Ossian's Poems

In a collection such as the Library of the Launceston Mechanics' Institute, formed by and for its community, there will invariably be found many books with interesting and significant connections.

An early edition (1) of Fingal, an ancient and epic poem. In six books: together with several other poems, composed by Ossian the son of Fingal. Translated from the Gallic language, by James Macpherson   is just such an example.

A handwritten note on the title page indicates that the book was originally gifted by Hector McNeil to Robert Ross in 1762.

However our attention was drawn to a later inscription on the front free endpapers of this volume, in the form of a letter;

Ossian's Poems

These volumes are presented to Mr. John De Little, as a token of respect and admiration of that truly powerful parental affection for the welfare of his children, which  separates  him from those friends and relations with whom he has lived and had amiable relations for nearly a quarter of a century. The best criterion of their estimation being in their tears, and assertions of there goes "A truly honest man".

Should he enjoy a momentary pleasure, in perusing them It will more than compensate his (shall he name himself friend? And admirer ---

Bryan O'Reilly

139 Mecklinburgh Street

Dublin

Ireland

June 23rd, 1830

For many months we were unable to decipher the surname of the presentee, and it was only through the inspired work of FOLMI member Sue McClarron, that the name De Little was recognised and the question of how the book found its way into our collection could be resolved.

The date of Mr O'Reilly's letter is the key, because it was on June 26, 1830, that John De Little and his family left Ireland on the Cleopatra, bound for Van Diemen's Land, where Mr De Little was to take up the position of Superintendent of the Government Farm at New Town.

John De Little died just four years after his arrival in Hobart. Two of his sons, Robert and Joseph, had relocated to Launceston and were later joined there by John's widow. Robert and Joseph were important figures in the development of Launceston, and were connected with the design and construction of many of the City's buildings.

Both men served on the Board of Management of the Launceston Mechanics' Institute. Robert was Vice-President of the Institute from 1859-60, and donated one hundred pounds towards to cost of the Institute's new building. In 1861 he donated twenty volumes to the Institute's library collection, although the Ossian poems do not appear to have been among these.

It is more likely that this 12vo volume, rebound in brown calf with the binder's title Erse Poems, Vol I in gold on a red ground, was preserved among the De Little family for many more years, and found its way into the Institute in the twentieth century.

In publishing this first Irish edition of Ossian's poems, Richard Fitzsimons, a Dublin bookseller, participated in a literary sensation which lasted for more than a century, was an important marker in the genesis of the Romantic movement, and provoked a controversy which has exercised the minds of scholars to this day.

For the De Little family no doubt it was a treasured memento of the land John De Little had left, as Brian O'Reilly wrote "for the welfare of his children".

 

(1) Dublin: Printed for Richard Fitzsimmons in High Street, 1762. See the National Library of Scotland's Ossian Collection, Item 53 for this edition.

Rev H R Haweis, M.A.

In September 1895, Launceston was favoured with a visit from the Reverend Hugh Reginald Haweis, then undertaking the third leg of a world speaking tour which included Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific and Ceylon.

Rev. Haweis was a prolific author, noted preacher and gifted orator on a variety of subjects. Naturally the Launceston Mechanics' Institute was the venue for his public lectures in Launceston, and he spoke on three consecutive nights on the topics of "Music and Morals", "Tennyson, Browning, Oliver Wendell Holmes, with personal recollections and dramatic recitations" and "The music of nature and the music of man", the last with violin, whistle and other accompaniments. On the following Sunday he preached at St John's in the morning and Holy Trinity in the evening.

The Launceston Examiner provided extensive coverage of Rev. Haweis's lectures, describing him as possessing "a wonderful power of eloquence, his only fault perhaps being the extraordinary rapidity of his utterances." (5 Sept 1895, p.6) A small attendance on the opening nights was attributed to the unsettled state of the weather, but better crowds were reported at the final address on Friday night.

No doubt many in his audience would have been familiar with his ideas, as the Institute had in its library at least fifteen of his books, principally on religious and musical topics. His wife Mary was also a well-known writer and her book The Art of Beauty (1878) was held by the Library.

Additionally, the Library held copies of Cassell's Magazine, which Haweis edited for a time around 1870. It was under Haweis's editorship that Garibaldi, with whom Haweis had served in 1860, was persuaded to contribute his memoirs to the magazine.

