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A.D. 1598-A.D. 1867, by William Dunn Macray

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Title: Annals of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, A.D. 1598-A.D. 1867
       With a Preliminary Notice of the earlier Library founded
              in the Fourteenth Century

Author: William Dunn Macray

Release Date: December 16, 2011 [EBook #38317]

Language: English

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[Pg i]

ANNALS
OF THE
BODLEIAN LIBRARY,
OXFORD,
A.D. 1598-A.D. 1867;

With a Preliminary Notice of the earlier Library founded
in the Fourteenth Century.

BY THE REV. WILLIAM DUNN MACRAY, M.A.
CHAPLAIN OF ST. MARY MAGDALENE AND ST. MARY WINTON COLLEGES;
EDITOR OF "CHRONICON ABBATIÆ EVESHAMENSIS," &c.

RIVINGTONS
London, Oxford, and Cambridge
1868

[Pg iii]

PREFACE.

This volume is an attempt to tell a tale which has not been told with any particularity and fulness since the days of Anthony à Wood, and yet a tale which, since those days, has been continually growing in interest, and engaging in fresh scenes the attention and admiration of successive generations. Fragments of the tale, it is true, have been told at times; latest of all, an abstract, brief but accurate, has been given in Mr. Edwards' valuable Memoirs of Libraries. But the present narrative, while it embraces a wider range, is, at the same time, independent throughout of all that have preceded it, being largely compiled from sources available only to those who are familiar with the stores of the Library and habituated to their use, as well as from private accounts and papers, for access to which, as for other kind assistance, the writer is indebted to the Librarian. Yet it is only as an attempt that the volume asks to be received and judged; for a work of this kind cannot at once attain completeness. Its very size will show to those who are acquainted with its subject, that minuteness in detail cannot be expected. The difficulty has been, out of the abundance [Pg iv]of materials, to compile an epitome which should at once be concise and yet not, through conciseness, be deprived of interest. To point out all the special treasures in each branch in which the Library is rich, as it would occupy the extent of several volumes, so it would require the combined knowledge of several students, each in his several sphere. While, therefore, no portion of the Library has been unnoticed, it will, the writer trusts, be readily pardoned, should those portions with which he is specially acquainted, and in the direction of which his own line of work specially leads, seem to any to occupy more prominence than others of equal importance. It is worthy of notice that, in tracing the growth and history of the Library, the fact of its older divisions having undergone comparatively little change in arrangement, greatly facilitates examination, and, at the same time, often imparts an interest of its own to well-nigh each successive shelf of books; for each tier has thus its own record of successive benefactions and successive purchases to display, and leads us on step by step from one year to another.

'Bowers of Paradise!' Thus it was that an enthusiastic Hebrew student, writing of the Bodleian but a few years ago, apostrophized the little cells and curtained cages wherein readers sit, while hedged in and canopied with all the wisdom and learning of bygone generations, which here bloom their blossoms and yield up their fruits. And, as if answering in actual living type to the parable which the Eastern metaphor suggests, these cells from year to year have been and (though of late more infrequently) still are, the resort of grand and grave old bees, majestic in size and deportment, of[Pg v] sonorous sound, and covered with the dust, as it were, of ages. Just as a solemn rookery befits an ancestral mansion, so these Bees of the Bodleian form a fitting accompaniment to the place of their choice. And while the Metaphor well describes the character of that place whither men resort for refreshment amidst the work of the world and for the recruiting of mental strength for the doing of such work, so the Type well describes those who from the bowers gather sweetness and wealth, first for their own enriching and next for the enriching of others. Long then in these bowers may there be found busy hives of men; above all, those that gather thence, abundantly, such Wisdom as is præ melle ori.

Bodleian Library,
May 30, 1868.

[Pg vii]

CONTENTS.

[Pg 1]

ANNALS
OF THE
BODLEIAN LIBRARY.

