From 1801 to 1815, (when the separate account ceased to be kept,) Edwards' fund produced about 16,000l., of which sum about 6500l. was expended in the purchase of printed books.* In 1820, Sir Joseph Banks bequeathed his valuable library, containing 16,000 volumes,† and especially rich in natural history, and in the transactions of learned societies.

In the year 1823, it was computed that the Museum library contained 125,000 volumes. Of this number, at least 62,000, exclusive of the 40,000 volumes (or thereabouts) collected by Sir Hans Sloane, were the gift of individuals. And in the year above named the most valuable of all the donations which have gradually made this library what it now is, was conferred upon it by George IV., when he presented to the nation the noble library which had been collected by his father, comprising upwards of 65,000 well-selected volumes. It is very rich in classics, in English history, in Italian, French, and Spanish literature, and in the scarce early-printed books of the fifteenth century. There is likewise a very extensive collection of geography and topography.'§ The entire library has been said to have cost upwards of 300,000l.

Sir Richard Colt Hoare, who had formed a very fine collection of works on the History and Topography of Italy, presented it, in 1825, to the trustees of the British Museum, in these words: -Anxious to follow the liberal example of our gracious monarch (though in a very humble degree), I do give unto the 'British Museum this my collection of topography, made during 'a residence of five years abroad, and hoping that the more 'modern publications may be added to it hereafter.' This collection, with an addition subsequently made to it, amounted to nearly 3000 volumes, some of them rare, and all of them valuable.

In the catalogue of this collection, recently compiled by Messrs. Payne and Foss, it is said to include

Many of the earliest and most curious specimens of typography; first and best editions of the classics, with an unrivalled collection of Homers; the scarcest Spanish and Italian poems and romances; the most complete series existing of the early editions of Ariosto; many books printed on vellum, of extreme beauty; a range of English and, more especially, of Irish history, perhaps unrivalled; amongst which will be found the rarest works on the Spanish Armada, and the divorce of Henry VIII.; an assemblage of early Voyages and Travels, from the original editions of Marco Polo and Contarini, Columbus and Vesputius, to the collections of De Bry, Hulsius, Hakluyt and Purchas, forming such a chain of uninterrupted information on the subject, as no other library can furnish.'

Some idea may be formed of the intrinsic value of this bequest to the national library in supplying some of its felt deficiencies, when we state that it contains no less than seventeen of the earliest editions of Ariosto's Orlando,' none of which is at present to be found in the British Museum. These early editions, apart from their value as curiosities, have each a positive literary value, either on account of its variations, or of some other peculiarity. One hundred and twenty works on the history of Ireland, which would be looked for in vain in the Museum catalogues, are to be found in the Bibliotheca Grenvilliana; among these are five works by Ramond Caron, three by Carve, seven by Barnaby Rich, two by Archbishop Ussher, two by General Vallancey, four by Sir James Ware-names well known and highly distinguished in Irish history. . . . . Of twelve tracts relating to the history of the Spanish Armada' in the Grenville library, the museum contains only three.'t

Amongst the very numerous typographical rarities of a different. class from those referred to in the preceding extract, which adorn this collection, are the Mazarine Bible, Fust and Schoyffer's Bible of 1462, Mentelin's Bible of 1470, Rodt and Richel's Bible, The Complutensian Polyglot, the first English Bible, the first edition of Cranmer's Great' Bible, and Harrison's edition of 1562, the Bishop's Bible of 1569, the Mentz Psalter of 1457, the Milan Psalter of 1481, the Venice Psalter of 1486, the Genoa Polyglot Psalter of 1516, and that of Cologne of 1518, the first French Psalter, the first English Psalter, together with that of Archbishop Parker, Tyndale's Pentateuch of 1530, and very many others, both curious and valuable.

The Editio Princeps of the Latin Vulgate, printed at Mentz *Bibliotheca Grenvilliana, &c. Preface, pp. 3, 4. † Panizzi, ut sup., p. 19. G

NO. XI.

about 1450, (called the Mazarine Bible' from its having been first discovered in the library of Cardinal Mazarine,) was long the subject of fierce controversy amongst bibliographers, some asserting its claims to be regarded as the first book ever printed, and others denying those claims, on the ground of its extreme beauty of typography and paper, and the consummate finish of its execution, whence they inferred that it must necessarily have been preceded by inferior specimens of the infant art. The discovery, however, of an authenticated MS. note in a copy belonging to the Royal Library of Paris, recording its illumination, rubrication, and binding, as completed in 1456, by Henry Cremer, vicar of St. Stephen's, in Mentz, went far to set that vexed question at rest.* The Grenville copy is one of five copies known to exist on vellum. The Latin Bible of 1462 is the first edition with a certain date; and that of 1470, printed by Mentelin at Strasburg, is so rare, that it was utterly unknown to bibliographers until the appearance of the Crevenna Catalogue.

The first English translation of the entire Bible, by Coverdale, printed at Zurich in 1535, was reprinted in 1550, and reissued in 1553, with a new title-page, &c., and of the latter only four copies are known to exist; † copies of each edition are in the Grenville Library. The first edition of Cranmer's Bible, the printing of which was begun in Paris in 1538, and finished in London in 1539,-the Inquisition having interposed by imprisoning the printers and burning the greater part of the impression,-is excessively rare in a perfect state; and of Harrison's reprint (1562) only three copies are known besides Mr. Grenville's, two of which (viz., that in the Baptist Library at Bristol, formerly Dr. Gifford's, and that in the Bridgewater Library, now Lord Ellesmere's) are imperfect, and the third, in the Bodleian, is in bad condition.

