of an essay in Italian entitled "Chi era Francesco da Bologna?" in which
that artist, the inventor of italic type, is identified with the great
painter Francesco Francia; and the editor of Lord Vernon's sumptuous
verbatim reprint of the first four editions of the Divine Comedy,
respectively printed at Foligno, Jesi, Mantua, and Naples. He further
wrote some pamphlets on questions connected with the British Museum and
the Catalogue of the Royal Society's Library, and contributed several
articles on political and literary subjects to the _Edinburgh_,
_Quarterly_, and _North British Reviews_.
Sir Anthony Panizzi's was a rich and complex nature, and his character
cannot be sketched in a phrase; else we might feel tempted to sum it up
in two characteristics, magnanimity and warmth of heart. Other traits,
however, must be added to complete the portrait—prodigious power of
will, indomitable perseverance, hatred of inefficiency and pretence,
active and disinterested kindness, impetuosity held in check by
circumspect sagacity. He might be said to combine the characteristics of
the land of his birth and the land of his adoption: his moral nature
seemed English, his intellect Italian. Warmth of feeling gave after all
the keynote to his existence. He was, indeed, jealous of his well-won
fame, but fame was not his main object. If he greatly helped his Museum,
his country, his colleagues, it was because he began by greatly caring
for them. In labouring for the public he erected an imperishable
monument for himself:—
"Ipsa quidem virtus sibimet pulcherrima merces;
Dulce tamen venit ad manes, cum gloria vitæ
Durat apud superos nec edunt oblivia laudem."
FOOTNOTES:
[288:1] _Athenæum_, April 19, 1879.
THE LATE JOHN WINTER JONES, V.P.S.A.,
PRINCIPAL LIBRARIAN OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM, AND
FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
OF THE UNITED KINGDOM.[304:1]
The conference of the Library Association at London, in 1881, was
painfully signalised by the funeral in the same city of its first
President, who had presided over its inauguration at the preliminary
London conference four years previously, and to whose countenance it had
been indebted for much of the success which attended its establishment.
A short notice of Mr. Winter Jones's distinguished career as a librarian
seems to be demanded by his services to the Association and his peculiar
relation to it as its first President, no less than by the position
which, in his capacity of Principal Librarian of the British Museum, he
so long occupied at the head of the profession of librarianship in this
country.
John Winter Jones was born at Lambeth, June 16, 1805, and belonged to a
family long established in Carmarthenshire, and already honourably
connected with literature. His father, John Jones, Esq., author of
"Hawthorn Cottage" and other tales, for many years edited the _Naval
Chronicle_ and _European Magazine_. His grandfather, Mr. Giles Jones,
had been secretary to the York Buildings Water-Works, and according to
the unanimous tradition of the family was author of several of the
admirable little books published for children about the middle of last
century by Newbery & Co., including the renowned "Goody Two Shoes." No
more conclusive proof of the merit of "Goody Two Shoes" could be given
than the able argument by which Mr. Charles Welsh has recently sought to
attribute the authorship to Goldsmith. While agreeing with Mr. Welsh
that the book is not unworthy of Goldsmith in humour, philanthropy, and
simple truth to nature, we are unable to discover any such similarity of
style as to warrant its being ascribed to him. On the other hand, the
peculiar vein of dry humour characteristic of "Goody Two Shoes"
reappeared in Mr. Winter Jones's conversation in so remarkable a degree
as to justify the impression that he had preserved a family trait.
Assuredly, had he ever essayed his powers in the field of imaginative
literature, "Goody Two Shoes" is the kind of work which one would have
expected him to have produced. A great-uncle, Mr. Griffith Jones, had
been the friend of Johnson and Goldsmith; an uncle, Mr. Stephen Jones,
was also known in literature, especially as the author of "Masonic
Miscellanies," and editor and continuer of Baker's "Biographia
Dramatica." Mr. Winter Jones's mother, Mary Walker, was cousin to the
academician Smirke; nor, in the list of remarkable persons connected
with him, should his nurse be forgotten, Anne Parker, widow of the
unfortunate Parker who was executed as ringleader of the mutiny at the
Nore.
Mr. Jones received his education at St. Paul's School. He does not
appear to have been eminent as a classical scholar, but some youthful
letters show how early he had acquired the power of writing excellent
English. He was, moreover, unusually precocious as an author, although
his first attempt was by no means ambitious. In 1822 appeared an
anonymous little book, now exceedingly rare, "Riddles, Charades, and
Conundrums: with a Preface on the Antiquity of Riddles," containing a
considerable number of original enigmas—a truly quaint and exceptional
performance for a youth of seventeen. Mr. Jones's juvenile ambition,
however, was stimulated to this undertaking by an accomplished lady,
Mrs. Davies, mother of Sir Lancelot Shadwell, who thought highly of his
talents, and had a considerable share in it.