[Pg 3]

In the north-east corner of St. Mary's Church, a church full of nooks little known to ordinary visitors, is a dark vaulted chamber (dark, because its windows have been built up), whose doors, when opened, only now reveal the abiding-place of the University fire-engines. Here of old sat the Chancellor of the University, surrounded by the Doctors and Masters of the Great Congregation, in a fashion which was formerly depicted in the great west window of St. Mary's Church, and is still represented on the University seal, and which, in the early part of the last century, was adopted by Dr. Richard Rawlinson as his book-plate, being engraved from the impression attached to his own diploma in Civil Law. Above this chamber there is another, lighted by four windows, containing forty-five feet in length and twenty in breadth, and now assigned as the lecture-room of the Professor of Law. Here was begun about 1367, and finally established and furnished in 1409, the first actual University Library, called after Bishop Thomas Cobham, of Worcester, who about 1320 (seven years before his death) had commenced preparations for the building of the room and the making provision for its contents[1].[Pg 4] Wood tells us that before this time there were indeed some books kept in chests in St. Mary's Church, which were to be lent out under pledges, as well as some chained to desks, which were only to be read in situ; but this University chest soon gave way to the formal Library, as, at a later period, another University chest was lost in funded investments and a banker's balance[2]. Another precursor of the general Library was found in the collection bequeathed to Durham College (on the site of which now stands Trinity College) in 1345 by one of its founders, the earnest lover and preserver of books, Philip of Bury; he of that charming book, that 'tractatus vere pulcherrimus,' the Philobiblion. He,—who apostrophizes books as the masters who teach without flogging or fleecing, without punishment or payment; as ears of corn, full of grain, to be rubbed only by apostolic hands; as golden pots of manna; as Noah's ark and Jacob's ladder, and Joshua's stones of testimony and Gideon's lamps and David's scrip, and who says that in the noblest monasteries of England he found precious volumes defiled and injured by mice and worms, and abandoned to moths,—gave strict injunctions for the care of the large collection, gathered from all quarters, with which he enriched his College[3]. It was to be free for purposes of study to all scholars, who might have the loan of any work of which there[Pg 5] was a duplicate, provided they left a pledge exceeding it in value, but for purposes of transcription no volume was to go beyond the walls of the house. A register was to be kept, and a yearly visitation was to be held[4]. Some of these books, on the dissolution of the College by Henry VIII, are said to have been transferred to Duke Humphrey's Library, and some to Balliol College.

The Librarian of Cobham's Library was also entitled Chaplain to the University, and as such was ordered, in 1412, to offer masses yearly for those who were benefactors of the University and Library, and was endowed with half a mark yearly, as well as with £5 issuing from the assize of bread and ale, which had been granted to the University by King Henry IV, who was also a principal contributor to the completion of the Library, and is therefore to this day duly remembered in the Bidding-Prayer at all the academic 'Commemorationes Solenniores.' But no trace remains of the devotional and sacred duties once attaching to the office, and laymen have been eligible to it from the time of Bodley's re-foundation. The old regal stipend, however, amounting at last to £6 13s. 4d., continued to be paid to the Librarian, until in 1856, by the revised code of statutes, various small payments were consolidated; it is found entered in the annual printed accounts up to that year.

But not a score of years had passed after Cobham's Library had been actually completed and opened before the building of a room more worthy of the University was commenced. In 1426 the University began to erect the present noble Divinity School for the exercises in that faculty; but as their own means soon[Pg 6] failed they betook themselves to all likely quarters to procure help. And Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, the patron of all learning[5], and the fosterer of the New School of theological thought, the protector of Pecock, responded so liberally to the petition of the University for aid to the fabric of their Material School, that he is styled (says Wood) in the Bedell's Book its Founder, while the roof to this day perpetuates his memory among the shields of arms of benefactors with which its graceful pendants terminate. His gifts of money for the School were quickly followed by still larger gifts of books for the Library. Between the years 1439 and 1446 he appears to have forwarded about 600 MSS, which were for the time deposited in chests in Cobham's Library. The first donation, consisting of 129 volumes, was forwarded in November, 1439. The letter of thanks from Convocation is dated the 25th of that month, and on the same day a letter was sent to the House of Commons, to the 'ryght worshypfull syres, the Speker, knyghtes, and burges (sic) of the worshepfull parlament,' informing them that the Duke had magnified the University 'with a thousand pounds worth and more of preciose bokes,' and therefore beseeching their 'sage discrecions to considere the gloriose gifts of the graciose prince ... for the comyn profyte and worshyp of the Reme, to thanke hym hertyly, and also prey Godde to thanke hym in tyme comyng wher goode dedys ben rewarded.' Statutes for the regulation of the gift were made on the same day, prayers appointed, and provision[Pg 7] made for the observance of the Duke's obit[6]. A catalogue of 364 of the MSS. is printed, from the lists preserved in the University Register, p. 758, vol. ii. of Rev. H. Anstey's Documents Illustrative of Social and Academic Life at Oxford, published in the series of Chronicles issued by the Master of the Rolls. The extent of these gifts rendered the room at St. Mary's quite insufficient for the purpose to which it was assigned, and the University therefore, in a letter to the Duke, dated July 14, 1444, informed him of their intention to erect a more suitable building, of which (as a delicate way, probably, of bespeaking his aid towards the cost, as well as of testifying their gratitude for past benefactions) they formally offered him the title of Founder. In the subjoined note is given an extract from this letter (copied from the Register of Convocation), which is interesting from its description of the inconveniences of the old room, and the advantages of the new site[7]. And this new building, first contemplated in A.D. 1444[Pg 8] and finished about 1480, forms now the central portion of the great Reading-Room, still retaining its old advantages of convenience and of seclusion 'a strepitu sæculari.'

