THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PRE-1801 SCANDINAVIAN PRINTED COLLECTIONS IN THE BRITISH LIBRARY PETER C. HOGG EARLY in 1770 a Swedish journal published a brief account by a visitor of the public galleries of the British Museum. Describing the Harley rooms, he remarked that copies of the Harleian manuscript catalogue published by the Museum in 1759 had been sent to Uppsala University Library and to the Royal Library in Stockholm. He admired the nine rooms of printed books and praised the reference service: 'One sits very comfortably in a so-called Reading Room., with all the catalogues around one. One orders whatever book one wishes, while an attendant stands ready to fetch it as if it were one's own. It is all truly royal.'^ The visitor did not mention the fact that there were already some Scandinavian books in the Library. Today the size of the British Library's early Scandinavian holdings, that is to the end of 1850, can be estimated as around 20,000 items, of which over half were pubhshed before 1801. At least eighty per cent of the latter were acquired before 1914, since when it has become progressively more difficult to add to the collections owing to the rising prices for early books and to the relative decline in recent years in the funding of foreign antiquarian purchases.^ The pre-1851 Scandinavian collections of the British Library are nevertheless likely to remain unequalled in any single library outside the five Nordic countries themselves. That is largely due to a handful of private collectors - principally Sloane, Banks, Thorkelin, George III, Grenville and Hannas - but ultimately to the collection policy established by Anthony Panizzi, with the support of Thomas Watts, and to its execution by Watts and his successors as selectors in the Department of Printed Books of the British Museum and subsequently the British Library. THE FOUNDATION COLLECTIONS When the British Museum opened in January 1759 only around 1,250 of the perhaps 75,000 works in the foundation collections of its Department of Printed Books were Scandinavian. Most of them were in Latin and nearly all formed part of the Sloane collection, with mere handfuls each in the Old Royal and Edwards libraries.^ Among the books from the Old Royal Library are two Reformation works with Danish imprints from 1537 and 1538 with personal dedications to Henry VIII by the 144 Lutheran reformer Johann Bugenhagen (1485-1558).* Abraham Praetorius's Harmonia gratulatoria on the marriage of James VI to Anne of Denmark (1590), the Scienza e pratica d'arme by Salvatore Fabris (Copenhagen, 1606) and Tycho Brahe's oration De disciplinis mathematicis (r6io)^ are assigned to the reign of James I, while Charles II acquired three historical works from Sweden and Denmark, by Johannes Messenius and Johannes Meursius, and Ole Worm's antiquarian tract of 1641 on the golden horn found at Gallehus,^ all in Latin. The latest Old Royal item appears to be a Danish auction catalogue for the sale of the great Rostgaard hbrary in 1726, which originally belonged to the royal librarian Richard Bentley.' The few works that are attributable to the Edwards library focus on the classics.^ Sir Hans Sloane's Scandinavian books are largely on subjects that were of professional interest to him, principally in the fields of medicine (with many works by the Danish anatomists Caspar and Thomas Bartholin) and of the natural sciences, including four books by Linne published 1740-5, but also in those of antiquities, history and topography (among them a set of the Suecia antiqua et hodiernaf and of philosophy, theology and law. In addition he acquired several dozen Scandinavian museum, library^** and book-auction catalogues, the latter mainly from Copenhagen sales of private libraries between 1686 and 1732. He also collected dictionaries, including Gu6mundur Andresson's Lexicon islandicum (Copenhagen, 1683), and current scientific serials such as Swedenborg's Dcedalus hyperboreus (Uppsala, 1716-17) ^"^ the Schwedische Bibliothec (Stockholm, 1728-44). A notable item from the Sloane library is a Danish herbal, Buchwald's Specimen medico-practico-botanicum (Copenhagen, 1720), with actual plant specimens pasted in blank spaces on each leaf.^^ Probably also a Sloane item is the account of the former colony of New Sweden pubhshed in 1702 by Thomas Campanius Holm {c. 1670-1702), with an appendix of model dialogues for the settlers in the local Delaware (Lenape) language.