicle, Vol. 2, No. 2 (June, 1934) under the title
of "Pennsylvania's 'Home of Sarasvati,' " and Vol.
3, No. 4 (December, 1935) under the title "New Ac-
quisitions of Sanskrit Manuscripts." The almost 3000
Items in this collection and the approximately 2500 In
the Harvard collection make up all but a few of the
7273 Indie manuscripts listed in Dr. Horace I. Pole-
man's A Census of Indie Manuscripts in the United
States and Canada (now in press).
The group Oriental studies is exclusively budgeted
37
in the Graduate School, and this fact indicates that in
the case of every one of its members his duties consist
of research as much as instruction and direction of re-
search. Its members pubhsh steadily in Egyptian and
Semitic grammar, archaeology, history of religion, art,
Biblical criticism; Indie languages, religion, and history
of art; Persian inscriptions; Chinese history and
philosophy. For the current year it has instituted a
cooperative seminar on "Interconnections of the
Ancient Orient from the Earliest Times to the First
Millennium B.C.," in which all members of the group
will participate at all sessions, hoping by their united
efforts to pose, and perhaps also to clarify, the great
amount of archaeological material from that early
period which has been accumulating during the past few
decades. No such concerted attack on this material has
heretofore been attempted elsewhere, and it is possible
now at this University because of the addition to our
staff this fall of representatives of Egypt and China,
supplementing those of Palestine, Mesopotamia, Irak,
Persia, and India, who were already present.
The controlling motif of the group Oriental studies
at the University of Pennsylvania is the history of
Oriental civilizations. The basis of all its work is lan-
guage, without which no work can ever be held satis-
factory. With the approval of the University admin-
istration the group has acquired new members this year,
selecting them in line with that policy, and it expects
that all replacements within the group, or enlargements
of it, will conform to the same policy. In as far as the
size of its staff permits, the group wishes to indicate the
38
importance of the great Oriental civilizations lying in
their age, their wide territorial extent, and their present
vitality. It offers instruction to undergraduates and
graduates which is so directed, and it promotes research
to the same end. This it considers to be its function
in this University as being Pennsylvania's few spokes-
men for the people of more than half the world.
^^^^^5
39
1»
^
CHIEF OF THE ENGLISH HEROIC
ROMANCES
By Dr. Thomas P. Haviland
Apropos of her reading at the moment, that fashion-
able and wide-awake young lady, Dorothy Osborne,
wrote to Sir William Temple : '^Parthenissa^ is now
my company. My brother sent it down and I have
almost read it. 'Tis handsome language : you would
know it to be writ by a person of good quality though
you were not told it; but in the whole I am not very
much pleased with it. All the stories have too near
a resemblance to those of other romances, there is
nothing new or surprenant in them; the ladies are all
so kind they make no sport, and I met with only one
that took me by doing a handsome thing of the kind.
She was in a besieged town and persuaded all those
of her sex to go with her to the enemy (which were
a barbarous people) and die by their swords, that
the provision of the town might last longer for such
as were able to do service in defending it."-
Granting the justice of her condemnation for too
close adherence to the popular romans de Jongue
' Parthcnissa, That most Fain',/ Rrjtnaiut , The six I'olnmcs compltal.
Composed By the Rujhl Honourable The Earl of Orrery. London, Printed by
T. N. for Henry Herrlngman MDCLXXf'l, a recent acquisition of the
rich "Godfrey Singer Collection" of early fiction.
^ Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne . . . . ed. Gollancz, No. XXXIII.
40
haleine of Calprenede, Gomberville, and Scudery, cer-
tainly Miss Osborne must have judged a lady's "kind-
ness" by stern and rigid standards if the comportment
of one of the ladies in this romance — the admirable
Altezeera — failed to please. Artavasdes, who pos-
sesses the two chief requisites, valor and "quality," to
a degree that makes him thoroughly eligible, has
saved her father and herself, by more than super-
human valor, twice within the space of an hour — the
king, from a sudden and ignominious death at the
hands of an ordinary soldier, and the princess from
ravishment by one of Celindus' captains, of which
latter deed he modestly relates: "having made a pas-
sage through the throng, I soon made another through
him, thus depriving him both of his Life and Hopes."
The lady saved, "in disorder and trembling" himself,
he makes so bold as to hint that a mere man is not
to be too heavily censured for inability to resist her
charms. This supreme wickedness after a deportment
exemplary thus far, is accorded a reception that
should have pleased the little English lady who had
"no patience with our faiseiirs de Romance when they
make woman court." "Ah Artavasdes," replied the
princess in stern and haughty tones, "I have been too
patient, and by not suppressing your first inconsider-
ateness, have thereby authorized what you have since
committed, yet I give this presumption to your ser-
vices, but let me have no repetitions of it, least you
force me against my inclination, to become your
enemy." Is it possible that the lady is too forgiving
when, still unmoved bv the alacrity with which he
41
embraces the opportunity to stand off a fresh troop
of five hundred horse single-handed for her sake, she
adjures the heart-sick warrior in conclusion: "Though
your crime be great, .... since I have an Empire
over you greater than I thought; evince that truth,
I conjure you, by attempting nothing against your
life"? The ladies too kind, indeed!
