The library of the Boston Athenaeum originated, in the year 1806, with a society of gentlemen of literary tastes, who aimed at creating a reading-room for the best foreign and American periodicals, together with a library of books. To this a gallery of art was subsequently added. The undertaking proved at once successful, leaving us to wonder why cultivated Boston, though abounding in special and parish libraries, should so long have done without a good general library; New York having anticipated her by fifty-two years, and Philadelphia by three-quarters of a century. The Athenaeum Library is peculiarly rich in files of American newspapers, both old and new, and its collection of early pamphlets is one of the largest in the country. In literature and science it embraces a heavy proportion of the best books, its total number of volumes being reckoned at 190,000. Its collection of books, pamphlets, and newspapers relating to the recent civil war is among the completest known. The price of a share in the Athenaeum is three hundred dollars, a large sum when compared with that of other proprietary libraries; but it involves much more valuable property-rights than any other. The annual assessment is five dollars to shareholders, who alone possess the right to draw books. The proprietors have also the power to grant free admission to others, and the library and reading-room are thus thrown open for reference to a wide range of readers. The history of the Astor Library, opened in 1854, has been made too familiar by repeated publication to need repetition here. The generous founder gave two per cent. out of his fortune of $20,000,000 to create a free public library for the city which had given him all his wealth. The gift was a splendid one, greater than had ever before been given in money to found a library. Moreover, the $400,000 of Mr. Astor, half a century ago, appeared to be, and perhaps was, a larger sum relatively than four millions in New York of to-day. Yet it remains true that the bequest was but one-fiftieth part of the fortune of the donor, and that the growth and even the proper accommodation of the library must have stopped, but for the spontaneous supplementary gifts of the principal inheritors of his vast wealth.