BULLETIN

OF THE

NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS

VOLUME 22

OCTOBER 1918

NUMBER 10

A GIFT OF MUSIC

RS. GEORGE W. DOANE, of South Orange, New Jersey, has

MRS

presented The New York Public Library with a collection of music and music-books. The great majority of Mrs. Doane's books bear the autograph of George James Webb. He was an Englishman, born in 1803, who came to America and was an organist in Boston; he served as president of the Handel and Haydn Society and assisted in founding the Boston Academy (1836). He published books on vocal technique and collections of glees. He died in Orange, New Jersey, in 1887.

This collection, which may be seen in the Music Division, consists of 777 items: 471 bound volumes, 306 unbound. Among them are several very rare and unusual books, which, however, we already have in the Drexel Collection, and which are of bibliographical and historical value. They belong to the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries:

Pontificale Romanum... Venice, 1561.

A folio volume, beautifully printed in red and black, containing numerous wood-cuts including a large crucifixion, with music. It is bound in blue morocco covered with blind tooling, gilt edges, and in antique style.

The whole booke of psalms. Collected into English meeter [sic] by Thomas Sternhold, Iohn Hopkins, and others... London, 1633. Athanasii Kircheri...musurgia universalis sive ars magna consoni et dissoni in x libros digista... Rome, 1650.

Della letteratura de Turchi.

Venice, 1688.

Osservationi fatte da Gio. Battista Donado.

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Harmonics; or, The philosophy of musical sounds. By Robert Smith... Cambridge, 1749.

Ditto. London, 1759.

Prosodia rationalis; or, An essay towards establishing the melody and measure of speech... [By Joshua Steele. London, 1779.

The oriental miscellany; being a collection of the most favourite airs of Hindoostan...by William Hamilton Bird. Calcutta, 1789.

Improved psalmody, in three parts...or, A poetical version of the psalms ...with new music...by the Rev. William Deschair Tattersall... London, 1795.

The bulk of the remaining items consists of song-books, religious and secular; 18th and 19th century vocal scores of opera and oratorios; several full scores of oratorios, notable among which are Loewe's Sieben Schlaefer and Dr. Arnold's editions of Handel's; collections of German part-songs, mostly for four-part male chorus; English anthems; 11 volumes of the Musical World, London, 1838-1848; histories of music (those of Burney and Hawkins); German pamphlets on school singing; books on the theory of music and esthetics, and 10 volumes of Biblical exegesis.

The gift includes two other items of lesser importance but worthy of special mention. One is Rinck's edition in vocal score of a Requiem by Abbé Vogler of Browning fame, and a curious volume on Chinese instruments. This last is a gorgeously illustrated album, in bright colors, consisting of twelve plates on rice paper bound in satin. Each plate represents a musical instrument being played by a Chinese woman. This volume has neither title-page nor imprint to identify it.

NEWS OF THE MONTH

GIFTS

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URING the month of September, 1918, the Library received as gifts

2,565 volumes, 3,969 pamphlets, 44 maps and 10 prints. Some of the more important and interesting of these gifts were the following: From the Curtis Publishing Company came a copy (number 224 of 475 printed) of "The collection of Franklin imprints in the Museum of the Curtis Publishing Company, with a short-title check list of all the books, pamphlets, broadsides, etc., known to have been printed by Benjamin Franklin; compiled by William J. Campbell, A. M.," Philadelphia, 1918. Mrs. Thomas A. Janvier of South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, gave a collection of French books, mainly relating to Provençal literature, comprising 96 volumes and 55 pamphlets. She gave also a collection of newspaper clippings and letters. From Mr. John Eliot Thayer of Lancaster, Massachusetts, came a copy of the "Catalogue of a collection. of books on ornithology in the Library of John E. Thayer, compiled by Evelyn Thayer and Virginia Keys," Boston, 1913.

From Dr. George Frederick Kunz came the "Catskill Aqueduct Celebration publications; a collection of pamphlets published in connection with the celebration of the Catskill Aqueduct," New York, 1917. Sr. Enrique Jose Varona of Habana, Cuba, gave a copy of his "Por Cuba," Habana, 1918. From Mr. Charles T. Luthy of Peoria, Illinois, came 2 volumes, 19 pamphlets, and 12 sheets, including the following of his works: "Luthy's scientific handwriting, being an analysis of Roman script. form and execution," 1918; "The human speech sounds," 1918; and "The universal alphabet," 1918. Prof. Alexander Graham Bell of Washington, D. C., presented a copy of his work, "The growth of the oral method in America"; Mr. George A. Hussey, a copy of his "History of the Ninth Regiment, N. Y. S. M... N. G. S. N. Y. (83rd N. Y. Volunteers) 18451888," New York, 1889; Mr. John Fremont Wilber of Somerville, Massachusetts, a copy of his work, "Progress and its enemies, showing the fallacy of the single tax theory and some other enemies of progress," 1918; and Mr. Horace Wetherill Wright of Newark, New Jersey, a copy of his work, "The Sacra Idulia in Ovid's Fasti; a study of Ovid's credibility in regard to the place and the victim of this sacrifice," Newark, 1917.

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From Mrs. William Allen Butler of New York came a collection of law books, comprising 74 volumes; from the Ess Ess Publishing Company of New York, 1,194 bound volumes of "The Smart Set, 1900-1910"; and from Miss Louise Charvet of New York, a collection of pamphlets on the war, 106 in all.

Mr. William Henry Humiston of New York gave a collection of his songs; and Mr. Bolton Coit Brown of New York, copies of his lithographs, entitled "The waterfront," "The lake," "Sol. Russell's hickories," "The tug," "The bather," "Young cedars."

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ADDITIONS AND USE OF THE LIBRARY IN SEPTEMBER, 1918 URING the month of September, 1918, there were received at the Library 15,398 volumes and 4,344 pamphlets. (These figures include the additions to both Reference and Circulation Departments.) The total number of readers recorded in the Central Building was 50,463. They consulted 147,384 volumes. Visitors to the building numbered 141,234.

CENSUS OF FIFTEENTH CENTURY BOOKS

OWNED IN AMERICA

EDITED BY A COMMITTEE OF THE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA

PART VII