No small part of Parthenissa' s failure to merit the
future Lady Temple's esteem, rests upon the unfortu-
nate chance that she has by her at the moment a part
of the greatest of its French exemplars, TJie Grand
Cyrus, with which she is "hugely pleased." She la-
ments, "Though he makes his people say handsome
things to one another, yet they are not easy and naive
like the French, and there is a little harshness in most
of the discourses." We may admit more than a shade
of truth in this, for the author, Roger Boyle, Lord
Broghill (1621-1679), although of some reputation
as a dramatist, and a member of the precious Dublin
circle adorned by Katherine Philips, "The Matchless
Orinda," was primarily a soldier and statesman, writ-
ing, furthermore, only during fits of the gout, a con-
dition certainly not too favorable to the light touch in
literature. Boyle's use of his less gouty moments is
well-known. He distinguished himself in Ireland dur-
ing the rebellion of 1641, served for a time under
the Parliamentary Commissioners, retired upon the
execution of the king, and plotted to return Charles 11.
Cromwell, getting wind of his activities, offered him
a command in Ireland which entailed only such
services to the Commonwealth as a good, hard-bitten
42
military man might give for England, thereby making
of him a staunch admirer and devoted personal friend.
Foreseeing the inevitable doom of Richard Crom-
well's succession, Boyle retired judiciously to his post
in the other isle, to which he was able to solicit
Charles' return in advance of the invitation from Gen-
eral Monk. Thei new king held him in high favor,
bestowing upon him the title "Earl of Orrery," the
latter part of which his grandson was to bestow upon
the intricate astronomical instrument illustrating the
movements of the solar system. Part six of his ro-
mance, which appeared in 1669, Boyle dedicated to
"The Princess Henrietta Maria, Dutchess of Orleans,
and Daughter of England."
If PartJienissa is to be indicated as deficient in "haut
ton," though one not already steeped in the French
originals would hardly be aware of any lack of fra-
grance in its garden of posies, certainly it excels its
English brethren in lofty sentiment, in rich descrip-
tion, in details of tournament and armed conflict. It
Is in these latter scenes that our man of war is par-
ticularly at home, notably the description of the boast-
ful Ambixules' triumphant entry into the lists, pre-
ceded by minions each bearing the picture of a maid
beyond compare, whose champion has paid with his
life for the vain contention that his lady was more
fair than the dead Mizalinza (Of course one reads
with the greatest satisfaction of the boastful one's
death at the hands of Artabanes, fighting incognito
for the honor of the lovely Parthenissa) ; or in the
account of Perolla's gallant stand against overwhelm-
43
ing odds, on the narrow staircase of a tower where
he has taken refuge; or In the many battles graphical-
ly, if pompously, described. There is a ring of truth
to the scenes on the field at Zama, which Boyle con-
trives to include, where Hannibal's horses are thrown
into panic and the victory lost through the stampeding
of his elephants. A new order in romance is initiated
in this tome, for the stern commander of Cromwell's
forces in Ireland depicts battles more as mass move-
ments won by strategy, in place of individual "derring-
do." The pictures of sea-faring and sea-fighting,
notably in books one and two of part six, are par-
ticularly interesting, taking their example apparently
from Gomberville's Polexander — interesting, even
though these pages may encompass such scenes as the
following: "These words being finish'd, he pulled
down the sight of his Helmet and renewed the Com-
bat with a rage, that I could not attribute to a less
motive, than that which animated his; twice with two
reverses, he made me staggar and made me owe my
life to the faithfulness of my Armour; but at length
I gave him so large a wound in his left side, that des-
pairing of Victory as of Life, he hastily abandoned
the Combat and ran to the Stern Cabin, to which place
I flew after, and just as he enter'd it, I past my Sword
up to the hilts through his body, which he being less
concern'd in than in not imploring a pardon from the
Beauty he serv'd, he fell on his knees by her, and
presenting her a handfuU of his Blood, he begged
her that the Oblation, with the loss of his life, might
expiate a Crime, which he was much more troubled
44
to have committed, than to have It thus punlsh'd:
Then breathing a deep groan and kissing her feet, he
expir'd in that performance." But this is the gentility
of word and act that Miss Osborne and other high-
born ladies cherished.
The tale, briefly, concerns the fortunes of four
pairs of lovely princes and princesses, gaining some-
thing of the unity which Calprenede sought in being
recounted by the characters themselves at the Temple
of Heliopolis, whither they have come to consult the
oracle. There, in the manner usual to the French
romances, one "history" being involved within anoth-
er, we meet the main tale of Artabanes (who turns
out at one point to be none other than the celebrated
Spartacus, history and fiction being often thus adroitly
combined in the heroic romances) and his love for
Parthenissa, and the lesser stories of Artavasdes and
Altezeera, of Izadora and Perolla, and of Callimachus
— chief priest of the temple — and his Statira. But
to unfold these would be all too long; indeed. Orrery
himself never completed the romance, breaking off the
noble Callimachus' narrative at the point where he is
torn from the side of the lovely Statira and delivered
to his captors by the cruel Mithridates, certainly no
way to end such a tale.
Indeed, at this point, the present writer might sub-
scribe to the Earl of Orrery's words: "Rather than
Apologize for having written no more, I should beg
Your Pardon for having written so much."
45
No. I.
COURIER
D E
>
L'AMERIQUE.
Du MARDI. ;7 Juillft, i7S4-
^~»-.>>.
Ju Public.
