Add MS 54196

'HORTUS CHRISTIANUS': 1800 elegaic couplets on scriptural themes by Wilhelm Philipp Würdtwein, dedicated to Johann Franz Wolfgang Damian, Count of Ostein (1694-aft. 1740), Canon of Würzburg Cathedral and adviser to the Archbishop of Maintz; mid 18th cent. Autograph. Latin. The recipient's elder brother, Johann Friedrich Carl, Count of Ostein (d.1763), became Archbishop of Maintz in 1743, and the family arms appear in a frontispiece drawing (f. 3v). The couplets are in the form of chronograms, expressing a regular progression of numerical quantities from 1 to 1800. A partly rubbed-out pencil inscription in German beginning '154' in a late 18th-cent. hand (f. 1) is probably a chronogram. An explanatory note by James Hilton, F.S.A., writer on chronograms and a former owner, is bound into the volume (ff. 158-159v). 'G. W. B. D.' stamped in purple, 19th cent., f. 4. Apparently purchased by Hilton for £8 in 1898 (f. 157v); Hilton's ownership label occurs f. i. Hilton bequeathed the manuscript with a collection of books on chronograms to the British Museum in 1907, subject to the life interest of his daughter Mrs Sophia Letitia Hale Hilton, and the collection was handed over on her decease, see BMQ, v (1930-1931), pp. 119-120. See also Add. 52608. Transferred from the Department of Printed Books, 8 Sept. 1967.

Paper; ff. i+159. 207 x 168mm. 18th cent. brown calf binding, spine gilt-stamped. Contemporary end-papers stamped with floral decoration in red and yellow.