With regard to Marsh’s Library, we may mention that it was founded in 1707 by Doctor Narcissus Marsh, then Archbishop of Dublin, and that the building is erected on part of the ground attached to what was formerly the archbishop’s palace. The books were originally the collection of the celebrated Bishop Stillingfleet, and were purchased by Doctor Marsh for the public use. Once upon a time each book was fastened by a chain to an iron rod which ran along the shelves, so that all who partook of the bounty of the good archbishop might read and satisfy their souls without any danger of violating the eighth commandment; but this stringent system is now abolished: the chains are broken; the prisoners are free; the books are emancipated! The change may be considered as a compliment to the honesty of modern times; and all we say is, we wish they may deserve it. Much as we admire and commend these great public institutions, however, it is not to be denied that their real amount of utility is limited enough--limited at least when one compares the end with the means. Many thousand volumes must lie on their shelves from year to year, without ever being opened; there must be many that are fit only for burning, and that just occupy good room to the exclusion of their betters; and as to the very best books, how limited must the access to them necessarily be in a great public room! Their use consists chiefly in their being available for consultation--a most important purpose, no doubt, but yet one the accomplishment of which still leaves a vast hiatus in our reading hours to be filled up by other means. Now, every individual, we humbly think, should have a library of his own, if it were ever so small. No man ever made a good gardener that had not a small garden, his own property, to begin with; and it is something the same with a good reader. The careful, and leisurely, and repeated study of a few good books, does one more real good than a cursory and indigestive perusal of a vast number. This is well known; and, therefore, without detracting from the just value of public libraries, we would wish that a taste for book-collecting, as well as book-reading, were widely diffused among us. Take our word for it, there is no better company than good books; you may choose from among them companions for all hours, and for all moods of the mind. Ask them questions, and they will be sure at all times to give you at least a civil answer. They are finger-posts to the travelling man, and travel through all regions to him who never moves from the chimney corner. They are implements of trade to the professional man, and a profession itself to him that has none. They are music to the melancholy, and as a dance to the merry; as salt are they to the solid, and to the solid as salt. They are as a new world to him that has exhausted the old, for “of making many books,” as the preacher saith, “there is no end.” But we must come to an end ourselves. We would,