8 PREFACE 



proportion of the correspondence would, I trust, always fall 

 to my share, but I hope that the time could be spent with 

 greater profit to the University if it were possible to obtain 

 some relief. I must also repeat what I have often said 

 before, that for the library to be of any real value the 

 catalogue must be completed ; while for the safety of the 

 books a large sum must be spent on binding. The 

 University accepted over forty years ago one of the most 

 complete and valuable of then existing libraries which 

 dealt with the material of the Hope Collections. It is not 

 creditable that no steps have been taken to complete a 

 catalogue which is now so imperfect as to be useless, and 

 that an immense number of valuable monographs should be 

 endangered, and many should be injured, for want of binding. 

 And, as regards the Collections themselves, there is the 

 continual and pressing need for more accommodation in 

 safe and well-made cabinets, and the removal of all that 

 are unsafe and indeed extremely dangerous. 



A great deal has been done during the past ten years. 

 In addition to the endowment of the Hope Chair, which 

 has now sunk to under ^380, the grant, of ;^I50 a year 

 paid by the University for salaries, the Hope Department 

 endowment of about ^48 a year, and the Spilsbury en- 

 dowment of about ^4 JOS., in addition to these yearly 

 payments a sum of nearly ;,{^ 1,850 has been spent on the 

 Department, a very solid help towards the making good 

 of some deficiencies mentioned above. Of this sum 

 rather over half has been contributed from various 

 University sources — from the Common University Fund 

 £^1^, from the Delegates of the Museum ^266, from 

 Convocation £1^0; and ;^8oo has been spent on cabinets, 

 /50 on book-binding, and the remainder on miscel- 

 laneous needs. A sum of ^900, nearly half the whole 



