was used instead of blotting-paper in the Reading Room of the British Museum as late as 1838, and was then only discontinued on the representation of Mr. Panizzi that it got into the books. If, however, Oddi was able to procure so many sheets of it when he could not get writing-paper, it must have been common in Italy at the period of his imprisonment, which would probably be about 1620. I must not omit to add that this ingenious man made the compasses he required out of twigs of olive wood, that the books he composed under such difficulties were actually published, and that he was eventually liberated, and died in wealth and honour. These few anecdotes from a restricted field of human activity may afford some idea of the opulence of Nicius Erythræus in humorous, and at the same time urbane gossip. He was a quaint, pleasant man, something between Pepys and Aubrey, not of the highest intellectual powers, but a fair judge of other men, a good scholar and Latinist, and with quite sufficient sense to know when a story was worth repeating. He has preserved much that would have been lost without him, and has made a sunshine in that very shady place, the Rome of the seventeenth century. His main defect, ornate prolixity when simple brevity would have been more appropriate, is the besetting sin of most Jesuit prose writers. He seems just the sort of useful, entertaining, neglected writer, whom the presses of our Universities might advantageously reproduce, and the illustration of his text would afford congenial employment to an accomplished editor. FOOTNOTES: [161:1] Read before the Monthly Meeting of the Library Association, London, April 1898. LIBRARIANSHIP IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY[174:1] The natural reaction against over-statements respecting the darkness of the dark ages, has led to the counter-statement that they were not dark at all. We librarians know better. We know that they must have been in darkness, inasmuch as our body did not exist to enlighten them. There can have been no librarians where there were no libraries; and the lists of collections of manuscripts preserved to our times sufficiently prove that no set of men professionally interested in the custody of stores so diminutive can have been required. The function of librarian must have been one of the numerous offices discharged cumulatively by a single monk, upon whom it may sometimes have been imposed by way of penance. It was otherwise in classical antiquity. To say nothing of the Alexandrian Library, and its connection with men as distinguished as Callimachus and Apollonius, so late as near the close of the third century of our era the decree of the Emperor Tacitus, that the historical works of his illustrious namesake should be transcribed and placed in the public libraries throughout the empire, indicates the existence of numerous institutions of this description, under responsible officers, servants of the State, or the municipality.