Port. of Rev. Haweis engr. by G J Stodart from Music and Morals

Following Haweis's return to England he published a two-volume account of his world tours entitled Travel and Talk, 1885-93-95 : My hundred thousand miles of travel through America, Australia, Tasmania, Canada, New Zealand, Ceylon and the paradises of the Pacific in 1896. The Institute received its copy in May 1898, and surely readers must have turned eagerly to the second volume to read his impressions of Tasmania. If so they would have been disappointed. Despite the promise of the title, four pages only were dedicated to Tasmania, and most of those to a letter Haweis received from Bishop Montgomery on his return to London.

These volumes are now held in the Local Studies collection at Launceston LINC still carrying the original bookplates of the Institute. Other titles held in the surviving Mechanics' Institute collection include his best known works Music and Morals (in the 12th ed.), My Musical Life (1884), the five volumes in his Christ and Christianity series (1886-7), American Humourists (1883), and the early works Thoughts for the Times (1872), Speech in Season (1874) and Current Coin (1876).

A curiously belated account of the Reverend's life and career was contributed to the Launceston Examiner and published on 17 September, eight days after his departure for Melbourne;

REV. H. R. HAWEIS, M.A. (Communicated.) Now that this famous London preacher and lecturer has been heard in Launceston, some particulars concerning his life and work will be read with interest. Outside of Great Britain, Mr Haweis is far better known in America than in the Australian colonies, and the fact of his name not being so familiar to Tasmanians may account, in same measure, for the rather moderate audiences at his first two lectures in Launceston. He has preached and lectured on many occasions in the United States, and has also been one of the "Lowell" lecturers in Boston.

Mr Haweis was born in England and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated and took his B.A. degree in 1859. After a few years' work as curate in the East End of London, he was appointed incumbent of St. James's, Westmoreland-street, Marylebone, where he continues to draw crowded congregations, his church, perhaps, attracting more leading men and women in the world of art and letters than any other in London. His best known works are "Music and Morals," " My Musical Life," (in which one can get a fine idea of Wagner's music), "Speech in Season," "Current Coin," "Winged Words," "Thoughts for the Times," " Arrows in the Air," and " Christ and Christianity." He has also written a number of hymns and "Unsectarian Family Prayers." Mr Haweis is a brilliant and a many sided man, and he has built up such a force of thought that it can be turned at will upon almost any subject, and his shrewd common sense, aided by his powerful intellect and subtle thought, enables him to dive beneath the surface and analyse swiftly and unerringly the various subjects which he takes up. As a preacher he excels in clear, logical, and common sense expositions of the Scriptures, and he thinks out and preaches upon the various social problems of the day. His language is simple, yet forcible, and it at once denotes the scholar, although at times he can soar into beautiful imagery. His illustrations are peculiarly apt and very frequently humourous, and he delivers sterling home truths in such a manner that they never fail to carry conviction to his hearers, and his earnestness and the intensity of his thought often lead to that wonderful rapidity of utterance which carries his congregation entirely with him. The great charm about Mr Haweis is his personality; he is thoroughly natural, and there is a powerful magnetism about him which attracts one and all. As a clergyman he is ever ready to extend the hand of fellowship to preachers of other denominations, irrespective of their creed or nationality; he is essentially cosmopolitan. As a lecturer he is both original and humourous, and he has the faculty of completely riveting the attention of his audience the whole time he is on the platform. His subjects cover a wide range, and include music, poetry, the drama, and science, and he has also given a series of lectures on "American Humourists" He has lectured on "Violins" and "Church Bells," on both of which he is considered an authority. When in practice he was probably the best amateur violinist in England. He is also accounted an excellent judge of violins, and numerous applications are made to him by professionals and amateurs alike for his opinion, which is always freely given. Mr Haweis was at one time editor of Cassell's Magazine; he also wrote for Good Words, and he was on the original staff of the London Echo for leading articles and musical criticisms. He was one of the select preachers appointed by the Dean of Westminster for the course of Services for the People at the Abbey, and he has at times lectured for the Royal Institution. He was one of the first to advocate the establishment of "penny readings" in London. He is in favour of cremation, and he has written a cremation prelude entitled "Ashes to Ashes." This is necessarily a short and incomplete sketch of one of London's foremost preachers and thinkers of to-day, and of a man who in the number and variety of his talents is probably unique.

Perhaps if Rev. Haweis's publicity had preceded rather than followed him attendance at his lectures would have been improved. The Reverend had elected to travel to Tasmania independently of his Australian agent, R. S. Smythe. In Travel and Talk, Rev. Haweis describes Smythe's promotional skills thus; "in every town I entered, my name in letters two feet long, white on a pale blue ground, stared me in the face, at the railway stations, on the omnibuses, at the hotels. The descriptive handbills were wonderful. One might suppose the whole civilised world was nothing but one vast listening ear, waiting for the least whisper that might fall from my lips." (Vol 2, p.149).

