This year is rendered noticeable in the later annals of the Library by the fact that not a single MS. was purchased during its course. But a very valuable collection of Arabic, Persian and Sanscrit MSS. formed by Brigadier Gen. Alex. Walker, during his service in India, was presented by his son, Sir Will. Walker, of Edinburgh[344]. These are kept as a distinct collection, like other donations or purchases of similar extent; the Sanscrit portion is described in the catalogue compiled by Prof. Aufrecht. The collection of printed Hebrew books was increased by the purchase (for £176 14_s._ 6_d._) of 483 volumes from the library of the celebrated lexicographer, Gesenius, of Halle, who died Oct. 23, 1842, and whose library was sold by auction at Halle, in Jan. 1844. Two curious collections of tracts were also bought; the one in English consisting of 300 volumes, ranging from 1688 to 1766, and chiefly treating of the case of the Non-jurors, the Bangorian controversy, and the affairs of the city of London (for £22 10_s._); and the other in French, consisting only of four small volumes, but containing a very large number of '_Merveilles_,' strange histories of strange wonders, between 1557 and 1637, of great rarity and singularity. These were obtained at the sale of the library of Mr. Benj. Heywood Bright, No. 3796, for £13. On Dec. 23, the present writer (then a Clerk of Magdalen College) was appointed Assistant, _vice_ Mr. Taunton, after upwards of five years' previous service as a supernumerary, having first entered the Library in June, 1840. [344] Gen. Walker, who in the beginning of the century was Governor of Baroda, in Guzerat, died at Edinburgh in 1832. His MSS., in the words of Prof. Aufrecht, 'integritate et antiquitate eminent.' A.D. 1846. The original MS., or first copy, of Wood's _History and Antiquities of Oxford_, in English, was purchased for the moderate sum of £8 8_s._ Already the Library possessed the corrected copy, in the author's autograph, in two large folio volumes, which had formed part of his collection in the Ashmolean Museum, but were transferred to the Bodleian as early as the year 1769. The volume now obtained had been in the possession of Edw. Roberts, Esq., of Ealing, a letter to whom from Mr. Joseph Parker, of Oxford, is inserted, dated July 4, 1827, in which he mentions the sale of the book to Mr. B. Roberts, and says that it was purchased at a sale at Burford, in 1797 or 1798. A curious and valuable account-roll of Sir John Williams, Knt., Master of the Jewels to Henry VIII, which specifies all the treasures which were in his custody, was bought for £25[345]. The department of Italian topography, antiquities and art was largely enriched by the purchase from Rev. R. A. Scott (for £234 6_s._) of a collection of 1426 volumes made by his brother the late George C. Scott, Esq., during ten years' residence in Italy. _Dissertations._ See 1828. _Gower's Cheshire._ See 1842. _Thorkelin._ See 1828.