Messieurs I
SUIVAN'T la piomciT^- que noi;s voiis
avons laite <ie publier Ic premier nu-
rr^ro de noire gazf.tte dans le courant
c'u mois di.- Juillet, nous vous prelcntons
aujonrii'hui r.ocre primicre icuille qui ll-
continuerj rcgulicreiiicnt tous !cs Mardi
ic i'^mh-fi/i de^h.iquc femaiHe, conforiiic-
n.ent a noire i'Volpertus.
Plus nnus approchons du moment de
[•^roiire dcvanc iin juge au(T"i redoutable
qi.c !t fublic, plus nous Icntuns iugmcn-
t<rnos craintes & h ntceffuc d'implorer
fen indulgence. Nos intentions font
pures, niais nous fonimes jcunes ic ni's
Rcpublicains au n-.i>ins
tacl-.erons-nous d'avoir tiiujours prciente
I'iniage augUiU- de la vcrite, & de ne
.jamais ton-.ber dans la licence.
Quant au ftilc, nous fcrons nos efforts
jK)ur le rcndre Ihr.j.Je & correi.'>, mais
nous fupplions nos Icctciirs dc fe rappciUr
qte c'eft fur les bords dc la Delaware
tc non fur ceux dc la Seine que nous
tcriv'ons
Nous fonmies avcc rcfi^c^,
Messieur.s1
Vos tre.";- humbles & trcs-obCiffans
Stniicurs,
BOINOD ts GAILLAKD.
Phil. I- 'feiliil, 1-S4.
HARTFORD (dans k Csr.nellicut)
le 13 Juillet.
LA co^ir generate de I'Etat dc MalT^r-
chijfctts a palTc un aftc, inipol'jnc litr
t'>u3 les navires errangers \yn droit ^.i^;
quairelb'JS par tonn?au, qu'on doit p.iyc.-
au buKAu dc la marine ou i'on f.ut la Ji-
cLtraiioii.
Mccaui'fue.
Un r.royen lie cct i-.uc a inventc I'er-
nlcrcmeat ik. cunllrutt lur un plan CM'.iirc-
ment neuf", une ci'pete do b.ue..ii, que
deux chcvaux metteiit en mouvenieni.
11 aborJa Vcndredi dernier au quai d':
cette ville. Cette machine curieufe (ic
compolce dc deux bateaux pLi's 'tur.is
enlenible & couveris d'une plate f'nne.
C'eft liir cette | late-t'orme qu'tn a drcUc
ie mecanilViic cuniiftar.t en une roue hcii-
;:ontale & un pi;;non, qui, Pius p.ir dt ux
clievaux niarchant en ligue circulaire fc;'
la plate .tonije, comUiuniqvcnt ie mouve-
mi nt a di ux roues a tau pii.ces verticalt-
mciit liir les cotes du ' b..te.iu, qui pro-
duifcnt Ic ii'cnie efict que dcs ramcs c>. -1;
■out avaiictr troLs nsilies par hc.'.re. Cr.
mecanifme tit lijv.ple, )h:u di^icndicux
& ft diri^.c aikmcct. 11 a merire !cs
I'u.'JV.'.ges Ces connciileurs en rr.;'ccii'.qu •',
qui regaidc.i.: ccue itivcntjon comiix poi'-
v.'int devcr.ii irti. iitiic a la !v.;vigation \t.-
taicure, C I'lnvcutcur rc^'jit les cncou-
\
'■SteaK4s—
Page 1 Of First Issue Of Courier de I'Amerique
(The First French Newspaper Published In America)
Presented By Luther Martin, 3rd
The UNIVERSITY of PENNSYLVANIA
LIBRARY CHRONICLE
Issued four times a year
by and for the Friends
of the Library of the
University
C. Seymour Thompson
Editor
CONTENTS
The Stansfield Memorial:
Address By Dr. Schelling.
Address By Henry N. Paul.
Gift of the French Government.
Albert Sill in:
Other Recent Gifts.
Vol 6 No 4
December 1938
To Our Members
The Friends of the University Library
The Christmas season is a particularly ap-
propriate time to express to you my sincerest
appreciation of all that you have done to en-
large the usefulness of the University Library.
Your generous and warm-hearted response to
the needs of the Library shows, as Henry Van
Dyke expressed the Idea, that your own watches
were "set by the great clock, of humanity".
It Is encouraging to start the New Year with
the largest membership in our history. Still
more Important, your active Interest Is the best
possible evidence of the increasingly Important
part this organization can play. With my best
wishes for 1939, therefore, I send my personal
thanks for the efforts which have made possible
our growth and progress In 1938.
John A. Stevenson,
President.
^
THE STANSFIELD MEMORIAL
At a meeting of the Friends of the Library Monday
evening, November 14, the combined statue and sun-
dial described and illustrated in our October number,
erected in the Shakespeare garden by the generosity
of Mrs. William Stansfield, was formally accepted by
the University. Dr. John A. Stevenson, president of
the Friends, presided at the meeting, which was held
in the Purness Library, the windows of which look out
upon the garden and the new ornament which now so
fittingly forms its central feature. The garden was
amply lighted for the occasion by floodlights, and Miss
Beatrice Fenton, the sculptor, had lent the plaster
model of the statue, and this had been placed in the
Furness Library for the evening.
The gift was presented on behalf of Mrs. Stansfield
by Dr. Schelling, at the conclusion of a brief address,
and was accepted for the University by President Gates
as an appropriate and highly valued memorial to Dr.
