Excerpt from Catalogue of the Fifty Manuscripts and Printed Books Bequeathed to the British Museum by Alfred H. Huth

These figures in no way represent the proportions of these two categories of books in the Huth Library. The Library was essentially a library of printed books; but the few manuscripts which it included were selected with taste and discrimination, and were worth more than all except a few of the printed books. In their case, moreover, the question of duplication could not arise.

The importance of the printed books received under the bequest is shown in Mr. Pollard's Introduction but it will be convenient to say aword here about the manuscripts. One of them (no. X) was selected on account of the coloured engravings which it contains, by the artist known as the Master of the Berlin Passion. The others all represent various phases in the art of miniature only one, the unique copy of the romance of Merlin, could have been included on the ground of its text. One is of English workmanship, five of French, one German, one Dutch, two Flemish, and two Italian. Since the British Museum already possesses by far the finest collection of English illuminated manuscripts in existence, this preponderance of foreign examples is entirely to its advantage.

The one English example (no. III) is, however, one of the most valuable, though not the most generally attractive, in the collection. It is a Psalter, of the last quarter of the thirteenth century, decorated in the calendar with representa tions of the occupations of the several months, and in the body of the manuscript with full-page miniatures, historiated initials, and decorative borders. The whole belongs to that fine period when the miniaturist was approaching the full mastery of his art, but when the amount of decoration allowed to the page was still restrained within comparatively narrow limits.

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