A.D. 1842
Seven Sanscrit MSS. had been given to the Library in 1837 by B. H. Hodgson, Esq., the British Resident in Nepaul, before which time there were but a very few works in that language scattered through some of the various Oriental collections, and most of them recently acquired341. But in this year the real foundation of the present very large and valuable collection was laid, by the purchase for £500 of the MSS. obtained by Professor H. H. Wilson (dec. May 8, 1860) during his residence in India, numbering 616 works and 540 volumes, of which 147 are MSS. of the Vedas. A brief list of them is attached to the Annual Catalogue for 1842, and the whole are fully described in the catalogue of the Sanscrit MSS., compiled by Theod. Aufrecht, M.A., now Professor of Sanscrit in the Univ. of Edinburgh, the second and last part of which was published in 1864. The greater part of Mr. Wilson’s collection consists of MSS. written in the last and present centuries.
Some small collections towards the history of Cheshire, made by Rev. F. Gower, were purchased in this year and in 1846.
In printed books the chief purchase was a copy (at the price of fifty guineas) of the original and hitherto unknown edition of the poems of Drummond, of Hawthornden. It is in quarto, with a portrait, having the letter-press only on one side of the page, and was printed at Edinburgh by Andro Hart in 1614. There are three or four small corrections in Drummond’s own handwriting342.
Bowyer. Italian Municipal Statutes. See 1838.
Laing. Almanac by W. de Worde. See 1755.
Old Plays. See 1834.
In March, Mr. J. B. Taunton, All Souls’ College (B.A. 1843, M.A. 1848), was appointed Assistant vice Mr. F. E. Thurland, New College (B.A. 1841, M.A. 1846, now Rector of Thurstaston, Cheshire), who was made an extra, in the place of Mr. Symonds, resigned. Mr. Thurland had, probably, succeeded Mr. Grove in 1838 or 1839.
The stipend of the Librarian was increased by £150, by a statute which passed on May 6. By the same statute an annual payment was ordered of £20 to the Janitor, in lieu of fees hitherto taken for showing the Library or Picture Gallery to Members of the University. These, undergraduates as well as graduates, have now, if wearing their academical dress, the right of free entrance for themselves and friends; other visitors are admitted, by a regulation made five or six years ago, at the very moderate fee of threepence each person. (See p. 134.)
Notes
341 The gift of the first Sanscrit book (described in the Benefaction-Register as being ‘Gentuanâ linguâ’) by one John Ken, in 1666, is noticed at p. 113. The book is now numbered, Walker 214.
342 A copy of Blackwood’s Martyre de la Royne d’Escosse (Edinb. 1587), among Rawlinson’s books, has an autograph of Drummond: ‘Gŭi. Drŭm̄ond, a Paris, 1607.’