Dr Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia

One of the immutable laws of library stocktaking is that a book is much more likely to survive a weeding program if it is part of a set. And so, when reviewing the non-fiction collection of the Launceston Mechanics' Institute, we were struck by the number of volumes of Dr Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia that were still held.

The remarkable Dionysius Lardner pitched his idea of a thematic cyclopaedia to Longmans in the late 1820s, and the first volume was published in 1830. When the final volume appeared in 1844 it brought the total to 133.

Dr Lardner was the author of the Arithmetic, Heat, Hydrostatics and Pneumatics, Geometry, Electricity and Magnetism volumes, and co-author of Mechanics.

He commissioned works from notable writers and authorities to expand his Cyclopaedia into the areas of History, Biography, the Arts, Natural Science, Philosophy, Manufactures, and even a volume on Taxidermy. Sir Walter Scott wrote a two volume history of Scotland; Thomas Moore the history of Ireland; Robert Southey three of the four volumes on the lives of British Naval Commanders. Mary Shelley contributed to the biographies of Eminent French Authors.

In a Catalogue of the Distinct Works of Dr Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia published in 1840, the series was recommended as being "very advantageous for FAMILIES resident in the country who are not provided with a library, - for the libraries of MECHANICS' INSTITUTIONS and of LITERARY and PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETIES."

Lardner was a popular lecturer, appearing regularly at London's mechanics' institutions, and on the circuit of provincial literary and philosophical societies and mechanics' institutes. He wrote for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge on a variety of scientific topics. He can be seen as an important mediator of scientific knowledge, dedicated to providing the general populace with an understanding of new technologies in a time of rapid change.

Title Vignette from Dr Lardner's Treatise on Arithmetic, Vol LV of the Cabinet Cyclopaedia

A feature of the Cyclopaedia's appeal was its low cost. Each uniformly bound octavo volume cost six shillings. In 1853, Longmans reduced the price to three shillings and sixpence, and a complete set could be had for nineteen guineas.

At present 97 volumes, including some duplicates and donations, have been located in the Launceston Mechanics' Institute collection. Most show the external evidence of heavy use. When the entire collection was re-accessioned circa 1890, the Cabinet Cyclopaedia was one of the first priorities and was given running numbers from 305- 410, suggesting it was collocated and occupied a prominent place in the Reading Room's reference collection despite its age. Later, when the collection was reclassified using the Dewey Decimal system, volumes were moved to their subject areas but continued to form part of the working collection.

Much could be written about Lardner's colourful career. The interested reader is directed to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography for a balanced account which ranges across his personal life, scientific achievements and his other writing and publishing activities. It also references some varied, and at times satirical, personal assessments by his contemporaries.

While Lardner is a largely forgotten figure today, it is worth noting as a gloss that he was Karl Marx's "go-to" man on matters relating to the economics of railways, and is quoted extensively in 'Das Kapital'.

For a detailed account of the Cabinet Cyclopaedia, Morse Peckham's  ‘Dr Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia’, in the Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 45 (1951), pp 37–58, is recommended.

Institute Bookplates

As the number of different bookplates found in the surviving books of the Launceston Mechanics' Institute continues to grow, we have established a Flickr photostream to showcase the variety of designs and illustrate the way these bookplates were used to record changes in accessioning practice and library classification schemes.

An album of twenty eight of the bookplates used by the Institute between 1842 and 1929 has been added to Flickr at:

www.flickr.com/photos/launcestonmechanicsinstitute/ 

The album includes printed plates, stamps, and the plates of previous book owners such as the Circulating Library of Ferdinand Riva, a Launceston jeweller and gold merchant who operated a subscription library from his Charles Street shop until 1852.

A Rival for the Institute

The Launceston Library Society was formed in 1845, just three years after the Mechanics' Institute first opened its doors. 

The Society's original intent was to rely on member subscriptions for the purchase of books, but in 1849  Government support was sought, and refused, as membership failed to grow.

The original bookplate of the Society from the Westminster Review, Vol 59, Jan 1853 - April 1855

By 1855 the Library's opening hours had been reduced to one hour per week.  In 1856 the members decided to "rebrand" the Society as the Launceston Public Library, and a government subsidy of one hundred pounds per annum was offered on condition that the reading room and library were opened to the public. 

The new bookplate - printed for the Society by Ashby & Co, London.

In 1861 further support was received in the form of accommodation in the Public Buildings in St John Street – directly opposite the Institute. Financial support was short-lived and was withdrawn in 1864, although an allocation of escheated funds in 1869 provided something of a reprieve. 