The Duke's MSS. were, as became the object of his gift, very varied in character. With works in Divinity are mingled in the catalogue a large number in Medicine and Science, together with some in lighter literature, amongst which latter are found no less than seven MSS. of Petrarch and three of Boccaccio. Some additional MSS, being 'all the Latyn bokes that he had,' together with £100 towards the completion of the 'Divyne Scoles,' which the Duke had intended to bequeath, but the formal bequest of which was prevented by his dying intestate in 1447, were subsequently procured, although with considerable difficulty[8]. But only three out of the whole number of his MSS. are now known to exist in the present Library. One of these is a fine copy of books iv.-ix. of Valerius Maximus, with the commentary by D. de Burgo, and with an index by John de Whethamstede, Abbot of St. Alban's (now marked, Auctarium, F. infra, i. 1[9]); the second is a translation by L. Aretine of the Politics of Aristotle (marked, Auct. F. v. 27); and the third, the Epistles of Pliny (Auct. F. ii. 23). The first bears the Duke's arms;[Pg 9] the second has an original dedication to him by the translator; the last (which was restored to the University by Dr. Robert Master, Oct. 30, 1620) contains his own autograph. Six MSS. now in the British Museum, which formerly belonged to the Duke, are described in Sir H. Ellis' Letters of Eminent Literary Men, (printed by the Camden Society,) pp. 357-8. Two of these appear in the List of Humphrey's benefaction to Oxford; for Harl. 1705, which is a translation of Plato's Politics by Peter Candidus, or White, who gave it to the Duke, is doubtless the book entered at the end of the List as 'Item, novam traductionem totius Politeiæ Platonicæ;' while Cotton, Nero. D. v., the Acts of the Council of Constance, appears at fol. 67. Another of these six MSS, Harl. 988, is an anonymous commentary on the Canticles[10], which formerly belonged to Sir Robert Cotton, and which contains an inscription by him intended to commemorate his returning it to the University Library in 1602. It came into Harley's possession amongst Bishop Stillingfleet's MSS, all of which were bought by him. A letter from Wanley to Hearne, in which the book is mentioned, is preserved in the Bodleian in a Rawlinson MS. (Letters xvii.) under date of Oct. 13, 1714, Hearne's reply to which is printed by Sir H. Ellis, ubi supra; while Wanley's rejoinder is also found in the above MS, dated Oct. 27, in which he says, 'As for my Lord's MS. of the Canticles, designed for the Bodleyan Library by Sir Robert Cotton, I know not how you find it to have once belonged to Humphrey, duke of Gloucester. My Lord has indeed two of his books, which we know to have been his, for certain; because one of them (which was given to his Lordship) hath a note therein of his hand-writing, and the other hath his armes and stile on the outside, as also [Pg 10]his library-mark. This last (which was bought of Sir Simonds D'Ewes), together with the Cotton MS. of the Canticles, I besought his Lordship to give to the University for your Library, and I hope his Lordship will do so in a little time.' Another of the Duke's books, being Capgrave's Commentary on Genesis, which occurs in the second list of those given to the University, is now in the library of Oriel College. One volume, containing, among other philosophical treatises, Plato's Phædo, Timæus, &c., with the Duke's autograph, 'Cest livre a moy Homfrey duc de Gloucestre' (given to him by an Abbot of St. Alban's) is in Corpus Christi College, 243. And a copy of Wickliffe's Bible, in two volumes, which bears Humphrey's arms, is amongst the Egerton MSS. (617-8), Brit. Mus.