The profession designed for Mr. Jones was that of a Chancery barrister.
After leaving school he became the pupil of Mr. Bythewood, of Lincoln's
Inn, the most eminent conveyancer of his day, who had a very high
opinion of him.[306:1] He must, however, have devoted much of his time
to studies not of a legal nature, for about this time he became an
excellent scholar in the modern languages, not taught, or taught
imperfectly, in St. Paul's School. His proficiency is proved by a little
volume undertaken for his own amusement, but published at the suggestion
of his sister: "A Translation of all the Greek, Latin, Italian, and
French Quotations in Blackstone's Commentaries, and in the notes of the
editions by Christian, Archbold, and Williams. By J. Winter Jones,
1823." He also made the index to the new edition of Wynne's "Eunomus, or
Dialogues concerning the Law and Constitution of England."
Just as Mr. Jones was looking forward to being called to the Chancery
Bar his prospects were clouded, and his course in life altogether
changed, by a most serious illness, greatly aggravated by the improper
treatment of a physician who entirely mistook the nature of the
complaint. The result was a temporary loss of voice, accompanied by a
weakness of the chest which for several years rendered any speaking in
public impossible. Between ill-health and the want of introductions and
connections in any but the legal profession, Mr. Jones seems to have
been unable for some years to follow any definite calling. He pursued
his studies as far as possible, learned Spanish from the refugees who at
that time abounded in Islington and Somers Town, and even acquired some
knowledge of Russian, destined to be very useful in future years. To
this time also belonged his acquaintance with Jerdan and Godwin. He knew
the latter intimately, and was impressed by his intellectual eminence,
but used to describe him as a man selfish in minor things, who must,
like Harold Skimpole, always have his plate of fruit, no matter the
price or the season. Of the second Mrs. Godwin he had a higher opinion
than seems to have been usually entertained by her acquaintance. A
narrow escape of his life which he had at this time may be best narrated
in his own words, so characteristic of the man's coolness and aversion
to fuss or display, even when the occasion might seem to excuse them:—
"SOUTHAMPTON, _September 9, 1833_.
"MY DEAR FATHER,—I am extremely sorry that I cannot profit by
your directions for swimming. On Friday week I went to bathe at
the new baths, being my second attempt in cold water. No one
was in the bath at the time, nor was there any rope, but as I
thought the place was perfectly safe, I plunged in backwards
according to the directions I had received. I sank, of course,
and throwing up my chest rose immediately, but when in the
water I lay on my back motionless from cramp in my stomach.
By no effort that I could make could I force down my feet or
turn, and my struggles caused my head to dip so frequently
that had assistance been delayed a minute longer I must have
been suffocated. I fortunately recollected having read that
persons are sure to float if they throw back the head as far as
possible, thereby elevating the chest, and remain quite quiet.
This saved me. I mentioned the circumstance to Dr. Shadwell,
and he strongly recommended me to abstain from the water at
present, as it evidently did not agree with me."
About two years from the date of this letter, Mr. Jones obtained his
first important public employment as a secretary to that then itinerant
body, the Charity Commissioners. The charitable institutions of England,
long corrupted and misused, were receiving a much-needed overhauling,
one of the indirect fruits of the Reform agitation. Perambulating bodies
of commissioners were traversing the length and breadth of the land,
"wanting to know, you know," and eliciting an amount of information
which could not have been obtained without the direct personal pressure
of inquisitors upon the spot. Their labours produced much excellent
fruit, and restored a vast amount of charitable endowment to its
legitimate uses. The records survive in ponderous Blue-Books; and the
student of general literature may derive an idea of the nature of their
investigations, which it is to be hoped he will not take too literally,
from the lively ridicule of "Crotchet Castle." When the satirist
declared that the labours of the Commissioners did no good to any living
soul, he certainly ought to have excepted Mr. Winter Jones, who accepted
his appointment—as he told the present writer—mainly in the hope of
re-establishing his shattered health by a course of travel and living in
the open air. This object he fully attained. The few letters he wrote to
his family on his tour that have been preserved are full of racy
humour, and suggest what a page of English life might have been
presented by a record of the more private experiences of the Commission,
too familiar to be registered in Blue-Books. As nothing of the sort
exists, it may not be improper to preserve two specimens here,
notwithstanding their want of connection with bibliography:—
"MARKET HARBOROUGH, _Nov. 20, 1836_.
"Harborough is a monstrously stupid place, possessing no
interest that I have yet discovered either in the form of
situation or antiquities. The inhabitants of the county are
principally graziers and fox-hunters, men of substance,
coarse in their manners, and tolerably hospitable. Of the
few clergymen I have yet seen, little can be said in praise.