The Grenville copy of the Bishop's Bible' is said to be 'the finest ever seen;'t and that of Tyndale's Pentateuch, emprented at Malborow in the Land of Hesse, by Hans Lufft,' (Luther's printer) to be the only perfect copy known.' The copy already in the museum wants four leaves; that which formerly belonged to Mr. Tulet, and afterwards to Mr. Heber, thirteen leaves; that in the Baptist Library at Bristol, the whole of Genesis; and that in Sion College, the whole of Deuteronomy. The latter has likewise the marginal notes cut off, as directed by an act of Parliament in 1542.'§

Cardinal Ximene's great Polyglot Bible-in Hebrew, Greek,

*Nodier, Bibliothèque Sacrée Grecque-Latine, p. 117.

† Cotton, List of Editions of the Bible.... in English, p. 13.
§ Cotton, p. 2, note.

B. G. p. 78.

Latin, and Chaldaic—was printed at Alcala (Compluti) in 6 vols. folio, between the years 1502 and 1517. The impression of this work was a very limited one, so that it is extremely rare.* Mr. Grenville's is a superb copy.

The Latin Psalter, printed at Mentz in 1457, per Joh. Fust et P. Schoeffer, is the first printed book with a certain date, and has long been coveted in the British Museum,—whose trustees, some years since, in vain offered £600 for a copy in the Wurtemburg Library, the curators of which demanded £2000. It is a masterpiece of typography,' says Van Praet, whether it be regarded as printed with wooden or with metal types.'t

The Polyglot Psalter, in Hebrew, Greek, Arabic, and Chaldaic, published in 1516, by the learned Justiniani, bishop of Nebbio, was intended by him to be merely a specimen of a complete Polyglot Bible which he had in contemplation, but never accomplished. It is the first polyglot work ever published in the characters appropriate to each language ; but the compilers of the Grenville Catalogue are in error when they add (probably copying Le Long) that “it contains the first Arabic ever printed.' That description properly applies to the Septem Horæ Canonicæ, printed at Fano in 1514. Brunet has noticed that the Commentary of the learned prelate is not the least curious part of his work. In a note on the psalm Cæli enarrant, for example, he has introduced a biography of Columbus, which in truth might have been worse placed. Justiniani himself relates, in his Annali di Genoa, that he had fifty copies struck off on vellum, and had presented them to all the kings of the earth, whether Christians or idolaters, without exception.' The Grenville copy is one of these.

The Polyglot Psalter, printed at Cologne in 1518, in Hebrew, Greek, Ethiopic, and Latin, is much rarer than Justiniani's. The Greek Psalter, printed at Venice in 1486, is also extremely rare. The same remark applies to the English Psalter printed by Powel for Edward Whitchurch, about 1548.

Archbishop Parker's Psalter was never published, and only eight copies are known to exist. Neither Ames, the historian of English printing, nor Strype, the biographer of Parker, ever saw it

. The first French Psalter, supposed to have been printed by Verard, appears to have been unknown both to Panzer and to Maittaire.

The Grenville Library likewise contains a very fine and complete copy of the Biblia Pauperum, corresponding with that which Heinecken* describes as the second edition, copies of which have obtained large prices.

We must not extend our notice of the treasures of this rich collection. It is, as we have said, the noblest gift the British Museum has received for nearly a quarter of a century, and it carries up the number of printed books added to the library, by express donation, to at least 168,000 volumes.

To a similar spirit of munificence in individual donors the Museum is almost entirely indebted for a very extraordinary collection, or rather series of collections, of pamphlets, amounting in the aggregate to 130,000 in number.

Wherever pamphlets abound,' says Mr. I. Disraeli, there is freedom, and therefore have we been a nation of pamphleteers. Of all the nations of Europe, our country first offered a rapid 'succession of these busy records of men's thoughts. Their contending interests, their mightier passions, their aspirations, and 'sometimes even their follies.' And certainly the student who is neither too impatient to search for the valuable ore amidst heaps of rubbish, nor too scornful to give their due meed of praise to even the humblest of his implements, will acknowledge that for the thorough comprehension of any stirring epoch, from the days of Martin Mar-prelate down to those of the Free Church secession, there is no more useful appliance than a full and impartial collection of the fleeting publications which appeared from day to day in the very eddy of the strife, and the poorest and feeblest of which could not fail to bear something of the shape and impress of the time.

Foremost amongst these collections, both in extent and in the importance of the period to which it relates, is that formed by George Thomason, a wealthy bookseller, at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church Yard,' and a common-councilman of the city of London. He was in the prime of life when the Long Parliament' began its memorable sitting. He lived through the whole of that tremendous struggle, which was to determine for all time, whether England should look for its good government to a series of fortunate accidents,' in the shape of wise and paternal monarchs, or to the principle of a representative legislature and a responsible administration, a principle liable, indeed, in the vicissitudes of human affairs, to be corrupted and juggled

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Idée d'une collection d'estampes, p. 293, et seq. An excellent summary of the history of these curious Bibles of the poor,' will be found in Horne's Manual of Biblical Bibliography, pp. 59-62.

Amenities of Literature, vol. iii. p. 300.