The large increase of treasures which these benefactions brought to the University probably caused the first institution of a formal Visitation. On Nov. 29, 1449, we find that Visitors were appointed by Congregation for the purpose of receiving from the Chaplain an account of the books contained in the Library[11].

Duke Humphrey was followed in the good work of the Divinity School and Library by another whose name still retains its place in the formal list of benefactors, Bishop Thomas Kempe, of London, who, besides contributing very largely in money towards the completion of the former, sent some books to the latter in 1487, some seven years after the new room had been finally completed and opened for use. But Antony Wood (in whose pages records of other benefactors may be found) tells us that very few years passed before the Library began to lose some of its newly-acquired treasures; for Scholars borrowed books upon petty and insufficient pledges, and so chose to forfeit the latter rather than return the former[12], while tradition reported that Polydore Virgil, the[Pg 11] historian, being at length refused any further opportunities of abstraction, obtained a special licence from Henry VIII for the taking out any MS. for his use! From this traditionary report Sir H. Ellis, in his introduction to a translation of Virgil's history, printed for the Camden Society in 1844, endeavours to vindicate his author's reputation, but more by conjecture than evidence. In 1513 a Chaplain and Librarian was elected, named Adam Kirkebote[13]. The new Librarian, soon after, supplicated Congregation that on Festival Days he should not be bound to open the Library before twelve o'clock; a practice which, commencing at that day, does still unto this (the Library on Holy Days during Term being now not opened until the conclusion of the University sermon, at eleven o'clock) witness to the religious spirit which pervades all the old institutions of Oxford. In 1527, when one Flecher was Chaplain, it is recorded[14] that 'Magister' Claymond (doubtless the President of Corpus Christi College, of that name) was permitted by vote of Congregation to take Pliny's Natural History out of the Library. In 1543 Humphrey Burnford was elected Chaplain on Oct. 31, in the room of — Whytt, deceased[15]. It was probably during his tenure of office that the Library was destroyed. For in 1550 the Commissioners deputed by Edward VI for reformation of the University visited the Libraries in the spirit of John Knox, destroying, without examination, all MSS. ornamented by illuminations or rubricated initials as being eminently Popish, and leaving the rest exposed to any chance of injury and robbery. The traditions which Wood has[Pg 12] recorded as having been learned at the mouths of aged men who had in their turn received them from those who were contemporaneous with the Visitation, are abundantly confirmed by the well-known descriptions of Leland and Bale of what went on in other places, and therefore, although no direct documentary evidence of the proceedings of the spoilers is known to exist, we may believe that Wood's account of pillage and waste, of MSS. burned, and sold to tailors for their measures, to bookbinders for covers, and the like, until not one remained in situ, is not a whit exaggerated. One solitary entry there is, however, in the University Register (I. fol. 157^a), which, while it records the completion of the catastrophe, sufficiently thereby corroborates the story of all that preceded, viz. the entry which tells that in Convocation on Jan. 25, 1555-6, 'electi sunt hii venerabiles viri, Vice-cancellarius et Procuratores, Magister Morwent, præses Corporis Christi, et Magister Wright, ad vendenda subsellia librorum in publica Academiæ bibliotheca, ipsius Universitatis nomine.' The books of the 'public' library had all disappeared; what need then to retain the shelves and stalls, when no one thought of replacing their contents, and when the University could turn an honest penny by their sale? and so the venerabiles viri made a timber-yard of Duke Humphrey's treasure-house.

