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 236 direction of Mr. Gilbert. The photographic reproduction is sometimes even preferable to the original manuscript, bringing out and restoring faded letters. Given such a facsimile, and, save as a matter of sentiment, it would be almost indifferent whether the original reposed upon the shelves of London or of Dublin. With it, the scholar need rarely brace himself up for a long and expensive journey to one city or the other. With it, the national treasure is doubly, trebly, tenfold, or a hundredfold if you like, protected against theft, injury, or destruction. With it, Ireland might soon possess, at a nominal cost, facsimiles of all MSS. illustrating her ancient language or history, and not merely the Ashburnham. But if these propositions are true of the British Museum, they are true of every national institution. If they apply to Celtic scholars, they apply to all scholars. If they apply to the Ashburnham MSS., they apply to all MSS., including parish registers and public documents; if to these, then to printed books of rarity and value; and no less to every picture and statue, engraving and medal. Think of the boundless field thus opened up for the dissemination of instruction and enjoyment, for the insurance of irreplaceable wealth, and great must be the wonder that scarcely a corner of it should hitherto have been occupied.

The cause, nevertheless, is very simple. Photographic reproduction has not as yet been regarded as a duty incumbent upon a public library, and has not, accordingly, been provided for out of the