LONDON BISHOP'S GIFT IS FEATURE OF EXHIBIT

An interesting volume presented by the Rt. Rev. Arthur Foley Winnington-Ingram, Bishop of London, two signed letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the original manuscript of James Russell Lowell's "Oration on the 250th Anniversary of Harvard College", and a number of letters to Charles Sumner, class of 1830, during his tenure as senator at Washington from 1859 to 1865, comprise the latest exhibitions at the Treasure Room in Widener Library.

The gift of the Bishop of London is in the form of a "Dictionary of Authors", compiled by Nathan Prince, of the class of 1718 in the University, and Tutor and Fellow of Harvard for 20 years. His intention, as expresseed in a note on the fly-leaf, was "to write down the Lives, Characters, and Works of all the Authors in those Arts and Sciences which I intend to gain an insight into." Some 276 pages are then filled with lists of authors, with information about them and their books, which Mr. Prince intended to read.

Book Wandered to Fulham Place

This book was included in the New England Library, a collection started by Thomas Prince while he was attending the University from 1703 to 1707. During the Revolutionary War the Library was stored in the steeple chamber of the Old South Church, British soldiers used the Church as a riding school, and several books were missing at the close of the war. This volume was found in Fulham Palace, the home of the Bishop of London and given to the University by the Rt. Rev. Dr. Ingram in 1907.

The Summer letters, written to him while he held office in Washington during the critical period of the Civil War, are largely from disgruntled gentlemen who criticised the government by writing to men in power, much as do those who write to their Congressmen with their grievances today. One correspondent of Mr. Sumner, for instance, writes to say that, in his opinion, the trouble with the Navy was its intemperance.

The Coleridge letters are inscribed to one Mr. Tobin, and are full of gossip about the doings of Wordsworth and the writer. Wordsworth's health is referred to as "but so-so", while Hartley Coleridge, later a poet himself, who was about 14 years old at this time, is styled "a young animal." In both manuscripts, which are quite legible, the signature of the writer is well-preserved.