BRITISH MUSEUM, THK 



BRITISH MUSEUM. THE. 



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Ashhunihuu House in Westminster. Some of the injured volumes 

 however were partially restored at the commencement of the present 

 century ; and aince 1845 many have bam recovered with singular skill 

 by Mr. Gough, who ha* bean employed for the purpose. The collection 

 is rich in book* that formerly belonged to monastic libraries, and in 

 state paper* of the most interesting description, coming down to 

 the time of the collector, Sir Robert Cotton, who was born in 1570 

 and died in 1681. It abounds in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, one of 

 which M the invaluable ' Durham Book,' a copy of the Gospel* written 

 between the yean 698 and 780, and interlined with a translation in 

 Northumbrian Saxon, which belonged to the cathedral of Durham, and 

 to have been by miracle preserved from destruction by 

 DUMB. A facsimile of some of its beautiful illnminat in.- 

 in Sir Frederick Madden'* Illuminated Ornament* reduced 

 MSS. and early printed Books, from the 6th to the 17th 

 centuries.' in which Sir Frederick, the present keeper of the depart- 

 ment, gives the history of many of the treasures under his charge. 

 AIWAJ..T interacting Saxon book is a copy of the Gospels supposed to 

 have been used to administer the oath at the coronation of the Saxon 

 king Athelstan, and which was certainly used for that purpose at the 

 coronation of King Charles I. Mora than 200 volume* of the Cottonian 

 collection consist of the letter* of kings and statesmen, and have sup- 

 plied some of the most interesting matter for Sir Henry Ellis's three 

 collections of ' Letter* Illustrative of English History. Among its 

 treasures i* one of the original copies of ' Magna Charta,' unfortunately 

 much damaged by the fire at Ashburnham House, respecting which 

 the story i* told that Sir Robert Cotton accidentally discovered it in 

 the hand* of a tailor, who was going to cut it up for a measure. 



The Harleian collection, which was purchased for 10,0002. only, con- 

 sist* of 7689 volumes, exclusive of 14,000 original rolls, charters, deeds, 

 and other legal instruments. It* content* are as miscellaneous as they 

 are valuable ; they embrace all languages, from English and Latin to 

 Slavonic and Chinese, including " poems, essays, ditties, ancient ballads, 

 plays, and other poetical pieces, in almost every modern language," but 

 particularly in French and English. There are a great number of 

 volumes of original and transcribed letters, of service-books of the 

 Romish Church, of Visitations of Counties and other heraldic manu- 

 script*, and there are some valuable manuscripts of classical antiquity, 

 a very early 'Odyssey,' and two copies of the Latin Gospels in letters 

 of gold. 



The Sloane collection, consisting of 4100 volumes, chiefly of the 

 16th and 17th centuries, comprise* a number of alchemical and 

 medical manuscripts, and several on natural history, including some 

 fine drawings of insects by Madame Merian. Its most valuable 

 materials are volumes of voyages and travels, in particular the papers 

 of Kampfer, the first scientific describer of Japan, the original manu- 

 script of whose work is among them, and the scientific correspond- 

 ence of Sir Hans Sloane, and others. The Lansdowne manuscripts, 

 1245 volumes, bought in 1805 for 49252. of the heirs of the first 

 Marquis of Lansdowne, better known as the Earl of Shelbume in 

 hi* career as a statesman, chiefly consists of materials for English 

 history and topography, including some chronicles and letters of 

 value. The Hargrave collection of 500 manuscripts was in 1818 bought 

 with the rest of the possessor's library for 80002. during bis lifetime, 

 and relates entirely to law, the most noticeable object being an 

 ' Abridgment of Equity.' in 45 volumes, by a Master of the Rolls. The 

 Burney collection of about 620 volumes, bought with the printed book 

 library of the same owner, and valued separately at about 45002., is 

 distinguished for it* classical manuscripts, eighty of which are in 

 Greek, and among them a fine Ptolemy's Geography of the 15th 

 century, and a celebrated copy of the Iliad, formerly belonging to Mr. 

