REV. FREDERICK WILLIAM HOPE. xix 
of natural history. These connexions led him to a very extensive correspondence with 
eminent professors and other distinguished persons ; and being happily endowed with ample 
means to indulge in any pursuit of which he might make choice, he readily obtained from, 
I may say, almost every part of the world, specimens which led him to form a cabinet which 
was the envy of many, and the delight of all. I well recollect this rich collection as depo- 
sited in Seymour Street, and witnessed with wonder the variety and splendour of this 
department of animated nature. In this museum were to be found assembled and associ- 
ated naturalists not only of this but of many foreign countries, and conversazioni held of 
the most interesting character. This rich museum is now, by the liberality of Mr. Hope, 
deposited at Oxford. It was given to the University in 1849; and upon occasion of laying 
of the first stone of the New University Museum, in 1855, Mr. Hope was justly distinguished 
by having conferred upon him the honorary degree of D.C.L. ‘To this collection he may 
be said to have continued to make additions up to the time of his decease, although the 
latter years of his life were passed under sufferings of ill health of a very severe description. 
But his mind was of too vast a character to limit his researches to one department : he 
made collections in all the branches of natural history, and he purchased large and entire 
collections, among which may be mentioned Mr. Hubbard’s, of Orkney birds ; Professor 
Bell’s, of reptiles and crustacea; Mr. Westwood’s, of insects, books, and drawings ; and 
Mr. Wollaston’s, of the insects of Madeira. These vast accessions have all been added to 
his munificent gift to the University of Oxford, rendering the entire collection unrivalled, 
if we except those in the national collections of London, Berlin, and Paris. Mr. Hope was 
acutely sensible that, however valuable and desirable such collections must be to the 
students of his Alma Mater, yet that their value and importance would be very ereatly 
diminished unless a professorship should be established specially devoted to their considera- 
tion. Hitherto there existed no chair for the teaching of zoology. With his collections, 
therefore, he endowed a professorship of £4001 per annum, by which his name will be 
handed down to posterity as a great benefactor to his university and his country. The 
nomination of the professor was left to Mr. Hope during his life, and as the first occupant 
of the chair he nominated Mr. J. O. Westwood, a name well known to all naturalists, and 
one, also, with which archzeologists are in no little degree acquainted. Mr. Hope also 
appointed Mr. Westwood the Curator of the Museum. 
Mr. Hope was a good scholar, and his Latin compositions were elegant. That his tastes 
* [‘ For this purpose Mr. Hope endowed the Professorship of Zoology with the capital sum of £10,000 New 3 per 
Cent. Annuities. Mr. Hope died in the early part of 1862, and shortly afterwards his widow, in fulfilment of his 
intentions, transferred to the University a second sum of £10,000 in the same Stock, and assigned one-third of the 
dividends to the Professor in augmentation of his stipend. Mrs. Hope assigned another third part of the dividends as 
a stipend for the Keeper of the Hope Collection of Engraved Portraits, and directed the remainder to be applied in 
equal portions in keeping up and increasing the two Hope Collections. In December, 1864, Mrs. Hope gave a further 
sum of £1666 13s. 4d., in the same Stock, to augment the stipend of the Keeper of the Engravings, for the purpose of 
enabling him to employ an Assistant, and to meet expenses incidental to his duties. —Latract from the Oxford University 
Calendar. | 
Cc 2 
