XCll PEOCEEDINGS OF THE 



the year 1849 he executed a deed of gift, making over his whole 

 collection, as well as his library of books and engravings, to the 

 University of Oxford, under certain conditions of a very liberal 

 character, with reference to their being rendered available for pro- 

 moting the study of natural history at Oxford. He stiU, however, 

 continued annually to make large additions to the stores which he had 

 thus assigned to the University. Thus in 1857 he secured the whole 

 of Mr. Westwood's collections of insects, books, and drawings ; and 

 subsequently he acquired Mr. WoHaston's second and greatly en- 

 larged collection of Madeira insects, the collection of Orkney birds 

 formed by Mr. Hubbard during many years' residence in those islands 

 (unrivalled for the beauty of the specimens and the various groups 

 of young birds, with their parents and nests), as well as the BeU 

 collection of reptiles. By this means the University now possesses 

 a collection of insects inferior only in extent to those in the national 

 museums of London, Berlin, and Paris, and an entomological library 

 unrivalled both in the number and rarity of its contents. 



Mr. Hope's bounty, however, was not confined to natural history, 

 since his donations to the University of Oxford comprise one of the 

 largest collections of engraved portraits and topographical illustra- 

 tions ever formed, together with several thousand volumes of biogra- 

 phical, historical, topographical, and fine-art works, voyages, travels, 

 &c., including the Jussieu collection of Academic Eloges, illustrating 

 the collection of engravings, which cannot be considered as amount- 

 ing, at the lowest estimate, to fewer than 200,000. Of these, the 

 portraits cannot be fewer than 100,000, the topographical engravings 

 from 60,000 to 70,000, and the natural-history engravings from 

 20,000 to 30,000. There is, moreover, a considerable number of 

 engravings of a more miscellaneous character, including many by 

 the old masters. 



Mr. Hope's latest donation to the University consisted of the 

 remarkable collection of the works of British Essayists formed by 

 his father, consisting of about 1200 volumes, many of the greatest 

 rarity. 



In the year 1855 the first stone of the new Oxford Museum was 

 laid, on which occasion the honorary degree of D.C.L. was conferred 

 on ISIr. Hope, whose various munificent donations were destined to 

 be there deposited. 



In 1861 Mr. Hope further testified his devotion to the Univei-sity 

 of Oxford by founding and endowing a Professorship of Geology, 

 with more especial reference to the Invertebrata, to which chair he 

 nominated our distinguished colleague, Mr. Westwood, as the first 



