HANS SLOANE, BOOK COLLECTOR AND CATALOGUER, 1682-1698 M. A. E. NICKSON IT is well known that the immense library of printed books and manuscripts collected over a period of more than seventy years by Sir Hans Sloane and unsurpassed in his own time as the work of a single collector eventually became the foundation collection of the library of the British Museum and hence of the British Library. Surprisingly enough, however, bibliographers have been very little concerned with the history of this remarkable collection.' A chief reason for this is that soon after its entry into the Museum in 1753 Sloane's library ceased to exist as a separate entity, although the books themselves, with the exception of some dispersed as duplicates, remained in the British Museum and so became part of the British Library. Most were incorporated into the general library without any mark or catalogue annotation to distinguish them as having belonged to Sloane, so that they may now be identified in a random way only by means of inscriptions on the flyleaves and title-pages. Some items have found their way into specialized departments ofthe British Library (i.e. the Map Library and the Department of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books); others into departments of the British Museum (particularly the Department of Prints and Drawings and the Department of Oriental Antiquities) and ofthe British Museum (Natural History). One major part of the original library which has remained virtually intact is the collection of manuscripts, most of which are preserved in the Department of Manuscripts as Sloane MSS. i to 4100, though these are not Sloane's own numbers.^ What I hope to show here is that in spite of this dispersal and renumbering it is still possible not only to identify a great number of the items which formed part of the library in Sloane's time but also to determine the year in which he acquired each printed book or manuscript. This date, in turn, may often help to identify the sources from which Sloane obtained his books, particularly when they were purchased at sales. SLOANE'S CATALOGUES OF HIS LIBRARY The key to this identification is Sloane's own catalogues of his books and manuscripts. These are now Sloane MSS. 3995 and 3972B to D in the Department of Manuscripts, and his interleaved copy of G. A. Mercklin's Lmdemus renovatus (1686) in the Department of Printed Books. The relationships between these catalogues are complex, but I shall begin by describing their general characteristics as briefly as possible. 52 1. Sloane MS. 3995. This is the earliest library catalogue known to have been kept by Sloane.^ In it he listed his purchases of printed books (and a few manuscripts) with the prices he paid for them over the period 1685 to 1687.** No press-marks are given, so it appears that Sloane had not begun to number his library at this early date. The entries are made in a small notebook with an introductory heading 'A catalogue of my books taken in Febry. 1684/5 ir* London' (fol. 114^),'' followed by a list of books entered first on the recto pages and then continued on the versos until the last was reached (fol. I'"). The books are grouped in sections, arranged in folios, followed by quartos then octavos and duodecimos, with the prices paid added in the right-hand margins. The first section, books collected up to February 1685, ends at fol. 85^ and from then on entries were made as the books were purchased. Whether Sloane continued this system of listing his books is not known; it is probable that he did so, but no similar notebooks have survived amongst his papers in the British Library. 2. Sloane MSS. 3972B, C. As I hope to show later, this catalogue first began to take its present form about 1693 although it includes the books and manuscripts which had been acquired earlier. It is now bound in nine volumes (3972B and eight volumes of 3972C) and covers all items which Sloane acquired before his death in 1753 and considered to be part of his library, apart from his medical books in Latin. There is one continuous pagination i to 3944, begun at an early date, and used by Sloane and his librarians for compiling the index (Sloane MS. 3972D). (a) 3972C. The pages of the catalogue, except for some taken out and now bound in 3972B, arc distributed amongst the present volumes of 3972C as follows: I 1-202 II 203 392 III 393-859* IV 860^-1341 V 1342-1967"' VI I97I-2524 VII 2525-3076 VIII 3077 3944 The present division into eight volumes is of recent origin and in this article I have referred throughout to the original page numbers rather than the modern foliation, in order to avoid confusion. This is particularly necessary when referring to entries in Vols. I and II where the rectos only were originally numbered in arabic, the versos, beginning at the verso of p. i, being numbered in one sequence in romans from I to CCCXCV. The early entries are in Sloane's own hand but from about 1698 librarians were employed to keep the catalogue, although Sloane never ceased, even in his declining years, from making some entries himself. Not all these librarians have yet been identified. The most famous was Humfrey Wanley, who worked in Sloane's library for a brief time in the early i7oos;^ others were J. G. Scheuchzer,^ a brilliant scholar who 53 died prematurely in 1729, and Thomas Stack, who undertook a thorough verification of the library in 1740.