But four years after the final despoiling of the Library there was an undergraduate entered at Magdalen College, who, by the good Providence which always out of evil brings somewhat to counterpoise and correct, was to be moved by the sight of the ruin and desolation to restore what his seniors had destroyed, and to reconstruct the old Plantagenet's Li[Pg 13]brary on such a basis, and with such means for carrying on its re-edification, that the glory of the latter house should soon eclipse that of the former. All around him he doubtless found traces of the recent destruction; his stationer may have sold him books bound in fragments of those MSS. for which the University but a century before had consecrated the memory of the donors in her solemn prayers; the tailor who measured him for his sad-coloured doublet, may have done it with a strip of parchment brilliant with gold, that had consequently been condemned as Popish, or covered with strange symbols of an old heathen Greek's devising, that probably passed for magical and unlawful incantations. And the soul of the young student must have burned with shame and indignation at the apathy which had not merely tolerated this destruction by strangers, but had contentedly assisted in carrying it out to its thorough completion. Himself a successful student, he became eager to help others to whom thus the advantages of a library were denied; and, for a while without fee or reward, undertook a public Greek lecture in the Hall of Merton College, to which college he had been elected in 1563[16]. And when, after years thus spent in academic pursuits, Thomas Bodley betook himself to diplomatic service abroad, he still, amidst all the distractions of foreign and domestic politics, preserved his affection for the scenes and the studies of his early familiarity. So, when the days came[Pg 14] wherein statecraft began to weary him and Courts ceased to charm, his thoughts reverted to the place where, free from these, he might still, although in a more private capacity, labour for the good of the commonwealth; he remembered the room once precious to students, 'scientiarum sedes,' as the University had called it of old, but now destitute alike both of science and of seats. 'And thus,' says he himself, 'I concluded at the last to set up my staff at the Library-door in Oxon; being thoroughly persuaded that, in my solitude and surcease from the commonwealth-affairs, I could not busy myself to better purpose than by reducing that place (which then in every part lay ruined and waste) to the publick use of students[17].' So therefore, on Feb. 23, 1597-8, he wrote a letter to the Vice-Chancellor, offering that whereas 'there hath bin heretofore a publike library in Oxford, which, you know, is apparant by the roome itself remayning, and by your statute records, I will take the charge and cost upon me, to reduce it again to his former use,' first by fitting it up with shelves and seats, next by procuring benefactions of books, and lastly by endowing it with an annual rent[18]. This offer being accepted with great gratitude, other letters followed from him in March, in which he desired that delegates should be chosen to consider the best mode of fitting up the room, and mentioned an offer on the part of his own College, Merton, to provide timber for the purpose. Two years were spent in the carrying out of this work and in the preliminary arrangements. Amongst these preparations was the putting up the beautiful roof which to this day is such an object of deserved admiration. It is divided into square compartments, on each of which are painted the arms of[Pg 15] the University, being the open Bible, with seven seals[19], between three ducal crowns, on the open pages of which are the words (so truly fitting for a Christian School) 'Dominus Illuminatio mea[20];' while on bosses that intervene between each compartment are painted the arms of Bodley himself, being five martlets with a crescent for difference, quartered with the arms of Hone (his mother's family), two bars wavy between three billets; on a chief the three ducal crowns of the University shield, 'quarum merito gloriam ab Academia derivavit.' (Wake, Rex Platon. p. 12.) The striking motto 'Quarta perennis erit' was assigned to Bodley at the same time with this academic augmentation[21]. When, in 1610, the eastern wing of the Library was erected, a similar roof was added, as was also done to the Picture Gallery (built between 1613-1619); in the latter room the roof, having become decayed and out of repair, was unhappily altogether removed in the year 1831, and a plaster ceiling, divided into compartments, substituted. A few of the panels of this roof have been preserved, one bearing the figures of two cats, which used to be an object of interest to juvenile visitors, and a series bearing the letters which compose Sir Thomas Bodley's name, together with a portrait of him upon a centre panel. A high-backed arm-chair, the Librarian's seat of office in the Library, was formed out of oak from[Pg 16] the roof, and an engraving hangs in the Gallery which represents the room before its change for the worse.