^^ In the area of what was then called 'Septentrional' studies Sloane acquired the Stockholm or 'national' edition by Georg Stiernhielm of the Gothic Gospels printed in 1671 from the Codex Argenteus in Uppsala University Library,^^ several of the early editions of Icelandic sagas printed in Sweden between 1664 and 1720,^* Ari Thorgilsson's Islendingabok (Copenhagen, 1733) and other works. ^^ One example of a number of Scandinavian orientalist works in the Library is the Sloane copy of the Epitome commentariorum Moysis Armeni edited by Henrik Brenner (Stockholm, 1723).^^ THE OLD LIBRARY During the early years of the British Museum there was no regular acquisitions grant and each purchase had to be approved in advance by the Trustees. Identifiable examples of Scandinavian purchases in that period are those of fv\t works by Linne^^ and Johan Ihre's new etymological dictionary Glossartum sviogothicum (Uppsala, 1769),^^ all 'Purchased by Order of Committee De'r. 22 1769', when the Edwards fund had finally become available; a copy of Stiernhook's Dejure Sveonum (Stockholm, 1672)^^ 'bought 145 Fig. I. Frontispiece of Regenfuss's Auserlesne Scknecken^ Muscheln und andre Schaalthiere^ glorifying King Frederik V of Denmark. BL, 562*.h.3 146 at Payne's Sale by D** Maty' by 'Order of Committee Febry i. 1774'; Erik Lindahl's Lexicon lapponicum (Stockholm, 1780)^^ bought on 24 November 1786; four important antiquarian works, namely two thirteenth-century texts - the Danish laws of Jutland {Quedam breues expositiones, printed in Copenhagen in 1508) and the Norwegian Konungs skuggsjd, a 'speculum regale' (printed at Sore in 1768) - the Icelandic Annalar compiled by Bjorn a SkarQsa in the mid-seventeenth century and printed at Hrappsey in Iceland in 1774-5 and a collection of Danish memorial inscriptions, Marmora danica selectiora (Copenhagen, 1739-41),^^ all purchased on 27 February 1789; and, finally, a copy of Stiernman's Bibliotheca suiogothica (Stockholm, 1731)1^^ which was bought on 8 February 1794. The majority of the Scandinavian books added to the Library in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century were probably donations, however. An early example is the work on molluscs by F. M. Regenfuss with hand-coloured illustrations {Auserlesne Schnecken, Muscheln und andre Schaalthiere., printed in Copenhagen, 1758),^^ one of the most exquisite books in the early Scandinavian collections, which was presented by King Frederik V of Denmark on 6 February 1762 (fig. i). In the same year five Scandinavian items came to the Library with the Thomason Tracts.^* The best recorded donation of northern works in that period were the 121 printed books and thirty-one manuscripts^^ acquired by Joseph Banks during a short tour in south-eastern Iceland in September 1772 with an entourage of nine, including his Swedish librarian Daniel Solander and a future archbishop of Uppsala, Uno von Troil, who later published an account of the journey. ^^ After landing at Hafnarfjord they travelled to the Geysir, Hekla and Skalholt before turning back, collecting natural specimens and artifacts, books and manuscripts. Bjarni Palsson at Nes gave Banks several books^^ and the local administrator Olafur Stefansson sent people up to Holar for more books and manuscripts.^^ According to Edward Edwards, Banks 'bought the Library of Halfdan Einarsson, the hterary historian of Iceland, and made other large and choice collections.'^^ He presented his Icelandic books and manuscripts to the British Museum on 3 December 1773, followed by a few further items in January 1778 and March 1781.^^ Banks's 1772 collection is especially interesting as a sample of the kind of books to be found in Icelandic homes at that particular time. Over half are religious works, a number of them translated from German or Danish originals, with a few examples each of law, history, fiction, verse and practical manuals. Many contain the names of their former Icelandic owners. About half of the books were printed between 1740 and 1760, the earliest one with an Icelandic imprint being the Bible of 1584 and the latest a volume of sermons by J. T. Vidali'n printed at Hdlar in 1771.^^ A collection of political ephemera from the same period, unstamped but acquired at an early date, contains sixty-six broadsides, leaflets and engravings relating to the arrest, trial and execution for high treason of Count Struensee and printed in Copenhagen between January and April 1772 (fig. 2). The scandal led to to the divorce of King Christian VII from his wife Caroline Matilda, daughter of Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales. 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