a third, and especially interesting, portion consists of the papers of Mr. David Nairne, under-secretary to James II during his exile, which reach from 1692 to 1718, and fill two volumes in folio and eight or nine in quarto. It was from these that Macpherson chiefly compiled his _Original Papers_, published in 1775, in 2 vols., 4^o. A Report upon the contents of the collection, with special reference to Ireland (omitting the Nairne papers) was made to the Master of the Rolls by T. Duffus Hardy, Esq., and Rev. J. S. Brewer in 1863, and was printed in the following year, together with an extremely useful summary of the contents of the various volumes, and a reference-table of the letters, &c., printed by Carte in his Ormonde volumes. In consequence of this Report, two Commissioners (the Rev. Dr. Russell, President of Maynooth, and J. P. Prendergast, Esq.) were appointed to examine the whole series, and select for transcription all historical and official papers of interest relating to Ireland, with a view to the preservation of copies in the Record Office at Dublin. Several transcribers are therefore now continuously employed in transcribing for this purpose the papers selected by the Commissioners. Some notice of the MSS. is to be found in the Record Commission Report for 1800, p. 354. [215] On Feb. 4, 1868, a scheme for the appropriation of the accumulated fund (now amounting to about £12,000), which had been approved by the Clarendon Trustees, was accepted by Convocation. The money is to be applied to the erection of laboratories, &c., at the University Museum, for the Professor of Experimental Philosophy. [216] In the Benefaction Book this gift is entered under 1793, but it is mentioned in the Preface to vol. iii. of the _State Papers_, dated May 29, 1786, as having been '_lately_' given. Another copy of part of the _History_, partly written by William Edgeman, who was Hyde's secretary at Scilly and during his first exile, came to the Library among Rawlinson's MSS., by whom it was bought at the sale of the Chandos Library in 1747 for £1 10_s._! [217] _Lit. Anecd._ ii. 514. A.D. 1754.