 Charles Townley, of a date not later than the end of the 13th century, 

 and which was separately valued at 600 guineas. The presentation of 

 the library of George III. brought with it about 440 volumes of 

 manuscript, one of them the album of King Charles I., with the auto- 

 graph* of all the most distinguished personage* of his court ; another 

 the original manuscript of Dr. Johnson's tragedy of Irene, and another 

 some autograph corre*]iondenoe of Dr. Franklin. At the death, in 

 1829, of Francis Henry Egerton, the eighth Earl of Bridgewater, he 

 bequeathed to the Museum not only a collection of 67 manuscripts, 

 chiefly relating to French and Italian history and literature, but the 

 urns of 60001. and 70002., the interest of the former to be em- 

 ployed in purchasing addition* to the Egerton collection, and of the 

 latter to paying the alary of an Egerton librarian. In 1838, Lord 

 Kanilwroiuth, a trustee, left at his decease a sum of more than 802. a year 

 M an addition to the Bridgewater bequest. There is therefore an annual 

 augmentation of the Egerton collection at the Museum by means of 

 manuwripte specially purchased from this united fund. In 1831 

 and 1886, the Museum, by agreement with the Royal Society, acquired 

 what i* called the Arundel collection of manuscript*, which had been 

 brought together by the Earl of Arundel, afterwards Earl of Norfolk, 

 who died in 1646. The collection was presented to the Royal Society 

 in 1681, by Mr. Henry Howard. It consists of 600 volumes, and con- 

 tain* a Urge asximhiige of book* of jurisprudence, forming what was 

 probably considered in the middle of the 15tb century, a complete 

 library of civil and canon law, but it ha* also abundant material* for the 

 history of our own country and language, including among several early 

 chronicle* no lea* than seven copies of Geoffrey of Monuiouth. Book* 



of early English poetry, and manuscript* illustrating the language of 

 France in the 12th and three succeeding centuries, also add to its 

 value. In 1841, the Museum purchased in a mass the manuscript col- 

 K-ction of Dr. Butler, bishop of Lu-hlield and Coventry, eousi.-! 

 biblical manuscripts, copies of rUaiiol writers, and a collection of 

 autographs. 



These are the main separate collections of manuscripts. Of the 

 collection* which may be said to have merged in the general one, 

 some of the most important on historical and topographical subjects 

 are Rymer's partly unused materials for hi* ' Foxiura,' in 58 volumes, 

 and Madox'a for his ' History of the Exchequer,' in 94; Lys" 

