i) BRITISH MUSEUM. 



spicLioiisly are an admirable marble statuette of Socrates, of about 

 300 B.C., and a very fine collection of French engravings of the best 

 period of the 18th century, in the purchase of which valuable assistance 

 was received from Messrs. Agnew. 



Another very interesting acquisition is a set of phonograph records 

 of the voice of the first Lord Tennyson, made in a very early form of 

 the instrument, in reciting some of his best-known poems. These were 

 presented by his son, the present Lord Tennj'^son. 



In the Department of Printed Books the most important single 

 purchase of the year was a Sarum Book of Hours, printed at Rouen 

 in 1914. An exceptionally rare Virgil of 1475, a Beaune Breviary of 

 1517, and ten works by Erasmus, collected by the late Frederic 

 Seebohm and presented by Miss Seebohm, may also be mentioned. 



The Department of Manuscripts acquired a fine group of Greek 

 papyri, mostly of the 3rd cent. B.C., a Caimaldoleso Missal of 1240 and a 

 Dominicaii Missal of the 14th cent. ; a copy of the earlier (unpublished) 

 version of Sidney's Arcadia, presented by Miss M. E. Davies ; nineteen 

 bills of the Keeper of the Gatehouse Prison, including references to 

 some of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators, purchased with the aid of 

 subscriptions collected by Sir I. Gollancz ; French historical documents 

 from the Crawford collection ; nearly 500 letters of George Sand ; 

 the autogrp.ph MS. of part of Jane Austen's Persuasion (the only 

 surviving fragment of the six greater novels) a.nd some other papers 

 by her ; and the political papers of two Prime Ministers, Lord Aberdeen 

 and Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman, presented respectively by the 

 Marquess of Aberdeen and the late Lord Pentland. 



The Department of Orientai Printed Books and Manuscripts, in 

 addition to the second instalment of the Gaster Collection, acquired 

 a collection of Khotanese MSS., presented by Mr. C. P. Skrine ; six 

 Turki MSS., presented by Sir Aurel Stein ; and a 13th cent. Persian 

 miniature from a MS. of the Shahnameh. 



The two principal acquisitions of the Department of Prints and 

 Drawings have been mentioned above, viz., the final instalment of 

 the prints obtained from the Albertina, and the splendid series of 

 French engravings of the best period, including a set of 42 proofs of 

 the " Monument du Costume," after Freudeberg and Moreau le Jeune, 

 and two colour-prints by Janinet after Fragonard. Other accessions 

 include a drawing of St. Christopher by Altdorfer, presented by Mr. 

 Granville Tyser ; a self-portrait of Gustave Courbet, presented by the 

 National Art-Collections Fund, assisted by Mr. S. Courtauld and other 

 friends of the Museum ; two drawings by a talented young French 

 artist, Eugene Lemercier, killed in the wa,r, presented by his mother ; 

 a large number of prints of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic period, 

 from the Crawford Collection ; and another instalment of the works 

 of living artists collected by the Contemporary Art Society. 



The Egyptian and Assyrian Department has acquired no single 

 object of outstanding importance, but special mention may be made 

 of a group of Sumerian antiquities from Warka ; a collection of early 

 Babylonian tablets ; an interesting group of Egyptian amulets, from 

 the Bethell Collection ; and a fine miscellaneous collection of Egyptian 

 antiquities, including a predynastic pottery figure of a woman. 



The Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities has one quite 

 outstanding acquisition, the sta.tuette of Socrates already mentioned, 

 which was purchased with the help of the National Art-Collections 

 Fund, Mr. G. Eumorfopoulos, and Dr. Walter Leaf. It is the finest 

 extant portrait of the philosopher, in which the grotesqueness of his 



