The Sloane MSS Series: The Preface

The Manuscripts here indexed formed a part of the extensive 
scientific and literary collections of Sir Hans Sloano, Bart., M.D. 
After his death on January 1 lth, 1753, in accordance with the terms 
of his will, his entire Museum and Library were offered by his 
executors to the nation for £20,000, and were ultimately purchased 
for that sum out of the proceeds of a public lottery under the Act of 
Parliament 26 Geo. II., cap. 22, from which the British Museum 
dates its foundation. 

In common with the Cotton and Harley MSS., which were dealt 
with in the same Act, the Sloane MSS. have retained the name of 
their original collector, with a separate numeration, 1-4100 ; at the 
same time they serve for a basis to the great series of subsequent 
acquisitions known as the Additional MSS., the first of which is 
numbered 4101, and which have now reached the number 37,000. 

As far as No. 5017 the Sloane and Additional MSS. together are 
included in Samuel Aysoough's Catalogue of the Manuscripts preserved 
in the British Museum hitherto undescribed, 1782, 2 vols, quarto. The 
descriptions there given do not follow the numerical order, but are 
roughly classified according to subject. Although useful to a certain 
extent, they are for the most part inadequate and too often incorrect, 
while the index is confined to a mere list of the personal names which 
appear in them. Apart from a new Catalogue, a fuller and more 
systematic Index, with references, not to Aysoough's pages, but to 
the manuscripts themselves, has therefore long been required, and, 
so far as the Sloane MSS. are concerned, it is at length supplied in 
the present volume. 

Besides names of persons and places and particular subjects, it 
includes a large number of class-headings, a list of the more 
important of which is prefixed. Yolumes and single documents on 
historical subjects will be found under the name of the country to 
which they relate, those of a general character being placed at the 
beginning and the rest following chronologically under the several 
reigns. With regard to collections of letters, and more particularly 

( iv ) 

Sloane'8 own correspondence (4036-4069), the references differ in 
many cases from those given by Ayscongh or since quoted elsewhere. 
The contents of such volumes were formerly arranged alphabetically 
under the names of writers. As the disadvantages of this system 
are obvious, the opportunity has now been taken to change it for an 
order of date, and it must therefore be understood that the references 
throughout follow the present arrangement. 

Although the numeration extends to 4100, upwards of two 
hundred and fifty numbers within this limit do not appear in the 
Index. Most of them were borne by Oriental manuscripts, printed 
books, maps, and early engravings, which have been transferred to 
the Departments of the Museum to which they more properly belong. 
Others were accidentally passed over when the collection was origin- 
ally numbered, or the volumes bearing them were already missing in 
Ayscough's time ; and there are also cases in which two different 
numbers were assigned to the same manuscript. The hundred and 
sixty-eight documents which go by the name of the Sloane Charters, 
but the provenance of which is somewhat doubtful, are also omitted. 
They are, however, included in the Index to the Charters and Bolls in 
the British Museum, of which vol. i. (Index Looorum) was published 
in 1900. Moreover, after the publication of Ayscough's Catalogue, 
and after the Sloane numeration had been continued for the Ad- 
ditional series, upwards of a hundred more Sloane MSS. were 
identified. Although they are numbered Additional MSS. 5018- 
5027, 5214-5308, they ought strictly to have been indexed here 
with the rest of the Sloane collection ; but, as they appear in the 
Index to the Additional Manuscripts .... acquired in the years 1783- 
1835, published in 1849, it was not thought necessary to repeat the 
entries relating to them which are there given. 

The present Index was compiled by my predecessor as Keeper of 
MSS., Dr. Edward Scott, and he is solely responsible for its plan and 
execution. In passing it through the press he had the help of Dr. 
Eenyon, Assistant Keeper of MSS., and of Mr. D. T. Wood and 
Mr. H. I. Bell, Assistants. 

George F. Warner, Keeper of MSS. 

Wth September, 1904.