Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/152

140 LEIBNITZ AS A LIBRARIAN. WO great figures in the world of authorship had charge of the Ducal Library at Wolfenbiittel Leibnitz and Lessing. Some years ago I made a short communication to this review, ' presenting such facts as were obtainable that re- flefted favourably on Lessing's official capacity. If not very many, they yet sufficed to prove that he was fully alive to a sense of the duties of his post, and that the aspersions of his jealous con- temporaries and successors were unjustified. It was not, however, to be supposed that the ad- ministration of the library at Wolfenbiittel would entirely escape the effects of Lessing's improvident habits and unmethodical course of life, that were a bane to himself and a source of trouble to his friends. With the subject of the present remarks the case was very different, as will shortly be shown. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz was born in 1646, at Leipzig, where his father was professor of moral philosophy at the University. The first twenty J7 1 J J J years of his life were spent in his native city, and he was educated first at the Nicolai School and afterwards at the University. His precocity was remarkable, and from early youth he showed a 1 LIBRARY, 1901, n.s. ii, p. 376.