A.D. 1854
A very interesting series of eighteen autograph letters from Henry Hyde, the second Earl of Clarendon, was presented to the University by ‘our honoured Lord and Chancellor,’ the Earl of Derby351. They are best described in the following letter to the Vice-Chancellor, which accompanied the gift, and which is now bound in the same volume:—
‘Knowsley, Oct. 17, 1854.
‘My Dear Sir,—In looking over some old papers here the other day, I found (how they came here I know not) some original and apparently autograph letters, which appeared to me to be curious. They are private letters, addressed by Lord Clarendon, to the Earl of Abingdon, as Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire, during, and on the suppression of, the Duke of Monmouth’s Rebellion. I have no doubt of their genuineness; and if from the connexion of the University with the writer352, as well as the locality, you think they would be worth depositing in the Bodleian Library, I shall have great pleasure in offering them to the acceptance of the University for that purpose; and in that case would send with them a miniature pencil drawing of the Duke of Monmouth, which is not too large to be let into the cover of the portfolio which should contain the letters, and for the authenticity of which I can so far vouch that it has been in this house since 1729, at least; since it appears in a catalogue of the pictures and engravings here which formed the collection at that time.
‘I am, my dear sir,
‘Yours sincerely,
‘DERBY.’
The portrait in question, which is a beautifully executed drawing, in an oak frame, marked on the back, ‘Duke of Monmouth, by Foster,’ is now fixed, as desired, in the present morocco binding of the volume.
A collection of early editions of the Prayer-Book (including Whitchurch’s May and June editions of 1549 and that of 1552), of the Metrical Psalter, and of Visitation Articles (amongst others, Edward the Sixth’s Articles of 1547, and Injunctions of the same year), with a few miscellaneous books, was bought of the Rev. T. Lathbury, M.A., the well-known writer on English Church history, for £300. Various rare English books were purchased at Mr. Pickering’s sale, and foreign dissertations, &c. at that of the library of Professor Godfrey Hermann, the Greek editor and commentator (who died Dec. 31, 1848), at Leipsic, in April.
Notes
351 A portrait of Lord Derby, in his Chancellor’s robes, painted by Sir F. A. Grant, was given by him to the University about 1858, and now hangs in the Picture Gallery.
352 The Earl was High Steward of the University.