One has been suspended for his profligate habits; another
drinks so hard that he is incapable of performing the duties
of his church, being frequently insane; and a third attended
yesterday at our board with his church-warden, both of whom
were so fuddled that they could with difficulty make themselves
understood. . . . We have a vast deal of business to transact,
and every prospect of our work increasing. The labour is not so
much occasioned by the extent or intricacy of the charities,
as by the provoking stolidity of those who ought to be fully
informed upon the subject. There exists in this part of the
county a very extraordinary charity founded by a clergyman
named Hanbury, who prepared seventeen deeds for the foundation
of various branches of one grand charity. The property settled
is directed to accumulate until the proceeds amount to £10,000
per annum (they are at present about £500), when a cathedral
is to be erected at a cost of £150,000, and professorships
of music, poetry, philosophy, botany, &c. &c., established.
One of his deeds he heads, 'Beef for ever,' another, 'Organs
for ever,' a third, 'Schools for ever,' with much of the same
oddity. He has published a thick octavo volume with an account
of his charity and a copy of his foundation deeds. The latter
occupy 248 pages of the work, so if I have to abstract the
whole of them it is impossible to say when my labours will end."
"LEICESTER, _Feb. 5, 1837_.
"Our third and last visit was to a Mr. Hildebrand, a clergyman,
and head-master of the Kibworth free grammar school. This poor
fellow has just had his wife, mother-in-law, eight children,
and two servants confined to their beds with influenza, and
I never beheld an assemblage of more ghastly objects than we
formed at the dinner-table. With the exception of one, we had
all pale cheeks, red eyes, and every other sort of _phizzical_
ugliness, the excepted one had a blue complexion approaching to
black. Mr. Hildebrand, however, assured me the next morning at
breakfast that the hearty dinner he had made, and drinking as
much wine as pleased him (he was, by-the-bye, a long time in
being pleased) had completely removed his disorder. I may make
the same remark respecting myself. The necessity I have been
under of drinking wine every day has almost totally removed my
complaint. I have nothing now to complain of but a considerable
degree of nervous debility, which I hope will depart in a few
days."
The conclusion of the rural peregrinations of the Commission at the
beginning of 1837 threatened Mr. Jones with loss of employment, although
he was still engaged in town in reducing its voluminous proceedings to
print, and the extant correspondence shows that his work was very
important. He says in a letter of this period:—
"I am ready to be knocked down to the highest bidder in any honourable
service, and have no objection to write speeches and pamphlets and frame
bills for laws and schemes for mines provided I am properly remunerated,
but there's the rub." The real occupation of his life, however, was
unexpectedly at hand. Within two months after writing as above he was
appointed (April 1837) to the situation of permanent assistant in the
Printed Book Department of the British Museum. The suggestion that he
should apply for this post seems to have come from his friend Mr.
Nicholas Carlisle, an assistant-officer who had come to the Museum from
Windsor, along with the King's Library, and who is perhaps best
remembered by a work on the endowed grammar schools of England, valuable
in its time. The application was, moreover, strongly supported by Mr.
Johnstone, a member of the Charity Commission, who had been greatly
impressed by Mr. Jones's efficiency in his secretaryship, and who
enlisted his father, Sir Alexander Johnstone's, influence with the
Archbishop of Canterbury, in whose hands all appointments to the Museum
then practically rested. At the end of 1837, upon the resignation of the
Assistant-Keeper, Mr. Cary, Mr. Jones became a candidate for the office.
Short as his connection with the Museum had then been, he still had the
claim of seniority. But he had gained the esteem and confidence of Mr.
Panizzi, the Keeper, and Mr. Panizzi was obnoxious to persons
influential with the Archbishop, who accordingly replied that "his
connection with the establishment is of recent date," and apprehended
"that due consideration for the claims of others will put it out of my
power to serve him upon the present occasion." Who these others were did
not appear, and it seemed still more difficult to identify them when,
after some delay, the appointment was conferred upon a gentleman,
undoubtedly possessed of the highest talents and the greatest
attainments, but who could have no claim upon the Museum, as he had no
connection with it. It is to Mr. Jones's honour that he manifested no
resentment, and always maintained the most friendly relations with his
successful competitor, whose son now records the fact. "But," he said to
the writer many years afterwards, "from that hour I determined that I
would be Principal Librarian."
From this time forward Mr. Jones's history is almost entirely identified
with that of the library of the British Museum. He was entering upon
his duties at the period of the most important changes that have ever
taken place in that institution. The Parliamentary Committees of 1835-36
had proved the necessity for extensive reforms in every department of
the Museum. The Trustees had already been for some years occupied with
plans for a new catalogue of printed books. The removal of the library
from its old quarters in Montague House to the new buildings was about
to take place. It was fortunate, indeed, that just at this juncture the
library should have acquired so eminent an administrator as Sir Anthony
Panizzi, and in Mr. Jones an assistant who, though not especially gifted
with the power of initiative, was in diligence, fidelity, accuracy,
intelligence, and calm good sense as efficient a lieutenant as an able
administrator could desire.
