A.D. 1845
This year is rendered noticeable in the later annals of the Library by the fact that not a single MS. was purchased during its course. But a very valuable collection of Arabic, Persian and Sanscrit MSS. formed by Brigadier Gen. Alex. Walker, during his service in India, was presented by his son, Sir Will. Walker, of Edinburgh344. These are kept as a distinct collection, like other donations or purchases of similar extent; the Sanscrit portion is described in the catalogue compiled by Prof. Aufrecht. The collection of printed Hebrew books was increased by the purchase (for £176 14s. 6d.) of 483 volumes from the library of the celebrated lexicographer, Gesenius, of Halle, who died Oct. 23, 1842, and whose library was sold by auction at Halle, in Jan. 1844. Two curious collections of tracts were also bought; the one in English consisting of 300 volumes, ranging from 1688 to 1766, and chiefly treating of the case of the Non-jurors, the Bangorian controversy, and the affairs of the city of London (for £22 10s.); and the other in French, consisting only of four small volumes, but containing a very large number of ‘Merveilles,’ strange histories of strange wonders, between 1557 and 1637, of great rarity and singularity. These were obtained at the sale of the library of Mr. Benj. Heywood Bright, No. 3796, for £13.
On Dec. 23, the present writer (then a Clerk of Magdalen College) was appointed Assistant, vice Mr. Taunton, after upwards of five years’ previous service as a supernumerary, having first entered the Library in June, 1840.
Notes
344 Gen. Walker, who in the beginning of the century was Governor of Baroda, in Guzerat, died at Edinburgh in 1832. His MSS., in the words of Prof. Aufrecht, ‘integritate et antiquitate eminent.’