Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/160

148 LEIBNITZ AS A LIBRARIAN. catholic taste in his choice, but his individual leanings must stamp the character of the books. This was specially the case with Leibnitz's conduft of affairs at Wolfenbiittel. The sub-librarian, Hertel, and he did not always agree as to the choice of the purchases to be made. Hertel judged books from the material standpoint, where- as Leibnitz's outlook as regards their contents was the intellectual ; editions de luxe, scarce books, and masterpieces of typography, though by no means undervalued by him, occupied a second rank in his estimation. In 1710 he bought a collection of manuscripts from the philologist, Marquard Gudius, for 2,400 thalers, a purchase in which his own interest in philology must have caused him to take a special pleasure. One or two years earlier than the date men- tioned above in 1708 at a book auction of a certain Count Lucius's library, he bought works to the comparatively low value of 157 thalers. This purchase did not give satisfaction to some small- minded people, but Leibnitz very properly replied that he did not estimate books by what they fetched in the market, but by what services the author had rendered to the republic of letters. There is a striking passage in his ' Preceptes pour TAvancement des Sciences,' in which he speaks in severe terms of the appalling multiplica- tion even in his day of trashy and ephemeral books. He seems especially to have objected to c padding.' Much of the literature in his own private library is said to have consisted of disserta- tions and small pamphlets ('pieces fugitives'),