William Stansfield — "an honored alumnus of the Uni-
versity; member of a long-distinguished Philadelphia
family which for several generations has been closely
and actively associated with the University; interna-
tionally know'n for his notable achievements as organist,
choirmaster, and composer."
Because Ariel, the "airy spirit" of Shakespeare's
Tempest, is the figure designed by Miss Fenton for the
49
statue, Ariel was naturally the theme both of Dr.
Schelllng's remarks and of an address by Mr. Henry
N. Paul, dean of the Shakspere Society of Philadel-
phia, which followed the presentation.
The Presentation
Dr. Schelling spoke, in part, as follows:
It is my pleasant task this evening briefly to sound
for you several notes, to speak after the manner of
the musician, and to hope that in the combination of
them a not unpleasing concord may result.
Immediately below the windows of this room, the
Furness Memorial Library in which we are assembled,
there is a small but treasured Shakespearean Garden,
shrouded from us although it is momentarily in the
early darkness of a November evening: and a Shake-
speare Garden, it may be added obviously, is one in
which an effort is made to plant and cause to grow and
blossom as many of the flowers, bushes and shrubs of
Shakespeare's mention as may be possible, each la-
belled, that the garden may not only be a spot of beauty
but convey as well that information that even in the
smallest matters belongs properly to a university. It
was in a happy recognition of this by Dr. Krumbhaar
and others, truly to be numbered among friends of the
University, that the little strip of ground to which I
have just referred was appropriately laid out with a
formality characteristic of gardens in the Elizabethan
age, a formality which, be it remarked in passing, is
nowhere dilated on by Shakespeare, but is highly
cherished and stressed by the great Lord Chancellor,
50
Francis Bacon, the actor's contemporary, who con-
descended to write about gardens and to suggest an
elaborate "platform" — we would say plan — for such
as are of princely grandeur and profusion. Bacon
loved the garden and what he did not know about
gardens, like everything else, is not worth knowing.
It was Shakespeare who merely loved flowers, wild or
cultivated by man; and he called them familiarly by
their popular names: rue, heartsease, flower-de-luce,
cowslips cinque spotted, "roses newly washed with
dew," and daffodils "that take the winds of March,"
But our business is with gardens, albeit not of the
grandeur which the great Lord Chancellor approved:
and Bacon, be it remembered, conceded to their em-
bellishment sundials, fountains, and "sometimes even
statues." It was thus that we became, as to our Shake-
speare Garden — to use a current vulgarism — "dial-
conscious."
To leave the pleasant groundtone of gardens for a
moment, there are few things so ingrained in our
human nature as the urge appropriately to commemor-
ate the sojourn in this world of men of good life and
distinguished achievement. Such a man among us was
recently William Stansfield, a modest gentleman, a
musician of distinction; born and trained in the tradi-
tion of an exquisite art, handed down in his native
England for generations, practiced lovingly, and trans-
ferred to us here with his coming to America. Organ-
ist, scholar, and composer, Dr. Stansfield was linked
to us by his long and honored career as organist and
choirmaster in several notable churches of Philadel-
51
phia and vicinity, and especially to the University as
an alumnus of the School of Music and conductor of
the University Glee Club and of the famous Mask and
Wig. It was in the nature of things that a man so
conspicuous and successful in his chosen career should
be fittingly commemorated. Accordingly, when one of
us received a letter from Mrs. William Stansfield in-
quiring as to the possibility of such a memorial at the
University, the Shakespeare Garden in mind, it was
suggested that we combine the base of a sundial of
appropriate symbolism, with the memorial of a man
long so closely identified with the University and with
English music. To this suggestion Mrs. Stansfield has
most generously responded, and we can here but rec-
ognize the graciousness of her impulse and the gen-
erosity with which it has been realized.
To take up the third of our notes, which I hope are
proving not too wholly unmusical, there is one stage
direction in Shakespeare which I dearly love, and it
reads: "Enter Ariel invisible." You will find it in your
copy of the poet at home in the first play of the volume,
Tempest, which was put first in the famous first folio
because, as the last play written, it was the greatest
novelty. "Enter Ariel invisible," breathing, as it were,
in a soft zephyr across the stage : can Hollywood
compass that? And is there among all the invisible
noises that we suffer under when we emulate the magic
of Prospero, music of the enchanting sweetness of
"Enter Ariel with music and song?" We are to hear
from my friend, Mr. Paul, this evening more than I
could tell you, I am sure, of exquisite Ariel, that de-
52
lighttul projection of the Shakespearean imagination
beyond the grasp of our merely human capabihties. It
is enough for me to say that Ariel is to me the universal
spirit of beauty, dainty, sexless, capable of any trans-
formation, a ball of fire, a phrase of song, a lovely
embodied human form; above all, happy alone when,
the inspired duties of Prosperous making at an end, he
is off into the interstellar spaces, winged, fleet as a
swallow, forever timeless and free.
A Shakespeare Garden, a dial, a name distinguished
in music to commemorate — and where is there a
sweeter musician than Ariel or a figure more engaging-
ly dutiful? There wanted but the artist's gift, to hold
the fleeting form of beauty, cast into a mould, and give
to it the earthly raiment which we, in our passing mor-
tality, would fain believe immortal. In Miss Beatrice
Fenton we found most happily the artist, the sculptor
capable of working this miracle. Miss Fenton's work
among us, her fellow Philadelphians, is too well known
to need praise of mine. Her charming Ariel is here
before us, only in lesser degree fulfilling the beauty of
the original bronze figure, now in place underneath
these windows.
