DEPARTMENT OF MSS. 29 



17. Consultation of MSS. — The number of MSS. consulted 

 in the Students' Room attached to the Department is 36,607, 

 and of those delivered to the Reading Room 455. 



The number of Charters and Rolls consulted by the 

 Students is 1,063. 



The Students' Room is now open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. 



The number of Students working in the Department during 

 the year is 10,304. 



The Magna Charta has been exhibited to 2,-347 visitors in 

 the Department. 



18. Books of Reference. — One hundred and forty-three 

 newly-acquired volumes and parts have been catalogued. 

 The revision of the Catalogue is in progress. 



19. Acquisitions. — The number of Manuscripts and Docu- 

 ments acquired during the year is : — 



General Collections of MSS. - - ~ - 1,042 

 Charters - - - 183 



Detached Seals and Casts _ _ _ - 270 



Egerton MSS. - - - - - - 10 



The acquisitions during the past year have been of unusual 

 interest and importance. 



First of all in bulk and value come the MSS. purchased 

 from the Earl of Hardwicke, consisting of the Correspondence, 

 Papers and Legal and Historical Collections of the first three 

 Earls of Hardwicke, now arranged in nine hundred and thirty 

 volumes, viz., four hundred and. sixty-five of correspondence 

 and four hundred and sixty-five of papers, &c. 



The correspondence between members of the family occu- 

 pies fifty-seven volumes and includes many confidential 

 expressions of opinion upon political topics. The political 

 correspondence proper, in one hundred and seventy-eight 

 volumes, is especially ample for the period 1740-1790. It 

 includes not only the correspondence of the first Earl of 

 Hardwicke, Lorcl Chancellor (1737-1756), whose intimate 

 relations with the Pelhams are well-known, and his sons 

 Lord Royston (afterwards second Earl), the Hon. Charles 

 Yorke (Solicitor and Attorney-General, and for three days 

 Lord Chancellor), and Sir Joseph Yorke (Lord Dover, British 

 Minister at the Hague), with the principal ministers of State, 

 but also an extensive series of the correspondence of Robert 

 Keith, successively secretary under the Earl of Stair, com- 

 manding the forces in the Low Countries in 1742-1743, and 

 under the Earl of Sandwich, Plenipotentiary at Aix-la- 

 Chapelle, and afterwards himself Ambassador to Vienna, 

 1748-1758, and to St. Petersburg, 1758-1762, and of his son, 

 Sir Robert Murray Keith, Ambassador to Denmark, 1771- 

 1772, and to Vienna, 1772-1791. The Hardwicke Papers thus 

 form the counterpart to the Newcastle papers (presented by 

 the Earl of Chichester in 1886), which contain the other side 

 of the correspondence betw^een the Pelhams and the Yorkes. 



