The Harleian Collection

This collection of valuable manuscripts, now in the British Museum, was purchased by Parliament for ten thousand pounds in the reign of George IV. The collection was formed by Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, an eminent statesman, and great patron of literature (1661-1724). It contains 7,639 volumes, exclusive of 14,236 original rolls, charters, and other deeds. Although somewhat miscellaneous in its character, historical literature, in all its branches, forms one of its principal features.

It is particularly rich in heraldric and genealogical manuscripts; in accounts of visitations of countries, and of parliamentary and legal proceedings; in English topographical collections; in originals, copies, and calendars of ancient records; in abbey registers; in manuscripts of the classics, among which is one of the earliest known manuscripts of the Odyssey of Homer; in missals, antiphonaries, and other service-books of the Roman-Catholic Church; and in ancient English poetry.

It contains two very early copies of Latin Gospels, written in gold letters; also a large number of splendidly illuminated manuscripts, besides an extensive mass of correspondence. It further includes about three hundred manuscript Bibles, or biblical books in Hebrew, Chaldaic, Greek, Arabic, and Latin; nearly two hundred volumes of writings of the Fathers of the Church; and many works on the arts and sciences, among which is a tract on the steam-engine, with plans, diagrams, and calculations, by Sir Samuel Morland.