Speaking in behalf of Mrs. William Stansfield, the
generous donor, I take great pleasure in committing
to the custody and possession of the University of
Pennsylvania, this beautiful statue-dial, commemorat-
ing the distinction and the services, especially to music,
of the donor's late husband Dr. William Stansfield,
organist, scholar, composer.
53
Address By Henry N. Paul
Shakespeare's Tempest, like Macbeth, is a royal
play, that is, written with a special view to delight
King James. Shakespeare had written two plays for
Queen Elizabeth, and now when his company had be-
come "The King's Company" it was right that he
should produce two for her successor. King James
was interested in the spirit world and long before he
came to England had written a book about it. So it
is not strange that both Macbeth and the Tempest
deal with the spirit world.
King James when a young man thought of this earth
and the air about it as full of spirits, good and evil.
His Daemonology dealt chiefly with bad spirits, and
therefore Macbeth is filled with the lore of the witches
who have sold their souls to evil spirits.
When the Tempest came to be written, and it was
probably the last play Shakespeare ever wrote, it was
fitting that the lore of good spirits should be looked
into, and so we find the great necromancer, Prospero,
with a multitude of spirits at his command, but they
are beneficent, not malignant. They work only to ac-
complish his high-minded purposes. Of these spirits
the chief one at his command is Ariel, and at the end
of the play in fulfillment of his promise he releases him
from the servitude which the magician can command
and sends him "to the elements, be free and fare thou
well." It is of Ariel free that 1 wish to speak.
The beautiful gift which Mrs. Stansfield has made
shows us Ariel just before his freedom is attained. He
is still in human servitude and therefore crouches be-
54
neath the leaves, Prospero has just asked him "How's
the day?" to which Ariel answers, "On the sixth hour
at which time, my lord, you said our work should
cease." (V.I. -3.) He holds his pipes, for he is always
ready to hurst into song, and he supports a sun-dial,
his means of reporting the hour to Prospero. It is six
o'clock in the evening of the day which is to see him
free.
We can now think of Dr. Schelling looking at this
hgure through the window from his desk here, a
musician to the Hnger tips, for whose ears the pipes of
Pan are always tuned, and one to whom deep-delving
in the hest of English literature has given a taste for
that which is heautiful and helpful to mankind — all
embodied in this Ariel, and all of which is on the point
of being set free for the benefit of all mankind. This
is just where he should sit.
Am I drawing too much on my imagination or did
the myriad-minded Shakespeare really mean this? Let
us spend a few minutes in trying to think this out.
When William Shakespeare was writing a play, he
no doubt sat at a table with a pen in his hand, but his
eyes were not on the paper. He saw in front of him
the audience of the Globe Theatre. As an actor he
had faced such audiences from the stage all the early
part of his lite. As a theater-owner he knew their likes
and dislikes and the difficulty and yet necessity of hold-
ing their attention and gaining their good will.
We forget how much more difficult was this in the
days of Shakespeare than it is today. As you walk a
few blocks along Broadway in New York you pass a
55
score of theaters of different kinds, each filled with an
audience of a different kind. Those who like to see the
low and the vulgar go to a theater where they will see
it; those who wish merely thrills or clap-trap go where
they will Hnd it. More serious persons who like a
problem play know where to Hnd it; and those who
prefer music are quickly accommodated — each goes to
his own place. And as a consequence, the dramatists
or musicians who cater to these audiences never have
the task of writing for all these audiences at once.
Instead, the dramatist today writes for a selected
audience. Not so William Shakespeare. His task
was much harder.
When Shakespeare stood on the stage of his theater
he saw immediately surrounding him on three sides a
sea of faces in the pit (generally called the "yard") :
a motley crowd drawn from the throngs of the London
streets and including all the lower half of the social
scale. The immediate vicinity of the theater was dis-
reputable and people of that class, men and women,
were numerous, perhaps predominant. If they did not
understand the play and enjoy it they would be noisy
and troublesome, and the whole performance a failure.
Therefore what Shakespeare wrote must appeal to
them.
But as he raised his eyes he saw three tiers of bal-
conies. In the first tier was an audience of the wealthy,
the intelligent, the judicious: an Elizabethan audience,
keen, quick, witty, not satisfied with such low comedy
or clap-trap as the pit might desire. It had cost them
a shilling to get in, while those in the pit had paid one
56
penny. Both wanted their money's worth. A second
tier or gallery had boxes or "rooms" in them. Here
were the London merchants with their famihes: shrewd
men capable of understanding but who did not wish to
be bored by philosophy or preaching. They had paid
sixpence apiece. And above this a third gallery at
threepence apiece where the servants, etc., watched the
play. Nearer still to the actor and sitting on stools at
the side of the stage were one or more groups of rakish
young noblemen, always proud and often of high in-
telligence. They must like the play. You recall how
Hamlet was led to speak of these classes when asking
the Player to recite from an excellent play which was
caviare to the general but well liked by the judicious.
So we find Shakespeare compelled to write for the
yeneral and the jiKfirioiis at the same time.
To do this he often put into a play an alternation of
different kinds of scenes, each fitted to a different class
of the audience. No one can read the horse-play at
the beginning of the great play of Julius Caesar with-
out realizing that he wrote it to quiet the "groundlings"
before the more serious business of the play began.
