In addition to his own books, the Duke acquired the whole of William Beckford's splendid collection by his marriage with Beckford's daughter Susan Euphemia. William, the eleventh Duke, who was born on February the 19th, 1811, and died on July the 15th, 1863, added considerably to the library, but his successor was reluctantly obliged to part with it, and it was advertised to be sold by auction on June 30th, 1882. Before, however, the time appointed for the sale, the Royal Museum at Berlin, by a private arrangement, acquired the whole of the manuscripts for a sum which is believed to have amounted to about seventy-five thousand pounds, and they were divided between that Institution and the Royal Library at Berlin. A portion of them, which related to Scottish history, was purchased of the Prussian authorities by the British Museum; and ninety-one other manuscripts which were not required by the Berlin Museum, including the 'Golden Gospels,' were sent to Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge, by whom they were sold on the 23rd of May 1889 for fifteen thousand one hundred and eighty-nine pounds, ten shillings and sixpence. The 'Golden Gospels' was bought by Mr. Quaritch for one thousand five hundred pounds. The printed books were sold by the same auctioneers on May 1st, 1884, and seven following days. The sale consisted of two thousand one hundred and thirty-six lots, and realised twelve thousand eight hundred and ninety-two pounds, twelve shillings and sixpence. The following are a few of the rarest and most interesting books, and the prices they fetched—Boecius de Consolatione Philosophie, printed by Caxton in 1477-78, one hundred and sixty pounds; Dante's Commedia, printed at Florence in 1481, with twenty engravings by Baccio Baldini, three hundred and eighty pounds; the Poems of Pindar in Greek, printed by Aldus in 1513, with the arms of France and the monogram and devices of Henry II. and Diana of Poitiers on the binding, one hundred and forty-one pounds; the Prince of Condé's copy of L'Hystoire du Roy Perceforest, Paris, 1528, with his arms on the covers, one hundred and eighteen pounds; a dedication copy, printed upon vellum, and bound for James V., King of Scotland, of Hector Boece's History and Croniklis, translated by Bellenden, and printed at Edinburgh in 1536, the binding having on the upper cover IACOBVS QVINTVS, and on the lower REX SCOTORVM, eight hundred pounds; a Collection of Architectural Designs, executed with pen and ink by J. Androuet du Cerceau, in a beautiful binding attributed to Clovis Eve, two hundred and forty pounds; De Bry's Collectiones Peregrinationum, in eleven volumes, bound in blue morocco by Derome, five hundred and sixty pounds; Book of Common Prayer, 1637, folio—King Charles I.'s copy, with numerous alterations in his own handwriting which were used in printing the Scottish Prayer-book of the same year, usually termed Laud's Book. Prefixed to the Order for Morning Prayer the King has written: 'Charles R.—I gave the Archbp. of Canterbury comand to make the alteracons expressed in this Book and to fit a Liturgy for the Church of Scotland, and wheresoever they shall differ from another Booke signed by us at Hampt. Court Septembr. 28, 1634, our pleasure is to have these followed rather than the former; unless the Archbp. of St. Andrews and his Brethren who are upon the place shall see apparent reason to the contrary. At Whitehall, April 19, 1636'—one hundred and thirty-seven pounds.
The paintings and objects of art belonging to the Duke of Hamilton were sold in July 1882, and realised three hundred and ninety-seven thousand pounds.
SIR MARK MASTERMAN SYKES, Bart., 1771-1823
Sir Mark Masterman Sykes, Bart., was the eldest son of Sir Christopher Sykes, second baronet, of Sledmere, Yorkshire. He was born on the 20th of August 1771, and in his seventeenth year was sent to Brasenose College, Oxford. In 1795 he served the office of High Sheriff of Yorkshire, and on the death of his father in 1801 he succeeded to the title and estates. He was elected Member of Parliament for the city of York in 1807; was again returned in 1812 and 1813, and retired on account of ill health in 1820. Sir M. Masterman Sykes was twice married. His first wife was Henrietta, daughter and heiress of Henry Masterman of Settrington, Yorkshire, and on his union with her in 1795 he assumed the additional name of Masterman. She died in 1813, and in the following year he married Mary Elizabeth, daughter of William Tatton Egerton, and sister of Wilbraham Tatton Egerton, of Tatton Park, who survived him. Sir Mark died at Weymouth, on his way to London, on the 16th of February 1823. He had no children, and was succeeded by his brother, Sir Tatton Sykes.
Sir M. Masterman Sykes early developed a love for books, and the magnificent library which he formed, one of the finest private collections in England, was the result of upwards of thirty years' unremitting and careful work. Some of the rare volumes it contained, we are informed in the preface to the sale catalogue of his library written by the Rev. H.J. Todd, 'were procured during the collector's travels abroad, but many of them were acquired at the dispersion of the libraries of Major Pearson, Dr. Farmer, Steevens, Reed, the Rev. Mr. Brand, the Duke of Roxburghe and others, but especially of that of the late Mr. Edwards, from whom the celebrated Livy of 1469 was obtained—the only known copy of the first edition of Livy on vellum.'
Among the principal treasures of the collection were the Gutenberg Bible; the Psalter of 1459, on vellum; the Rationale Divinorum Officiorum of Durandus, on vellum, 1459; the Catholicon of Joannes Balbus de Janua, 1460; the Latin Bible of 1462, on vellum; and the Epistles of St. Jerome, on vellum, 1470: all printed at Mentz.
The library was especially rich in early editions of the Greek and Latin Classics, and on its shelves were to be found the only copy known to exist on vellum of the first edition of Livy, printed at Rome by Sweynheym and Pannartz about 1469, to which we have already referred; the first edition of Pliny, printed by Joannes de Spira at Venice in 1469; that printed at Rome by Sweynheym and Pannartz in 1470; a copy on vellum of the beautiful 1472 edition from the press of Nicolas Jenson of Venice; and the earliest editions of Homer, Cicero, Horace, Virgil, Tacitus, Terence, and Valerius Maximus.
The library also contained the Dante printed at Foligno in 1472, and that printed at Florence in 1481; the first issue of the Latin translation of the Letter of Columbus, printed at Rome in 1493; a fine copy of the Poliphili Hypnerotomachia, printed by Aldus at Venice in 1499; the Aldine Petrarch of 1501; several rare Missals and Books of Hours, the most notable of them being a vellum copy of the Vallombrosa Missal, printed at Florence in 1503; and a copy of the Tewrdannck, also on vellum, printed at Nuremberg in 1517.
There were several Caxtons, among them being The Myrrour of the World and Higden's Polychronicon.