The President's comments on the inadequacy of the allocation were reported in the Launceston Examiner of 23 March 1872:

LAUNCESTON PUBLIC LIBRARY. ANNUAL MEETING. The annual meeting of subscribers to the Launceston Public Library, which had twice been adjourned owing to the absence of a quorum, was held on Thursday evening, the hon. James Aikenhead, Esq., M.L.C., in the chair. The attendance was very limited.

REPORT.

The following report was read- According to the rules of the Launceston Public Library the annual meeting should have been held  on the second Thursday in January, but for reasons which it would be difficult to defend the general  meeting of members has been postponed untill now.

The members are aware that some years ago, at the instance of the Government of the day, this Library collected by private means was thrown open to the public, daily, during certain hours, in consideration of a yearly grant of money. This, however, was soon withdrawn, and the committee consider unfairly. Although the Howells escheated property was in this town, nearly the whole of the proceeds of the sale, amounting to over £2,000, was given to the Hobart Town Public Library while only £200 was given the kindred institution at Launceston. It cannot, therefore, excite surprise that the Launceston Public Library has been seriously crippled, by which its usefulness has been greatly impaired. It is rather a matter of congratulation that it has been able to keep its doors open so long.

The Library contains between five and six thousand volumes, of which 1044 were issued during the year. In the same term 718 persons visited the library. The number of subscribers on the books is only 27, and the subscriptions for the year 25l. 5s. One indent of books has been transmitted to England during the year.

On this occasion it will be necessary that a president, treasurer, secretary, and committee of seven subscribers be elected. The financial statement showed a balance to credit of £17 14s 1d on 31st December last. The report and financial statement having been adopted, the following, officers for the ensuing year were elected - Mr J. Aikenhead, President; Mr A. M. Milligan, Treasurer;  Mr R. Green, junr., Secretary ; Executive Committee Messrs. W. S. Button, Henry Dowling, J. L. Miller, Charles Thompson, Adye Douglas, J. J. Hudson, and George Collins. A vote of thanks to the Chairman terminated the proceedings.

An Hobartian view of the Launceston Public Library, and a revealing insight to the rivalry between the cities is contained in this report from the Mercury of 30 March 1874;

Our Launceston letter

[From our correspondent]

I wandered into that unfamiliar institution known as the Launceston Public Library, this afternoon. This musty reading room, situate in a portion of the Public Buildings, and filled with antiquated literature and cobwebs, and only open at such hours as to practically exclude the general public from any participation in its benefits, has not for some time previous attracted so large an attendance as assembled today. All the savants of the North, and a great many of the ordinary public were there, bent on seeing the preserved salmon for some time exhibited in the Museum at Hobart Town, and for which the sum of £30 was paid. With thoughtful consideration the specimen has been sent by the authorities for temporary exhibition here, and is, I believe, to remain on view for some days. I do not affect to be a connoiseur, and fully confess my inability to decide as to the bona fides of his Salmonship. I must, however, acknowledge some astonishment at witnessing among some of the spectators assembled, whose knowledge I am sure on this subject can be little superior to my own, an assumption of wisdom somewhat inexplicable. Many of these gentlemen have never yet been out of Tasmania, but with ominous head shaking, expressed their conviction that this was not the real simon pure. This peculiarly is not altogether difficult to account for. The mere fact that the finny specimen has been pronounced by competent authorities at Hobart Town to be a real salmo salar, is quite sufficient reason for competent or incompetent authority at Launceston to pronounce it a salmo trutta !

Later the Government decided it could no longer provide accommodation for the Library, which was moved to the Town Hall. In 1881 the books of the Library were placed into storage at the Town Hall and the Library ceased operations.

As early as 1863 the rival Launceston Mechanics Institute had unsuccessfully proposed a merger with the Library Society, but in 1888 the Society finally determined to hand over the Launceston Public Library collection, then some 2000 volumes, as well as the assets of the Society to the Institute, on condition of the provision of a  free public reading room. The Institute accepted the gift and asked Parliament to enable it to alter its title so as to include the words, "and public library," and in November, 1890, an Act of Incorporation was passed confirming the new name.

The provision of  a Reading Room was a boon to the Institute,  and was facilitated by the opening of the new Museum, and the consequent removal of the exhibits. The former Launceston Public Library books were eventually integrated with the Institute collection and many of them have survived.

The books appear for the most part to have been procured from Orger and Meryon in London which may explain why the second bookplate was sourced there. In the example shown above, the LMI accession number 8468 is overwritten on the original book plate.