The life and correspondence of Sir Anthony Panizzi, K.C.B., Vol. 1 (of 2): Late principal librarian of the British museum, senator of Italy, etc.Fagan, Louis
History
The life and correspondence of Sir Anthony Panizzi, K.C.B., Vol. 1 (of 2): Late principal librarian of the British museum, senator of Italy, etc.
Fagan, Louis
Panizzi, Anthony, Sir, 1797-1879
These few specimens will satisfy any one of the justice of my
assertion that it was impossible to correct such a work. I am fully
aware of the difficulties, nay, of the impossibility, of compiling any
catalogue which shall be free from errors of a very grave description.
No work requires more indulgence than one of this sort; but the
specimens which I have given are such as cannot admit of excuse or
palliation: they must at once convince the most indulgent observer
that those who committed them were incapable, utterly incapable of
performing the task they had undertaken. After what we have seen,
shall we wonder that Newton’s _Principia_ should be misplaced? We
cannot wonder; but by Your Royal Highness, who has the honour to fill
the chair once occupied by that immortal man, and by those Fellows of
the Royal Society who are not unworthy of the distinction, something
like sorrow must be felt, when they see in the catalogue of their
Library that work classed among _pure Mathematics_, as if _Mechanics_
had nothing to do with it.”
How amusing are some of Panizzi’s remarks, and how fully do they evince
the supreme contempt he must have felt for the ignorance displayed in
the sheets, which were submitted for his correction. It is impossible
not to help dwelling on and re-quoting such a sentence as this: “It is a
fortunate thing for _feu_ Mr. Da Cunha that this libel (the utter
non-appreciation of the word _feu_) on his fair name was not published
in his own country (he was a Portuguese) when he was living, and when
the fashion was not only to burn books, but authors.” This must have
been a cutting but amusing hint for His Royal Highness, and then we
perceive the manly tone of Panizzi when he added: “So dangerous an
insinuation by the Royal Society of London might have exposed him to the
chance of paying dearly for their blunders and bad French.”
In October, 1833, the New Catalogue, entrusted to Panizzi was commenced;
not, however, left to his own discretion, for _cabined, cribbed,
confined_, he was called on to follow a plan, concocted by the Library
Committee, of which he incidentally remarks: “_Heaven forbid that I
should ever be supposed guilty of having approved of it, or be suspected
capable of selecting such a plan, had I been at liberty to execute the
work as I pleased. I agreed to carry their plan into execution on my own
responsibility._”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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