 his ' Environs of London,' and ' Magna Britannia,' in 64 ; Archdeacon 

 Cpxe's for his different historical works in 206 ; Dr. Birch's valuable 

 historical and biographical transcript*, in 378 ; Cole's collections for a 

 history of Cambridge, of Cambridge University, and Cambridgeshire, 

 in 92 ; Hasted'* collections for Kent, in 62 ; Sir William Burrell's and 

 the Rev. William Hayley's joint collections for a history of Sussex in 

 41 ; Wolley'* for Derbyshire in 53 ; Jermyn's for Suffolk, in -"> 1 ; 1 >.u y's 

 for Suffolk in 160. The diplomatic correspondence of Sir Andrew 

 Mitchell, known as the ambassador to Frederick the Great, in 69 

 volumes, and that of Count Joseph de la Puisaye, an active adherent 

 of the Bourbons, during the French revolution, in 11 7 volumes; the 

 papers and correspondence of the Marquis Wellealey, during his ad- 

 ministration of India, in 1351 volumes ; and the papers of Sir Hudson 

 Lowe during Napoleon's captivity at St. Helena, supply materials for 

 history which have been already partly made use of. A miscellaneous 

 collection, bequeathed by Sir Joseph Banks, contains, among other 

 nautical journals, the log-book of Tasman, the discoverer of Van Die- 

 men's Land, now named after him Tasmania. A collection of manu- 

 scripts on the affairs of Italy, in 604 volumes, purchased in 1830, at 

 the sole of the Earl of Guildford's library, was followed in 1836 by 85 

 volumes of ' Relazioni ' or reports to the Signory of Venice from 

 their ambassadors, and in 1837 by 291 volumes of selections from the 

 Canonici collection of Italian literature. In 1844 the Museum received 

 by donation 96 volumes of Welsh manuscripts, from the Welsh school, 

 and 128 from the Cymmrodorion Society, comprising the whole col- 

 lections of both establishments, which had up to that period been 

 almost inaccessible, because from their paucity it had been out of 

 the question to pay a librarian to attend to them. They consist 

 chiefly of transcripts made for the use of the editors of the ' My vyrian 

 Archaeology.' 



Of Oriental manuscripts, the Museum was enriched with two col- 

 lections in the year 1825 one of 802 volumes of Syriac, Arabic, 

 Persian, and Turkish, collected by Claudius Rich, the English consul 

 at Bagdad, and described by him in the periodical called the ' Mines 

 de 1'Orient,' and another of 136 volumes, bequeathed l>y .Mm Fowler 

 Hull, a young Orientalist of fortune, who also bequeathed a coll 

 of Chinese and Oriental printed books. In 1841 a collection W.LI 

 purchased of 49 volumes of ancient Syriac manuscripts, obtained by 

 the Rev. Henry Tattam, from the monastery of St. Mary Deipara, in 

 the desert of Nitria, about 70 miles from Cairo; and in 1843 a 

 collection, obtained by the same gentleman from the same place, of 

 317 volumes. In 1847, a third collection of 173 manuscripts from the 

 same library in the desert, was purchased of M. Pacho. a I'M nelnnan. 

 The curious history of the acquisition of these collections is given in 

 some detail in an article in the 77th volume of the ' Quarterly Kcvicw.' 

 When the second collection arrived at the Museum, very few of the 

 Volumes were perfect ; nearly 200 had been torn up, it is said, into 

 separate leaves, and then mingled apparently at random. The Rev. 

 William Cureton, then assistant-keeper of the manuscripts, in the 

 course of eighteen months disentangled the confusion, and has been for- 

 tunate enough to make three discoveries which he has published of a 

 copy of the Epistles of St. Ignatius, of palimpsest a portion of the 

 Iliad, and of the Gospel of St. Matthew, in Syriac, by some supposed 

 to be the language in which it was originally written. The volumes 

 are found to consist, in the first two collections only, of upwards of 

 1000 different manuscripts, or portions of manuscripts, ranging 

 the year 411 to the year 1292. An augmentation of 236 oriental 

 manuscripts was made in 1833, by a purchase from Mr. Kieh, tin- 

 American bookseller, of a collection formed by an American < 

 ami 245 Persian manuscripts were presented in Is 17 I >y the sons of 

 Major-General Yule. The result was, that in 1854 the number of 

 manuscript .volumes of Arabic was 1060; of Hi-brew, 232; of I'. 

 1082 ; of Sanskrit, 122 ; of Syriac, 631 ; of Turkish, 268 ; with small 

 ons of different sizes, the lowest in number 12, and highest 83, 

 -I Kthiopic, Armenian, Burmese, Bugis, Cingalese, Hindustani, Javanese, 

 Malay, Malayalma, Pali, Siamese, Tamiil, and Telugu. A tal >lc oft heir 

 numbers will be found in the ' Handbook to the Library of the Hi it i*h 

 Museum,' by Richard Sims, of the department of manuscript*, a 

 valuable little volume, which contains a variety of useful information 

 with regard to the manuscripts, and to which we have been largely 

 indebted. 



A foreign authority, Dr. PerU, librarian of the Royal Library at 



ilin, ha* stated of the British Museum (in his ' Archiv f iir Oeschicbts- 

 kunde,' voL ix), that " the number of manuscripts acquired since 1827 

 is very great; the establishment obtains information of every im- 

 portant sale on the continent, and it is easy to perceive that if s&in 

 continue in their present course, every important manuscript in 