*° For the greater part of the catalogue items were entered as they were acquired, or shortly afterwards, so that it is possible, by plotting the positions of entries for volumes know n to have been acquired at a certain date, to fix the date of acquisition of other volumes entered nearby. Entries were made not only for printed books but also for manuscripts, charters, rolls, horti stcci, maps, miniatures, prints, and periodicals. Each of these classes was distinguished by a characteristic press-mark, thus: Printed books an upper or lower case letter of the alphabet followed by a number (arabic). Upper case letters were assigned to folios, lower case to quartos, octavos, etc. The entries are not in any discernible order of author or subject and numbers are often missing from lettered sequences. Manuscripts MS. followed by a number (arabic). About 1702 Wanley began a new system of roman upper case numbers (I-CXXIV), but after his departure from the library the old numbering was resumed. About 1726 another new system was introduced by Scheuchzer whereby each MS. was given a capital letter (A = folio; B = quarto; C = octavo and smaller) and then a number (arabic). This numbering was applied not only to new acquisitions but also to manuscripts acquired previously (the earlier numbers were cancelled but are usually still visible). Charters Charter followed by a number (arabic)." Rolls Roll followed by a number (arabic). Horti sicci H.S. followed by a number (arabic). These were albums of dried plant specimens or herbaria, some of which were collected by Sloane himself They are now in the British Museum (Natural History).'^ Maps a number (roman, upper case). This class included atlases. Miniatures Min. with a number (arabic). These included illustrated books, both manuscript and printed. Prints Pr. with a number (roman). Periodicals a number and a sub number (both arabic). This division of the library into various classes was a gradual process which did not develop fully until tbe first decade of the eighteenth century, when Prints and Miniatures were first added to the other classes.'^ However, as items were often re-numbered and re-classified retrospectively, the state of the library in its earlier years cannot be described without some reference to these later divisions. To give a typical example, present Sloane MS. 2401, acquired by Sloane as early as 1693, was numbered MS. 3, then MS. B. 1174, then Min. 155, and finally Min. 201 while it was still in Sloane's possession.^'^ Although such re-numbering is still recorded in many volumes, the key to understanding the various press-marks remains in the catalogue itself. (b) 3972B. When Sloane's library was incorporated into the British Museum after 1753, most of the entries referring to manuscripts (including charters and rolls and beginning 54 with p. 475, at Wanley's MS. I) were taken out of his catalogue and sent to the Department of Manuscripts where they are now bound as a separate volume, 3972B. Although the makers of the original catalogue had usually entered blocks of entries belonging to the same class together they had not reserved separate sheets for this purpose so that manuscripts were often mixed with entries for other categories on the same page. When this occurred either the MS. entries were copied out or the whole page was transferred.*^ In this way a new catalogue was prepared between 1758 and 1764 and this, together with 3972A, became the basis for an arbitrary Museum numbering of the Sloane manuscripts."^ In the 1830s Frederic Madden undertook the task of clearing up much confusion in this numbering: the skill he brought to this task may be appreciated even more when it is realized that he worked in ignorance of the existence of Sloane's original catalogue.*'' The notes he compiled in the course of his investigations are now enshrined in both 3972A and B, and still feel a trifle warm to the touch. 3. Sloane MS. 3972A. This catalogue was not part of Sloane's cataloguing system; although it provides useful information concerning the fate of his manuscripts after they entered the British Museum, it is otherwise positively misleading from the point of view of the history of their acquisition by Sloane.