Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/154

142 LEIBNITZ AS A LIBRARIAN. recorded in this interesting essay were mainly obtained from the voluminous correspondence Leibnitz contrived to carry on with his literary friends and diplomatic and official associates. It was at Nuremberg, in 1667, when he was only twenty-one years of age, that Leibnitz first met the Baron von Boineburg, statesman and scholar, who was the possessor of an excellent library, and was much interested in one of the earliest known works on practical librarianship Gabriel Naude's c Advis pour dresser une Bibliotheque,' published in 1627.' He took Leibnitz into his service as secretary, literary assistant and librarian, and they went to reside first at Mainz and after- wards at Frankfort. Leibnitz appears rapidly to have shown his aptitude for the work, as we very soon hear of him preparing a systematic subject catalogue of his books, which he intended to be an index to the contents of the whole library. For the present, however, other interests demanded his time and attention. Baron von Boineburg was prime minister to the Ele6lor of Mainz. The Eleftor took Leibnitz under his patronage and sent him on political missions to various neigh- bouring courts. His youth notwithstanding, Leibnitz was already becoming a social force, and he established by degrees a sort of literary com- monwealth among the authors of his day in other words, it was he as much as anyone who 1 For a resume" of Naud's book see article by the writer, LIBRARY, 1898, x, pp. 387-90, and for a general account of Naud6 see article by George Smith, * Library Assoc. Record/ 1899, i, pp. 423, 483.