But this alternation of serious and comic scenes is only
a make-shift. iVs Shakespeare's art advanced he used
this plan less and less. It will not do to first quiet one
part of the audience and at a different time, another,
leaving the first part to fall back into its chatter: all
must be interested all of the time, and this Shakespeare
could and did do.
Without going into details I must give it as my pro-
found conviction that there are many things in his plays
57
which Shakespeare intentionally so shaped that they
might have a two-fold meaning and hence a double ap-
peal. Mere comedy or popular interest perhaps for
the general, but full of much deeper meaning for the
judicious. Such is Ariel, and his case may be taken as
illustrative.
The greater part of Shakespeare's audience thor-
oughly believed In necromancy. King James called it
"magle." It was a learned and terrible science which
enabled Its students to attain supernatural powers
through the control of spirits for the accomplishment
of good and bad purposes, and because the bad pur-
poses predominated It was an evil and forbidden science
— the black art, they called It. All of his groundling
audience knew that the magician could thus produce
and control spirits who were visible, but although they
knew this they never had seen such spirits; and it was
therefore a great delight and novelty to see a com-
manding spirit such as Ariel, and the multitude of
lesser sprites attending him, actually visible on the
stage, doing the work which Prospero assigns to them,
and showing this audience what spirits looked like. In
this way and perhaps no farther the spirit world of the
Tempest appealed to the general. But there were sure
to be many In the audience to whom this and no more
would be childish and have little or no appeal. For
them some meaning must underlie the magic powers
exercised by Ariel. And from this springs our Interest
in Ariel tonight.
The sound view of human life which underlies the
whole body of the Shakespearean drama shows that
58
the dramatist was a great thinker on the problems of
human life — what we now call a religious man, al-
though to his generation he may have seemed quite the
contrary, for T take it that he was neither Papist,
Protestant, nor Puritan, and everyone who fell outside
this classification was in the time of Queen Elizabeth
an atheist. We know better now, and here is one of
the proofs of it. The chief spirit which Prospero com-
mands is not merely a wonder-working grotesque fairy
or devil or djin exhibiting supernatural powers. Far
above this we find him shown as a beautiful, delicate,
intelligent sylph, endowed not with human emotions
and affections, and yet with some of the highest aspira-
tions and sensibilities of which our race is capable. As
I read the play I find him always drawn to the beautiful.
This is so obvious even to the superficial reader as to
need no elucidation. He is also fond of the true and
repelled by the false or the bad.
Read his rebuke to the wicked conspirators — his
pronouncement of the doom which falls on their heads
unless protected from the consequences of their evil
deeds by "heart sorrow and a clear life ensuing."
The name Ariel is found in the Bible. From a
marginal note In the Geneva version which Shakespeare
habitually used he might have learned that it means
"Lion of God," but 1 doubt if he had ever noticed this.
On the contrary, I think he coined the name because
of the association in sound with the word "air." If he
had coined the word three hundred years later he would
have made it "Aerial." In the list of the "Names of
the Actors" appended to the play, prepared apparently
59
by Shakespeare, we read, "Ariel, an ayrie spirit." The
name fits. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, of all Shake-
spearean students the most penetrating, remarks, "In
air he lives, from air he derives his being, in air he
acts; and all his colours and properties seem to have
been obtained from the rainbow and the skies."
By this novel association, this delicate being who to
the "general" of the audience was only interesting as a
magical wonder performing high legerdemain, becomes
to the "judicious" an embodiment of one of the highest
aspirations of mankind: namely, that all the cjreai
forces tluil reach us coiislanl/y throucfJi the air max be
used by us for the upHft'nuj of mankind. Human imag-
ination had not before conceived anything like this, nor
are we capable yet of giving final definition to Ariel
free to serve humanity.
To the judicious of the audience it was even in the
days of King James evident that a deep and new mean-
ing was involved in creating a spirit specially endowed
with power to control the elemental forces associated
with the air. For tempests and storms Ariel can raise
and control. He can cause the winds to fill sails and
so promote human progress. Electrical effects — we
call the ones he used "St. Elmo's fires" — he employs
to good purpose. Stranger still, he can fill the air with
music and song, and so put into the minds of those who
hear them strange emotions. He can fill their ears
with elusive whisperings and thus can he guide human-
ity as he wishes. Tn consonance with this he can as-
sume threatening shapes in order to rebuke and punish
evil: all of this, under l^rospero's direction, to ac-
60
complish worthy ends only. Thus much the inteUigent
part of the original audience who saw the play were, I
think, intended to find in it. So Ariel pleased them,
while merely as a "tricksy sprite" he interested the
"general." Two kinds of appeal to Iwo kinds of
people.
Now Shakespeare was a child of his age, though we
recognize with John Dryden that he had the most
comprehensive mind of his age, therefore we cannot
check the inquiry: What did he really think about the
spirit world? and what did he mean by showing it
under the control of man? I am satisfied that although
he had a medieval childhood he had in middle life ad-
vanced to a skeptical frame of mind toward the popular
beliefs concerning the medieval spirit world. King
James, who was to see this play, had started as a
learned author averring full belief in the whole ma-
chinery of demons, but before this play was written he
had expressed great skepticism about the whole thing.
So to Shakespeare the powers of nature, which the
common people attributed to spirits or devils, meant
something real and wonderful but not at all what the
multitude thought. The popular ideas but crudely
foreshadowed a higher significance of this spirit world
which to him embodied things which we do not even
yet much understand. "There are more things In
heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philos-
ophy," but they are not ghosts, imps or devils.
