TURNBULL LIBRARY TREASURES

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 225, 21 June 1939, Page 13

TURNBULL LIBRARY TREASURES

Address By Mr. C. R. H. Taylor TRIBUTE TO NOTABLE COLLECTOR Introducing Mr. C. It. H. Taylor, librarian of the Turnbull Library, to the members of the Wellington notary Club yesterday, Mr. J. M. A. Hott said that the Turnbull collection held a foremost position in the world in respect to the works of Milton, Elizabethan drama, the historical literature of Zealandia and that of Polynesia. Mr. Taylor said that mankind’s previous knowledge of humanity descended only through the medium of books, the coherent and Intelligent collection of which meant knowledge for the living and those who came after them. He pointed out as a peculiarity that most Of the great libraries of the world had their origin in individual collections; from men who were able to build up coherent collections, in order that, some time in ' the future, they might be made available to the public. Such a man was Alexander Turnbull, who died in Wellington in 1918. He was the son of a merchant whose business was later acquired by Wright, Stephenson and Co. When his father died in 1900 Mr. Alexander Turnbull took control of the business, but his heart was really in his books. He expended some £BOOO in building up his library, the value of which today could be multiplied by 10 or 12, though it was not possible to say anything definite on that point. With his resources he developed avenue., through which he was able to secure special editions of desired works in all parts of the world. There were 80,000 volumes in the Turnbull Library, of which from 30,000 to 3fc,000 were concerned with New Zealand and Polynesia. There were, for example, 1000 volumes dealing with the languages of New. Zealand and the South Sea Islands, a collection which was perhaps only excelled by the one in the Mitchell Library, Sydney. Mr. Turnbull’s investment in English literature was unbelievably rich. Illustrating the passion which possessed the collector, Mr. Taylor said that in Mid-Victorian times a Scot named Stoddart published a small volume of poems, not perhaps of any great literary value, but Andrew Lang, a Scottish historian, was so keep on getting a copy of these poems that he wrote on the subject in one of his publications. Eventually he succeeded in gaining possession of Stoddart’s own copy, in which Stoddart wrote an extra poem in his own handwriting. That proud possession passed to Alexander Turnbull when Lang died and was now in the Turnbull Library. Why “Solomon” Islands. Speaking of the ventures of some Spanish navigators of the sixteenth century, Mr. Taylor said that one of them, Alvaro de Mendana, adventured so far as to discover the Solomon Islands in 1556, which was the first occasion that the Spanish colours —or those of any other nation —had been seen in those waters. It was that leader who, because he considered the islands so pleasant In feature and richly endowed by nature, christened them the Solomon Islands, after King Solomon of Biblical fame. Nothing was done about it Immediately, however, as during the next year war broke out with England and all Spain’s resources at sea were concentrated in the Great Armada. When the war was over another expedition was sent to the Pacific to claim the Solomons in the name of Spain, but, mysteriously enough, they could not be found and their existence became somewhat of a mystery. Then after two centuries the group was re-discovered by Wallace, an English captain. Mendana’s account of his expeditions to the Pacific is among the treasured volumes in the library.

Mr. Taylor spoke of the particular virtues of first editions, and how fortunate the library was in the possession of many extremely valuable ones. He related that when Samuel Butler wrote “The Way of All Flesh,” a satire, he deliberately misquoted Shakespeare, when he wrote: “ ’Twere better to have loved and lost than never to have lost before.” The final “lost” should have been “loved” according to the reader of the proof, who altered it accordingly, and so the first edition has the Shakespearean text correctly, and the secand has the deliberate misquotation. Referring to Dr. Johnson, of dictionary fame, he said that Johnson wrote his Rasselas" during the first Abyssinian campaign, and, strangely enough, “Has” meant Prince and “Selas” was strangely like “Selassie.” Johnson wrote the book within a week to pay off his mother’s funeral expenses, and it was a very fine piece of writing. How prophetic parts of “Rasselas” were could be imagined by the following paragraph:— “If men were all virtuous I should with great alacrity teach them all to fly. But what would be the security of the good, if the bad could at pleasure invade them from the sky? Against an army sailing through the clouds, neither walls, nor mountains, nor seas, could afford any security. A flight of northern savages might hover in the wind, and light at once with irresistible violence upon the capital of a fruitful region that was rolling under them. Even this valley, the retreat of princes, the abode of happiness, might lx; violated.” Mr. Taylor was given a hearty vote of thanks for his address.