Acquired by the Trustees during and after the Abyssinian War; partly by gift from the British Government, and partly by the researches of the Representative of the Trustees in the British Camp. Another and a very valuable portion of the Abyssinian Manuscripts came to the India Office, by the gift of =Lord Napier= of Magdala; and by the Secretary of State for India was given to the British Museum. [See BOOK III, Chapter 4.] (LXXXVI) =1868.= The SLADE ARCHÆOLOGICAL COLLECTION. _Collected_ by =Felix Slade= (Died 1868). _Bequeathed_ by the Collector. [See BOOK III, Chapter 4.] (LXXXVII) =1869.= The HAYS COLLECTION of EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES. [See BOOK III, Chapter 4.] As I have had occasion to observe in a former paragraph, the preceding list is, of necessity, an abridged list. It is by no means a complete or exhaustive one. The prescribed bounds—those of a single volume for a very wide and multifarious subject—compel the writer to treat his subject by way of selection. The reader is solicited to keep that fact in mind; as well for its bearing on the chapters which follow, as on the introductory chapter now under his eye. And in regard both to this brief enumeration of the successive component parts of the Museum, and to the biographical notices of which it is the preliminary, the cautionary remark here repeated applies to _every_ Department of the national repository. It holds good of the Natural History Collections, and of the Collections of Antiquities, no less than of the Collections of Printed Books and of Manuscripts. Among the many minor, but intrinsically important, Collections thus—compulsorily—passed over, in the present volume, are some of which brief notices have been given (by the same hand) in a preceding work, published in 1869. Those ‘Notices,’ however, relate exclusively to collectors and collections of Printed Books, of Engravings, of Drawings, and of Manuscripts. Thus,—to give but a few examples,—important collections, now forming part of the British Museum, and gathered originally by =Thomas Rymer= (1713); =Thomas Madox= (1733); =Brownlow Cecil, Earl of Exeter= (1739); =David Garrick= (1779); =Peter Lewis Ginguene= (1816); the =Abate Canonici= (_circa_, 1818); =John Fowler Hull= (1825); =Frederick North=, sixth =Earl of Guildford= (1826); =Count Joseph de Puisaye= (1827); the =Marquess Wellesley= (1842); =D. E. Davy= (_circa_ 1850),—are all noticed in an Appendix headed ‘Historical Notices of Collectors’ to the volume entitled ‘_Free Town Libraries_’ published in 1869. Of that Appendix the notices above referred to form, respectively, Nos. ‘848’ (_Rymer_); ‘570’ (_Madox_); ‘186’ (_Cecil_); ‘351’ (_Garrick_); ‘372’ (_Ginguene_); ‘165’ (_Canonici_); ‘462’ (_Hull_); ‘683’ (_North_); ‘781’ (_Puisaye_); ‘1049’ (_Wellesley_); and ‘249’ (_Davy_).