After the removal of the library had been completed, with the assistance
of Messrs. Watts and Bullen, the next important task was the preparation
of the rules for the new catalogue, in which it is probable that Mr.
Jones took the largest share. They were prepared under Mr. Panizzi's
chief direction, with the co-operation of Messrs. Jones, Watts, Parry,
and Edwards. The extent of time devoted to them, and the extreme
thoroughness of the discussion, appears from Mr. Parry's evidence before
the Royal Commission of 1849, and Mr. Edwards's history of the British
Museum. They were finally accepted by the Trustees and officially
promulgated in July 1839. In one important respect, the rule to be
adopted for cataloguing anonymous books, the judgment of the compilers
was overruled by the Trustees, and this is the source of many of the
criticisms to which the rules themselves have been subjected. As a
whole, they have received almost universal approbation; and their merit
is sufficiently established by the circumstance of their having formed
an epoch in bibliography as the basis of all subsequent work of the same
nature. Very much of the discrepancy of opinion as regards cataloguing
results from the failure to distinguish between the requisites of large
and small libraries. The present writer is bound to say that in his
opinion the alteration introduced by the Trustees is justified by a
consideration of which the Trustees probably did not think, its indirect
effect in providing, in the case of anonymous books, some kind of a
substitute for what was then, and is still, the great deficiency of the
British Museum library, an index of subjects. The same remark applies to
the adoption of the headings "Academies," "Ephemerides," and "Periodical
Publications," the introduction of biographical cross-references, and
other features of the catalogue, perhaps exceptionable in theory, but
assuredly very convenient in practice.
The catalogue was now (August 1839) fairly commenced under the immediate
personal direction and responsibility of Mr. Panizzi. Mr. Jones,
however, held from the first a primacy among the assistants actually
engaged in its compilation, which became enhanced as the difficulties of
the task became more apparent from day to day. It had been supposed
that the old titles might pass with slight examination: they proved to
require the most careful revision; and the work of the revisers needed
to be in its turn revised. Subject to a reference to Mr. Panizzi in
extreme cases, Mr. Jones was the ultimate authority. His clear head,
legal habit of mind, and attention to minute bibliographical accuracy,
rendered him invaluable in this capacity, and his decisions constitute
the basis and most essential part of the body of unprinted law which
unforeseen exigencies gradually superinduced upon the original rules. He
also took a leading part in the revision of the proofs. The causes of
the suspension of the printing of the catalogue have been so fully
treated by the writer in a paper at the Cambridge meeting of the Library
Association, that it is needless to enter upon them here. It made no
difference to the amount of Mr. Jones's labours, except as regarded the
correction of the press. He continued to work upon the catalogue and
also upon the supplementary catalogue of books added to the library,
both as reviser and as general supervisor, until he became Keeper of
Printed Books in 1856. His other duties were numerous and important: he
exercised, in particular, the immediate control of the attendants, a
responsibility the more onerous in proportion to the continual increase
of the establishment. In 1843 he was engaged along with Mr. Watts in
collecting the materials on which Mr. Panizzi based his famous report on
the deficiencies of the library, which ultimately occasioned so large
an increase in the annual grant. In 1849 he prepared for the Royal
Commission that crushing exposure of Mr. J. P. Collier's notions of
short and easy methods of cataloguing which should be especially valued
by librarians, as it is perhaps the best practical illustration to be
found anywhere of the difficulties attaching to the correct
bibliographical description of a book. He was also enabled to devote
some attention to literature. About 1842 he wrote a large number of
articles for the Dictionary of Universal Biography, edited by Mr. George
Long for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, a great and
meritorious undertaking, unfortunately not carried beyond letter A,
although the continuation as far as BE was actually in type. Mr. Jones's
articles chiefly treated of obscure or forgotten writers, and required
much research. He also contributed to the _Quarterly_ and _North
British_ Reviews; his article in the latter on the British Museum
Library (1851) is the best account of its administration to be found
anywhere. He carried on an extensive correspondence with Mr. Wilson
Croker, who continually had recourse to him for information on literary
subjects. In 1847 he contributed to the _Archæologia_ "Observations on
the Division of Man's Life into Stages," with especial reference to
Shakespeare's descriptions of the seven ages of man, and about this time
wrote several other papers. In 1850 he edited for the Hakluyt Society
"Divers Voyages touching the Discovery of America"; and in 1856, "The
Travels of Nicolò Conti in the East," translated from the Italian of
Poggio Bracciolini. In 1858 he translated for the same Society the
Oriental travels of Lodovico di Varthema, edited, with a preface, by his
friend Dr. G. P. Badger.