In the original draft of a dedication to be prefixed to some operas by Purcell, Dryden says: ‘Musick and poetry have ever been acknowledged sisters, which walking hand-in-hand support each other. As poetry is the harmony of words, so musick is that of notes; and as poetry is a rise above prose and oratory, so is musick the exaltation of poetry. Both of them may excel apart; but sure they are most excellent when they are joined, because nothing is then wanting to either of their perfections, for thus they appear like wit and beauty in the same person.’ At the end of a copy of Bacon’s _Essays_, presented to Mrs Newsham, in 1725, by ‘her servant, A. Pope,’ is a sonnet in the poet’s handwriting, entitled _A Wish to Mrs M. B. on her Birthday, June 15_. It is to be found in his works, expanded into a twenty-line _Epistle to Miss Martha Blount, on her Birthday_. ‘The Emperor of Morocco’s curses against his two eldest sons, taken from the original in his own writing in the register of the principal church at Morocco,’ is a curiosity, if scarcely a literary one; and the same may be said of a specimen of French penmanship—a series of portraits of the time of Louis XIV., executed with such freedom that they seem to have been done with one uninterrupted flourish of the pen. Each portrait has a song with music appended to it, the volume ending with a piece of music in Rousseau’s own hand, composed by him at Paris in 1776. The letters, original and transcribed, in the collection are so multitudinous, that it is impossible to enter into detail about them; they cover every reign from Edward III. to George III., and unrepresented Englishmen of any note are few indeed; while epistles written by such illustrious foreigners as Doge Andrea Contarini, Francis I., Cardinal Mazarin, Louis XIV., Madame de Maintenon, Voltaire, Frederick the Great, Mirabeau, Lafayette, and Napoleon the Great, figure in the catalogue of contents. We must mention that among the treasures acquired by the nation are a number of manuscripts in the Irish language, and of manuscripts relating to the history and antiquities of Ireland; besides the correspondence of Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex, Lord-lieutenant of Ireland under Charles II. The government having decided that manuscripts in the Irish language, and those bearing more or less directly upon Irish history and literature, should be lent indefinitely to the Royal Irish Academy, for the use of students and the public, the greater portion of the above will be lost to Bloomsbury—how large a portion will not be known, until the representatives of the British Museum and the Irish Academy have settled the matter between them. A SKETCH FROM MY STUDY WINDOW.