On June 25, 1600, Bodley wrote to the Vice-Chancellor, mentioning that, as the mechanical work was now brought to a good pass, he had begun to busy himself in the gathering of books, and had provided a Register for the enrolment of the names of all benefactors, with particulars of their gifts. This Register (formerly, like all the books in folio, chained to its desk), consisting of two large folio volumes, on vellum, now lies on a table in the great room, and is an object of notice by most visitors. The volumes are ornamented exteriorly with silver-gilt bosses on their massy covers, on which are engraved the arms of Bodley and those of the University, and interiorly in many places with the donors' coats of arms painted in their proper colours, and with various devices. Vol. i. extends from 1600 to 1688, containing 428 pages in double columns; and commences with a printed record of the gifts for the first four years, on pp. 1-90. The following printed title is prefixed: 'Munificentissimis atque optimis cujusvis ordinis, dignitatis, sexus, qui Bibliothecam hanc libris, aut pecuniis numeratis ad libros coemendos, aliove quovis genere ampliarunt, Thomas Bodleius, eques auratus, honorarium hoc volumen, in quod hujuscemodi donationes, simulque nomina donantium singillatim referuntur, pietatis, memoriæ, virtutisque causa, dedit, dedicavit.' A paragraph follows, which mentions Bodley's own work of refitting and endowing, and notes that his own large gifts are not entered because he hopes throughout his life to make continually large additions. The whole of this title is printed in the preface to James' first Catalogue, issued in 1605, who was probably part-writer of it[22]. Wake (Rex Platonicus, p. 120) speaks of the Register, 'aureis umbilicis[Pg 17] fibulisque fulgidum,' as always lying 'eminentissimo loco,' a prominent object of notice to all who entered the Library. Vol. ii. extends from 1692 to 1795, ending in the middle of the volume, on p. 216; but there is reason to fear that there are many omissions in the later portion of its period. Each volume has an index of names. The gifts of the principal donors, as recorded in this Register up to its close, are printed in Gutch's edition of Wood's History, vol. ii. part ii. pp. 920-950. It will not be necessary, therefore, to mention here the names of many, but of such only as are 'e principibus principes.' From the year 1796 inclusive, when the gifts of donors began to be entered in the annual printed catalogues of purchases and statements of accounts, this MS. Register ceased to be used.

Among the first and largest benefactors in the year 1600 occur Lord Buckhurst (afterwards Earl of Dorset), the Earl of Essex, Lords Hunsdon, Montacute, [editions of the Fathers], Lisle (afterwards Leicester), Lumley[23], and William Gent, who gave a large collection of books, chiefly medical.

Many volumes were given about this time by Bodley, which had been collected in Italy by Bill, the London bookseller, who was employed by Sir Thomas to travel on the Continent as his agent for this purpose.

The famous copy of the French Romance of Alexander (now numbered Bodl. 264) must have been one of the MSS. given by Bodley himself at the commencement of his work, as it is found entered in the printed Catalogue of 1605, but does not occur in the Benefactors' Register. It is decorated with a large number of beautiful paintings on a chequered background of gold and colour; but its special interest lies in the illustrations at the foot of[Pg 18] about half the pages, which exhibit the most quaint and grotesque representations of customs, trades, amusements, dress, &c., of the time. Some of these were engraved by Strutt; and four specimens, together with one of the larger miniatures illustrating the text, are given by Dibdin in his Bibl. Decam. vol. i., where, at pp. 198-201, he discourses, in his own peculiar fashion, on the merits of the volume. A notice of the book may also be found in Warton's Hist. of Engl. Poetry, edit. 1840, vol. i. p. 142. At f. 208 is the following colophon, which is of much interest, as affording evidence that the work of the painter occupied upwards of five years:—

This is followed by a continuation (of later date) of the romance, in Northern-English verse, on seven leaves[24]; and lastly, by a French Romance of the 'grant kaan à la graunt cite de Tambaluc.' A scribe's name is given in the following lines on f. 208, but in a hand apparently not that of any part of the book:—

The earliest owner's name occurring in the volume is that of[Pg 19] 'Richart de Widevelle, seigneur de Rivières,' recorded in an inscription on the cover at the end, which proceeds to say that 'le dist Seigneur acetast le dist liure lan de grace mille cccclxvi. le premier jour de lan a Londres.' Rivers' own autograph follows ('Ryverys'), with some words in French, written in a perfectly frantic scrawl. Subsequent owners were 'Gyles Strangwayes' and 'Jaspere Ffylolle' (whose signatures are engraved by Dibdin, ubi supra), and 'Thomas Smythe[26].'

A.D. 1601.