Somewhat in this way I think Shakespeare thought
concerning the spirits on earth or in air. What are we
to think of them?
61
In Ariel we see set free for us all the great natural
forces which fill the air and manifest themselves in
tempest and storm and electrical phenomena. Re-
member how Ariel "Hamed distinctly from the top mast
and yards of the ship"? We now know a little about
the forces whicli carry voice and music from place to
place. They are in our service as they were in Pros-
pero's. Today we let the air carry us 'round the globe.
Ariel not only could summon gales to catch the royal
fleet but could travel between midnight and midday to
and from Prospero's Mediterranean island and the
island of Bermuda. So can we, riding on the air, and
almost as quickly, for the air still drives our sailing
ships and supports our aeroplanes. The air is now
filled with electrical and many other radiant forces yet
to be harnessed. They already transmit music and
speech by radio from one end of the earth to the other
and we shall yet put to our use forces reaching us from
the heavenly spaces above us that we do not now even
know of. Shakespeare little dreamed of this but he
created an Ariel who truly represents it. The wonder
is that he could draw the picture so broadly and boldly
and truly. Ariel means more today than he did to the
most intelligent of his audience or to Shakespeare him-
self. Thus we see how true it is in the words of his
friend Ben Jonson that Shakespeare was not of an age
but for all time.
Having thus made our flight in the air, let us come
down to earth. (When Prosper© did this he threw
-off his mantle and said, "Lie there my art.")
We are this evening in a library devoted to the study
62
of Shakespeare's works. I could not speak to you on
any but a Shakespearean subject in this place, with the
kindly faces of both Doctors Furness looking down on
us, with Dr. Schelling sitting at the head of the table,
and with works of and about William Shakespeare
literally at our finger tips, and with an audience called
the Friends of the Library of this university.
I cannot close without putting in a plea for the en-
largement of the Elizabethan department of your
library. Ariel had a peculiar faculty of whispering
little ditties in the ears of people and thus influencing
them as he pleased. If only I could share this faculty
I might be more successful.
The supply of Elizabethan literature must come
from England. It is the greatest single body of English
literature ever produced. The only thing we can com-
pare with it is the great outburst of the literary arts
during the Periclean age of Athens and the output of
Hebrew literature during the age of their great
prophets.
This great body of literature has been housed for
some three hundred years in the homes of Englishmen
scattered abroad through their pleasant land except
for such proportion of it as has found its way into the
public libraries of England. The Great War and other
influences have compelled the closing of many of these
houses with the result that their libraries have passed
or are passing under the hammer. Our English friends
call this the "sack of Britain." They regret it, of
course, but realize that their treasures will be more
useful in the public libraries, university or otherwise, of
63
this country than they can be in private ownership.
But the process has gone far and the supply is run-
ning low. In a few years it will come to an end and
no more books of the Elizabethan period will be ob-
tainable. Now or never is the time for this library to
increase its assets in this department. I know a good
many of those who hear me are collectors of books.
Perhaps some have a considerable investment In mod-
ern first editions. My urgent advice is that these be
sold at present exaggerated prices and the proceeds
Invested in books published in England from, say, 1540
to 1640 and that these books, as soon as you are
through with them, be given to this Library, where
they are sure of careful preservation and where they
will be for centuries available to the lovers of English
literature, for books such as these readers and scholars
will always want to hold in their hands.
So far as concerns the enormous output of modern
literature libraries cannot long go on storing it up. It
is quite probable that within a generation mlcrophotog-
raphy will be able to supply readers from some central
source, in minute compass and at small price, whatever
they need of recent or current literature. T do not
mind thinking of current literature in these terms but
it would be very painful to me to feel that our contact
with the grand old books of the olden time should ever
have to be obtained this way. To avoid this, I repeat:
Sell your first editions; buy I^llzabethan books while
they are obtainable, and put them away safely in this
-Library.
18^
^
GIFT OF THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT
^v Dr. Albert Schinz
The Pennsylvania Journal of July 17, 1784 printed
this news: "A well chosen collection of books is ar-
rived at New-York in the French Packet le Courier de
I'Amerique; they are sent by order of the King of
France to his Consul General, to be presented to the
Universities of Philadelphia and Williamsburg. They
have been given at the joint request of the Count de
Vergennes, and of the Chevalier (and since his
brother's death) Marquis de Chattelaux."
History has now most pleasantly repeated itself. In
1937 President Gates received the following letter
from the French Counsul, Marcel de Verneuil:
Consular
de la
Republique Frangaise
a Philadelphie
Philadelphie, October 5, 1937
Dear Air. President:
Following an interview I had a few days ago wnth Dr.
Penniman, it affords me great pleasure to inform you that the
French Department of Education has decided some time ago to
present to the leading Universities and Colleges of America,
which have especially contributed to the development and
spreading of French literature and science in the United States,
a few sets of contemporary French books which might be of
permanent and useful interest to those institutions of higher
learning.
65
A printed list of those books, which covers some 144 pages,
has been carefully drawn up by a special committee of dis-
tinguished French writers and scientists, whose work has been
performed independently and without any government inter-
ference. It includes about 7,000 titles which are classified by
headings representing the main branches of knowledge.
