Show A of carlyle mr robert harrison who has been librarian of the london library for more than thirty four years in the course of his presidential address at the librarians conference at nottingham gave some interesting reminiscences of carlyle who was accustomed to frequent the library he said carlyle often visited the library his conversation was most amusing full of extravagant and exaggerated statements and alway ending with a loud laugh apparently at himself he used the library books extensively for his later works and was guilty of the reprehensible tico of writing anthe margin of the books I 1 must admit that his remarks were never meaningless but chiefly consisted of corrections of data or errors in the text one remark of his however which was pretty well known was a criticism it occurred in charles diudina Dib dina collection of songs the last page of which contained the ordinary version of rule britannia at the foot of this boastful song carlyle had written cock a doodle doo with a small forest of notes of exclamation after it in a case like that the librarian would be a martinet indeed if he effaced from the book an expression BO characteristic te of the man of genius who wrote it pall mall gazette |