It is from this date that our notes on the history of the Library can begin to assume an annalistic form. A gift of £20 from Herbert Westphaling, Bishop of Hereford, was expended in the purchase of books with great success; no fewer than thirty were obtained, and amongst them were, 'Evangelia quatuor Saxonica, lingua et charactere vetustiss.,' being the MS. from which John Foxe had taken the text of the Saxon Gospels in the edition published at the expense of Archbishop Parker in 1571, and which was subsequently re-edited by Junius. It is now numbered, Bodl. MS. 441. An early edition (qu. editio princeps?) of the Gospels in the Russian language (now placed among the Bodley MSS. 213) appears among some books given by Sir Henry Savile[27], whose brother-historian and antiquary, William Camden, is also registered as the donor of a few MSS. and printed books. Thomas Allen, M.A., of[Pg 20] Gloucester Hall, the astrologer, gave twenty MSS[28]; the rest of his collection came subsequently to the Library, included in that of Sir Kenelm Digby, to whom Allen had bequeathed it. One of the twenty now given was an extremely curious volume, chiefly written in the ninth century (marked Auctarium F. iv. 32), including in its contents an original drawing (engraved in Hickes' Thesaurus, p. 144) by St. Dunstan of himself as prostrate at the feet of the throned Christ[29], a grammatical tract by Eutychius (or Eutex, as the scribe calls him, while professing doubt as to the right form), with Welsh glosses (noticed by Lhuyd in his Archæol. Brit. p. 226); the first book of Ovid De Arte amandi, with similar glosses[30]; and lections in Greek and Latin from the Prophets and Pentateuch, amongst which is one from Hosea containing, in the Latin version, a line or two unlike any known early version, (although faithful to the Hebrew), but found also in a quotation in Gildas[31]. Capt. Josias[Pg 21] Bodley[32] gave an astronomical sphere and other instruments in brass, which now stand in the south window adjoining the entrance to the Library. But the great benefactor of the year was the newly-appointed Librarian, Thomas James, who gave various MSS., chiefly patristic (which, however, Wood says, 'he had taken out of several College libraries'), and sixty printed volumes. From the first preparation of the new foundation Bodley had fixed upon James, then a Fellow of New College, as his Library-Keeper. The volume of letters published by Hearne (from Bodl. MS. 699) in 1703, under the title of Reliquiæ Bodleianæ, consists chiefly of those which the Founder addressed to James while his collection of books was in process of formation, but unfortunately they have no dates of years, and Hearne printed them simply as they came into his hands, without any attempt to determine their order of sequence. We learn from these that James' salary at the outset was £5 13s. 4d. quarterly; but almost at once he threatened to 'strike' unless it were raised to an annual stipend of £30 or £40, while at the same time he demanded permission to marry. This latter requisition appeared particularly grievous to Bodley, who had made celibacy a stringent condition in his Statutes, and he forthwith expostulated strongly with his Librarian on these his 'unseasonable and unreasonable motions' (p. 52). The upshot, however, was that Bodley, very unwillingly, consented to become the 'first breaker' of his own institution, (which 'hereafter,' he says, 'I purpose to become inviolable,') and, for the love he bore to James, allowed him to marry[33]. But it was not until the year 1813 that the Statute was altered and the Librarian released from his obligation of perpetual celibacy, and even then, by a singular[Pg 22] and unmeaning compromise, it was ordered that he, as well as the Under-Librarians, should be unmarried at the time of election. The whole restriction was, however, finally removed on the revision of the Statutes in 1856. But its infringement appears to have been again tolerated, in one instance, at least, during the last century, viz. in the case of Dr. Hudson. Hearne[34] enters the following 'memorandum' of uncharitable hearsay gossip respecting his quondam chief and friend: 'Dr. Hudson was married when he was elected Librarian. His first wife was one Biesley. That he hath now is his second. It is said that he was married to this Biesley when he was Taberder of Queen's. The Dr. hath been of a loose, profligate, and irreligious life, as I have often heard. The family of the Harrisons he is married into now is good for just nothing, being as stingy (if it can be) as himself.'

A.D. 1602.