Under separate cover I am forwarding to you two copies of
this list, out of which the University of Pennsylvania may
choose those it wants up to a total amount of 20,000 (twenty
thousand) francs.
Attached to one of these copies are instructions for drawing
up the list of books selected by the University.
I need not add that this gift is but a proof of the interest
taken by French authorities in your University's contribution
to intellectual cooperation between our two countries.
With kind regards, I am, dear Mr. President,
Yours very sincerely,
(Signed) M. de Verxeuil
Consul de France
These words speak for themselves. What ought to
be added is that while several other institutions of
higher learning received similar gifts, ours was made
one of the largest, thanks to the influence of M. de
Verneuil with his government and his gracious disposi-
tion toward us. The French government in offering
its 20,000 francs' worth of books specified that it be
divided among the various departments, and not re-
served altogether for books in French philology and
literature. The catalog of titles from which to choose
was naturally handed over to the P'rench department
first, and it was a temptation to check it In such a
fashion that the 20,000 francs would be all used up
before it could be passed along. We are told that else-
66
where the French departments yielded to the tempta-
tion. This was not so here and our behavior is all the
more to our credit because far too little money is avail-
able annually for romance languages. As a matter of
fact, only half of the money available was kept for the
Romance Language Department. Here is the pro-
portion of books received in the various fields:
French Literature 7,617.50 francs
" Language 373.
Criticism 1,841.50
Enfants 120.
Other Languages 283.
TOTAL (1
drench)
10,235.00
History of
Art
1,670.
Philosophy
1,249.
Chemistry
3,417.
History
4,014.
Sociology
149.50
TOTAL 20,734.50 francs
Now, leaving aside a great many isolated volumes
— which were as badly needed, however, as their bigger
brothers — let us pick a few items which show more
particularly the value of the gift.
In Art: the beautifully Illustrated seven volumes of
L'Art franca'is, by Georges Wlldenstein (e.g. 2 vol-
umes of Manet) ; two volumes of La Peintitrc an
XIXe Steele, by FocIUon; Corot, by Fosca ; one volume
of Daumier; L' J rl dans la vie moderne, by P. D'Uck-
erman; several works by Schneider.
67
In the Classics: the remarkable editions by the
Societe Bude : Euripides, Aristoteles, Ovid, Plautns,
Petroniiis, and others.
In History: Philippe de JVIornay, Un Hiigenot
homnic d'Etat; the Riclielieiis of Due de la Force and
of Hanotaux; a number of volumes on the French
Revolution, on the Franco-Prussian war, and on the
Great War.
In Science : an abundance of works with most
astounding titles; let us only mention particularly a
fine edition of Fabre's Fie des Insectes.
In French Literature: the Histoire generate illiistree
dii Theatre (coloriee) by Lucien Dubech — which will
find a suitable place beside the recent collection on
theatricals given in memory of Professor Hurlburt;
the five formidable volumes of U Astree, edited by H.
Vaganay; the La Bruyere of the Grands Ecrivains de
la France; two large volumes of Massillon, together
with volumes on Bossuet and Gallicanism, Fenelon, and
other recent books on the history of seventeenth-cen-
tury literature; the large edition of Buffon, by Garnier
(an early edition of which was among the books given
by Louis XVI) ; the Dimoff edition of Chenier's works;
the recent important w^orks on Chateaubriand by
Levaillant; Henri Monnier, by Aristide Marie; the
editions Conard of Vigny and of Flaubert; the Divan
edition of Stendhal; several works of Renan; the fam-
ous Sainte-Beuve, Correspond ance generate; finally
many works of recent novelists, as Giono, Ramuz,
"Montherlant, Proust, Cocteau, Schlumberger, Chad-
68
ourne; and of poets, as Corbiere, Laforgue, Regnier,
Claudel.
The gift of 1784 was a royal benefaction, for it
came from the king, Louis XVI. The new gift comes
from a republic, but, in another sense, it is no less royal;
indeed, in the scholar's view its value is greater than
that of the earlier collection. To the French govern-
ment and to M. Verneuil our very special thanks!
1»
OTHER RECENT GIFTS
From Mr. John Frederick Lewis, more than a
thousand volumes of important works in literature,
history, biography, and other fields, including many
early American imprints.
From Mrs. Edward T. Stotesbury 240 scrap-books,
containing chronologically arranged clippings relating
to the World War, presented as a memorial to her
husband, the late Dr. Edward T. Stotesbury. So
complete is the collection, and so judiciously selected
and carefully mounted, that we have here invaluable
material for the use of future students and historians
of the war.
From Mr. Luther Martin, 3rd, a copy of the first
issue of Courier de rAmcrique, the first French news-
paper printed in America, published in Philadelphia in
1784. This is of additional interest to us, from the
69
fact that the Library of the University was indirectly
responsible for the enforced discontinuance of the
paper after twenty-six numbers had been issued. The
Courier early fell into disrepute as an organ of propa-
ganda, violently opposed to the existing regime in
France. Its scornful criticism of the hundred volumes
presented to the library of the University by Louis
XVI, in 1784, led to a bitter controversy with Francis
Hopkinson and others; and as uniform postal rates
were not then in existence the postmaster-general
adopted the simple expedient of increasing rates on the
Courier to a prohibitive figure, and the publishers were
forced to abandon their enterprise.
"Nos intentions sont pures," the publishers had said
in their first issue, "mais nous sommes jeunes et nes
Republicains."
"^^^^^^IS
70
^
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