NOTE.

This catalogue refers to the Printed Books and Manuscripts, part of the Collection bequeathed to the South Kensington Museum by the Reverend Alexander Dyce, who died May 15, 1869. A companion volume contains a catalogue of the remainder of the Bequest, the paintings, miniatures, drawings, engravings, rings, and miscellaneous objects. The following is an extract from Mr. Dyce's will.

"This is the last will of me, the Rev. Alexander Dyce, of Oxford Terrace, Paddington, Middlesex. As to all my books, works of art, and other such effects, I dispose of them as herein-after specially mentioned. And I appoint my friends, John Forster, of Palace Gate House, Kensington, esquire, and William Macpherson, of Lancaster Gate, esquire, executors of this my will. As to my collection of books and works of art, consisting of the whole of my rare and valuable and other books, and of my pictures, paintings, drawings, miniatures, antique rings, and curiosities, and all my printed books and manuscripts, and any other effects which may, in the opinion of my executors, come under the description of works of art or articles of vertu (the same being herein-after described as 66 my said collection ") I give the same in manner following, in which I have had regard to the gift of the Sheepshanks collection of pictures and works of art, which I desire generally to follow, that is to say, I give and bequeath my said collection unto the Member of Her Majesty's Government for the time being charged with the promotion of art education now undertaken by the Department of Science and Art as the ex-officio trustee thereof, upon the following terms and conditions, viz. :

"1. That such ex-officio trustee do within six months from the probate of my will sign a memorandum of the acceptance of the trusteeship, and deliver the same to my executors, and to be by them copied on the probate of my said will, with a memorandum to be signed by them of such acceptance.

"2. That a proper and sufficient separate room or gallery in or near to the public buildings built, or to be built, for the Department of Science and Art, now called the South Kensington Museum, or elsewhere, be set apart or provided for the purpose of holding my said collection (to be called "The Dyce Collection"), and that my said collection be deposited and kept in such room or gallery.

"3. The right of property in, and possession of, my said collection shall be solely in the ex-officio trustee for the time being, but subject to the conditions herein-after expressed, and to be and remain always under his control, and he shall be the sole arbiter of any question that may arise touching the management or disposition thereof under this my will.

"4. My said collection shall be used for reference and instruction, and shall be exhibited to the public at such times and under such regulations as the ex-officio trustee shall prescribe, and so soon as arrangements can be properly made by him for that purpose; but no part of my

said collection shall ever be sold or exchanged or be dealt with contrary to the true spirit and meaning of the use, disposition, and control thereof herein prescribed; the books to be the subject of special care and preservation, and never to be lent or removed from the collection.

5. My said collection, or the conditional bequest thereof hereby made, shall not be subject to the provisions of the Act of the 19 and 20 Victoria, cap. 29., intituled 'An Act to extend the Powers of the Trustees and Directors of the National Gallery, and to authorize the 'Sale of Works of Art belonging to the Public,' or to any future enactment of the legislature which but for this declaration to the contrary shall or may have the effect of placing my said collection under any other care or ordering than is herein prescribed, or would otherwise alter or interfere with the disposition thereof hereby made. And in case of such interference on the part of the legislature, or if the terms and conditions as herein expressed be not strictly adhered to (subject as after mentioned), or in case the said bequest should not be accepted as aforesaid, then and in either of such cases the gift thereof hereby made shall wholly cease, and my said executors or the ex-officio trustee for the time being, as the case may be, shall thereupon hold my said collection in trust for the University of Cambridge, to be added to and for ever thereafter form part of the Fitz-William Collection of the said university.

"6. The ex-officio trustee (or university aforesaid, as the case may require) shall provide for the payment (by Government or out of any funds available or to become available for the purpose) of the Government legacy duty which may become payable on the said collection, and also for so much and such part of the duty on the probate of this my will as shall be payable in respect of the estimated value of my said collection so hereby given for the purposes aforesaid, this provision being necessary as my general estate is otherwise of small comparative amount or value.

"In testimony whereof I have to this my will, written on six sheets of paper, set my hand, this Ninth day of March, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine."

ALEXANDER DYCE.

A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

THIS word of biography is an attempt to comply with the wish of the authorities of the South Kensington Museum, that some account of Mr. Dyce should accompany the catalogue of the books forming part of the Dyce collections bequeathed to the museum for public use and enjoyment; though what the catalogue itself suggests might by some be thought sufficient without biographical addition. Drawn up with care and knowledge rarely bestowed on such performances, the books it completely describes represent as completely the several themes and subjects from which their owner drew all his pursuits as well as all his pleasures; and glancing through its pages however carelessly, one sees at once that here is a library not brought together haphazard, but collected for special tastes and requirements, and illustrating worthily the life of a scholar. All to whom Mr. Dyce was known will find everywhere the individual impress very strongly marked indeed.

The groups of books most prominent, in more than one literature, are the dramatic; and the range of English production in this field is extraordinarily wide, taking in every variety of stage-play as well as of the higher drama, down to the opening of the present century. It was a taste accidentally determined very early in life; and it gave ultimately a settled direction, in the form which proved to be most beneficial, to his critical and philological studies in later years. The next richest groups are the editions of ancient writers, abundant as they are admirable; and, with them, a rare and fine collection of the works of scholars and critics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, presenting at their best such men as Heinsius, Reinesius, Meursius, Casaubon, the Scaligers, Scioppius, and Salmasius.

Testimony is thus bcrne alike to his scholarship and to the critical investigations on which it was first employed. To the same date belonged his liking for the Greek poets of the first five centuries, and for the later Platonists, all of whom enter worthy appearance beside their nobler predecessors. And of the same character, traceable in the same care for best editions, were his readings in English classical scholarship, which for him had no higher names than the first and the second Richard, Bentley and Porson. In much danger at one time that the best years of his own life, like theirs, might have been passed in critical amendments of ancient texts, a better genius happily interposed. The youthful accident that first made poetry and the theatre attractive to him, and which also gave him his first real interest in the noblest remains of antique learning, led him in middle life to those studies in English poetry attested by his matchless collection, in that department, of books quite priceless in their value. Beside these were gradually admitted the other principal masters of English literature; and here, to the close of his life, his labours and enjoyments wholly centered. Enriched with wide and varied stores of critical reading such as the greatest in this line might have envied, he became an English scholar; and, following in the ardour of pursuit on the tracks of many English poets, a study of Italian familiarized him with its masterpieces of romance and invention, which he then added to his books. But though he went to them first for help in regard to the writings of others, he stayed with them for love of their own. They were the principal solace of all his remaining leisure; and they helped with his translation of Athenæus, which had been the amusement of several previous years, to relieve his latest labour of preparing his third edition of the greatest of poets. With Shakespeare, on a little table by his bed at the last, were Athenæus and Ariosto.

Alexander Dyce, the eldest son of a general in the East India Company's Service, was born in George Street, Edinburgh, on the 30th of June 1798. His mother was a sister of Sir Neil Campbell, sometime British Commissioner with Napoleon at Elba, and afterwards Governor of Sierra Leone. His father was as nearly related to a very distinguished actor in Indian history, the mother of the General being the "Miss Ochterlony of Tillifrisky," who took the Sir David of that name into her house at Aberdeen, treated him as one of her own children, and

"