A collection of manuscripts, more interesting as to their history than
as to their actual contents[353], was presented by William and Hubert
Hamilton, in memory, and in accordance with the wish, of their
celebrated father, Sir William Hamilton. It comprises fifty-eight
volumes (thirty-nine in folio, sixteen in quarto, and three in octavo)
from the library of the Carthusian Monastery of Erfurt, famous as the
place of Luther's early abode. A short catalogue of them, by Joh. Broad,
was printed at Berlin in 1841, with a prefatory notice, from which we
learn that they were preserved at Erfurt until 1805, when the library
was broken up and dispersed on the occupation of the city by the French
army, who stabled their horses in the place where the books were
deposited, and burned many of them for fuel, while others were carried
away and secreted with a view to their safety. Some of the latter were
bought by the Count de Buelow, on whose death they were purchased from
the subsequent possessors by Broad, and finally sold by him to Sir W.
Hamilton. 'Nunc in eam terram demigrant,' says the bibliopolist, 'quæ,
quodcunque alicujus pretii est aut materialium aut spiritualium rerum,
in suo gremio accumulare a Providentia Divina destinata videtur.'
Another collection of MSS., from the same library at Erfurt, was on sale
by Mr. J. M. Stark, the well-known bookseller (now of London), at Hull,
in 1855, who issued a small catalogue of them in duodecimo.
A valuable collection of Italian and Spanish MSS., amounting to about
forty-six volumes, came to the Library by the bequest of Rev. Joseph
Mendham, M.A., of Sutton Coldfield, who died Nov. 1, 1856. The most
important part of these is a series of twenty-eight volumes relating to
the Council of Trent, which were purchased at the sale of the Earl of
Guildford's library in 1830 by Thorpe, the bookseller, for £35, and
re-sold by him to Mr. Mendham in 1832 for fifty guineas. It was chiefly
from the materials afforded by these that Mr. Mendham drew up his
_Memoirs of the Council of Trent_, published in 1834. They are described
in Thorpe's Catalogue of MSS. on sale in 1831, and in the preface to Mr.
Mendham's book.
On June 18, the Rev. Robert Payne Smith, M.A., of Pembroke College, was
appointed an Assistant Sub-librarian for the Oriental department, in
consequence of the increasing infirmities of the aged senior
Sub-librarian, Mr. Reay.
[353] For the most part, they consist of mediæval sermons and
theological treatises by writers of no great fame, together with some of
the works of Aquinas.