The Sun.
London, England, 1862-05-06 00:00:00

AUSTRIA.

A letter f►om Munich of the 3d, in the Moniteur,
says :

" Great reductions have been effected in
Austria on the Budgets of the different ministries.
That of the Department of Foreign Affiirs, for
instance, now scarcely reaches the amount of 2-1
millions of florins (2fr. 60c. each). The representa-
tion of the country abroad is comf,osed of three
ambassadors, one internuncio, twenty-four envoys,
one resident Minister and three charg6 d'affaires,
costing together 867,000 florins; the ministry de-
manded 956,066f1. The consulates absorb 548,000f1.
Austria has thirty consuls-general; three general
agents ; thirty-three consuls; twenty-nine vice-
consuls, sixty inferior clerks, and thirteen agents.
At the plenary sitting of the Committee of Finance
of the 26th ult., the Budget of the Ministry of
Finance was presented. M. de Plener and Baron
de HE ck warmly defended the expenses of that de-
partment, but their arguments did not prevent the
committee from effecting rather considerable reduc-
tions. The extraordinary expenses have been les-
sened 10 per cent.; and the officials of the Ministry
have been decreased by ten councillors and an equal
number of secretaries,

CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE

Now ON VIEW AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM EVERY
DAY FROM FIVE TO EIGHT P.M.
By a generous arrangement on the part of the
trustees of the British Museum, the public generally
are admitted every evening between five and eight
o'clock to inspect a very choice selection of the most
precious among the printed and manuscript trea-
sures of that great national institution. During
the earlier part of the day several of the noble
rooms devoted to the Grenville Library and
th© King's Library are accessible to all comers and
and goers who care to pass through them. And
the apartments themselves are worthy of a visit
—and their contents of a very careful examination.
Later on, as we have said—towards evening, when
the readers have left—the inner doors are thrown
open, and the public who are not readers are per-
mitted to scrutinise at their leisure the very pick
of those Curiosities of Literature, curiosities which,
the readers themselves have seldom if ever before
been permitted a sight of! Yesterday afternoon,
by the courtesy of Mr. Winter Jones, we were
enabled to examine at our ease one of the most
remarkable of these curiosities—a sort of a Brob-
dignagian Atlas, about six feet high, and now
laid open of an evening for general inspection, like
a giant picture upon the easel of some Art Goliath.
Considering the date at which these gigantic maps
were produced (the age of King Charles ll.)—the
work is altogether a perfect marvel to look at. It
has long been lying there perdu, so far as the public
at large are concerned, among the wonders of the
King's library—the noble collection of works be-
queathed to the nation by King George 111. Here
is Mr. Jones's account of it, as given in his instruc-
tive little guide to these purely temporary attrac-
tions to the British Museum collection—for the
rooms containing them will only remain open to
the public during the period of the Great Interna-
tional Exhibition. The catalogue raisonee says-
2. An Atlas of the World, comprising the finest maps
by Blaeu, Hondius, Visscher, &c., brought together and
presented to Charles II , at the Restoration in 1660, by I.
Klencke, with the following address at the commencement
in letters of gold : Soli Britannico reduci Carolo Secundo
Regum Augustissimo hoc orbis term compendium humill.
off. I. Klencke,' The binders' names occur on the back
of the volume in the following form • Kees Dirckz. et
Filius, D. K. compegerunt, anno 1665: From the Library
of King George III."
And it is odd enough to remark cheek by jowl
with this Monster Atlas, produced in the days of
the Commonwealth, and presented to Charles 11.
immediately after the Restoration—a curiosity, as
unlooked for by its side as the following :
" 1. One of the great edicts used by the Chinese insur-
gent chief Tai-ping, in the summer of 1853, impressed with
the stamp of his cabinet. Announcing the object of the
insurrection to be the extermination of the ' Tartar hordes,'
and calling upon all classes of the people to pursue their
avocations quietly."
As for this colossal Atlas, it might provoke the
jealousy even of the member for,Bodmin, or of that
other distinguished geographer of the far north,
Mr. Keith Johnstone.
Does any one care to look at the autographs of
the great men of all ages and countries ? Here
they are disposed in orderly array, in glass cases,
about these hitherto impenetrable belle of art and
literature. Here they are in abundance—veritable
autographs of men such as Leibnitz, Moliere, Cor-
neille, Mat Prior, Voltaire, Nelson, Wellington.
Has any one a fancy to glance at the Great Seals
of the Kings of England ? Here, again, his curio-
sity may be readily gratified.
Is there a fastidious Book Hunter or Biblioina-
niac amongst us who wishes to feast his eye upon
the very perfection of bookbinding? The op-
portunity is here within his reach—an oppor-
tunity that Mr. Hill Burton would revel in !
Specimens they are of bookbinding from the six-
teenth century downwards. And the oldest of
them—though of a period so remote--b 0 inimitably
beautiful and costly as specimens of their art as to
be at once the despair and the admiration of the
most skilled among our present race of bookbinders.
What, indeed, upon this point, says Mr. Winter
Jones in his pleasant handbook ? "Of this art,"
he writes, "it may be observed that, like that of
printing, its earliest specimens display a degree of
excellence which cannot be surpassed at the present
day, and which modern binders are proud to be able
to imitate successfully."
Then, again, as Specimens of Printing—here in
the rooms now opened to public view for a brief in-
terval of time at the British Museum, are examples
of the earliest productions of the printing presses of
Germany, of Italy, of France, of England, and of
the Low Countries. Here too are " Block Books"
of a date still earlier. Here are the first woodcut
illustrations to letterpress_Caxton's )Esop for
example—so clumsy and uncouth in their way as
to appear what they really are.
of that art in its very childhood ! Looking at
the cases set apart for specimens of " Fine and
Sumptuous Printing," and for rare and gorgeous
illumination —we cannot but linger delighted
over that lovely " Breviary of the Camaidolese
Monks," printed on 4to vellum in 1484, at Florence,
by that consummate artificer AntoniausMiscominus.
In that same case (ix.) there is a glorious Sallust,
that one's mouth waters to turn the leaves of ! It is
numbered and noted in the catalogue as follows :
a 12, Sallust.—Translated into Spanish by the Infant
Don Gabriel under the superintendence of his tutor Fr.
Perez Bayer. Printed at Madrid by Joachin Ibarra, in
italic letters, in 1772. Bequeathed by the Rev. C. M.
Reverting, however, to the one remarkable volume,
a curiosity to examine which led us yesterday down
to those newly-opened treasures of art and litera-
ture down at Bloomsbury—viz., the enormous
six-feotshigh Atlas, formerly belonging to King
Charles the Second—we would particularly
call the attention of all visitors who may wend.
their way to the British Museum to see it, to
the fact that the room in which it is now displayed
was one of the two rooms formerly set apart for the
use of Readers before that magnificent circular
Reading Room (now in use) was constructed !
Surely—this last—the noblest library anywhere to
be found in the length and breadth of all Christen-
dom. Entering. once more, after the lapse of so
long an interval, one of those two dear dreadful old
Reading rooms in which,years and years ago,we our-
selves have so often obtained the unwelcome luxury
of une of the celebrated British Museum Headaches
—to say nothing of having been occasionally driven
to distraction there by the no less celebrated British
Museum Flea—we have really no adequate words
in which to express our gratitude for that splendid
structure, under the dome of which Study seems to
be encompassed with a halo of architectural mag-
nificence,