In December of this year, Viscount Kingsborough[318] presented a
magnificent copy (being one of four which were printed on vellum) of his
_Antiquities of Mexico_, or coloured facsimiles, executed at his
expense, in seven folio volumes, of Mexican paintings and hieroglyphics
preserved in the libraries of Paris, Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, Rome,
Bologna, and Oxford (in Laud's and Selden's collections), together with
preliminary dissertations. This sumptuous book is exhibited near the
entrance of the library, in a case made expressly for its reception.
On June 30, the nomination, as Sub-librarian, of Rev. Ernest Hawkins,
M.A., of Balliol, afterwards Fellow of Exeter, (of late well-known for
his labours in the cause of Missions, as Secretary to the Society for
the Propagation of the Gospel), was approved by Convocation. He
succeeded Dr. Besly, who had taken the Balliol College living of Long
Benton, in Northumberland.
[318] This learned and spirited nobleman died, in 1837, in a debtors'
prison in Dublin, where he was confined for liabilities incurred on
behalf of his father, the Earl of Kingston.