INTRODUCTION. 
V 
to the catalogue compiled by Dr. Smyth and 
published in the year 1696; and the more 
enlarged one printed in 1802, by order of 
the Commissioners on the Records of the 
Kingdom. 
Resides these manuscripts, the collection con¬ 
tained also a considerable number of coins, chief¬ 
ly Saxon and old English, and several Roman 
and British antiquities, which are now incor¬ 
porated in their proper classes at the Museum. 
As an appendage to the Cottonian Library, 
there was likewise at the disposal of Parliament 
a collection of about 2,000 volumes of English, 
French, and Italian books, formed by Major 
I Arthur Edwards, late of St. George, Hanover 
Square, and by his will, made in the year 1738, 
bequeathed to the Trustees of the Cottonian Li¬ 
brary, together with the reversion of the sum 
of £7,000, for the purpose of erecting a building 
I or repository, properly adapted for the effective 
preservation of the two joint libraries. This addi- 
! tion, of course, became likewise a part of the new 
foundation ; and, the necessity of erecting a build- 
| being thus superseded by the transfer of the 
1 libraries to the Museum, the above legacy of 
£7 ,000 
Major Edwards’ 
Library. 