The largest pecuniary donor of this year was Blount, Lord Mountjoy (afterwards Earl of Devon), who forwarded £100 to Sir T. Bodley from Waterford; which were expended upon books in most classes of literature, including music. Among various gifts of MSS. were some Russian volumes from Lancelot Browne, M.D., and (together with Persian, Finnish, &c.) from Sir Rich. Lee, ambassador in Muscovy. Lord Cobham gave £50 in money, with the promise of 'divers MSS. out of St. Augustin's library in Canterbury[35].' 'Biblia Latina pulcherrima,' 2 vols. fol. was given by George Rives, Warden of New College. This is probably a huge and magnificent specimen of twelfth-century work, now numbered Auctarium, E. infra, 1, 2[36]. But the year was specially marked by the donation of 47 MSS. (including some early English volumes) from Walter (afterwards Sir Walter) Cope; and above all, by the[Pg 23] gift, from the Dean and Chapter of Exeter to their fellow-countryman Bodley, of 81 Latin MSS. from their Chapter Library. By what right they thus alienated their corporate property no one probably cared to enquire; but, from the tokens of neglect still visible upon the books, we may conclude that only by this alienation were they in all likelihood saved from ultimate destruction: for they nearly all bear more or less sign of having been exposed to great damp, which in several instances has well-nigh destroyed the initial and final leaves. Most of them are beautiful specimens of early penmanship, ranging chiefly from the eleventh century to the thirteenth; and amongst them is that precious relic of English Church offices, the Service-book given to Exeter Cathedral by Bishop Leofric in the reign of Edward Conf., described in the 'Registrum Benefactorum' simply as 'Missale antiquissimum.' This is happily perfect; in size a small and thick quarto volume, written on very stout vellum, and containing 377 leaves. Four other volumes (possibly more) were also gifts of Leofric to his Church; they are now numbered Auct. D. II. 16 (the four Gospels), Auct. F. I. 15 (Boethius and Persius), Auct. F. III. 6 (Prudentius), and Bodley MS. 708 (Gregory's Pastorale.) They each contain an inscription in Latin and Anglo-Saxon, varying in expression, but all to the following effect (as in the last-mentioned volume): 'Hunc librum dat Leofricus episcopus ecclesiæ Sancti Petri Apostoli in Exonia ad sedem suam episcopalem, pro remedio animæ suæ, ad utilitatem successorum suorum. Siquis autem illum inde abstulerit, perpetuæ maledictioni subjaceat. Fiat. Ðas boc gef leofric ƀ. into Scē petres minstre on exancestre þær his biscopstol is. his æfterfiligendū to nittweorðnisse. [&] gif hig hwa ut ætbrede hæbbe he ece geniðerunge mid eallū deoflum. Ām̄.' To the MS. of the Gospels are prefixed very curious lists in Anglo-Saxon of the lands, vestments, books, &c., given by Leofric to his Church, and of relics given by King Athelstan (of which[Pg 24] another copy is preserved in the Missal); these lists are printed in the Monasticon, and the titles of the books are given in Wanley's Catalogue (p. 80).

The Library being now supplied with upwards of 2000 volumes, it was solemnly opened on Nov. 8 (the day appointed for the annual visitation,) by the Vice-Chancellor, with a procession of doctors and delegates. Meeting them at the door of the room, the Librarian hastily extemporized a short speech in honour of the occasion, 'in qua,' as the University Register records, 'tribus ferme versibus amplexus est omnia.'

A.D. 1603.

Sir Walter Raleigh appears in this year as a donor of £50. He is sometimes said to have procured for Oxford the library of Hieron. Osorius, which was carried off from Faro in Portugal (of which place Osorius had been bishop), when that town was captured by the English fleet under the Earl of Essex in 1598. Raleigh was a captain in the squadron, and probably influenced the disposal of the books; but no direct mention has been found of his name in relation to them. Sir William Monson, in the account of the expedition given in his Naval Tracts, only says that the library 'was brought into England by us, and many of the books bestowed upon the new erected library of Oxford.' Eleven MSS. were given by Sir Rob. Cotton, of which the list in the Register is printed in Sir H. Ellis' Letters of Eminent Literary Men, issued by the Camden Society in 1843 (p. 103). One of these (Auct. D. II. 14) is the MS. of the Gospels, traditionally believed to be one of those two copies of the old Italic version sent by St. Gregory to St. Augustine in Britain, which were preserved in St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury[37]; of which the other now exists among Archbp. Parker's MSS. in Corp. Chr. Coll. Cambr., No. 286. They are[Pg 25] both written in quarto, in uncial letters and double columns. Their date may possibly be somewhat later than that which is traditionally assigned; but at any rate they are certainly among what the historian Elmham calls 'primitiæ librorum totius ecclesiæ Anglicanæ.' On the last fly-leaf of the Bodley MS. is the following list of English Priests' libraries. 'Þas bocas haueð Salomon pr̅st. þ̵is þecodspel t{r}aht. [&] þemarty{r}luia [&] þe (erased) [&] þe æglisce salte{r}e [&] þe c{r}ranc [&] ðe tropere [&] wulf mer cild þeatteleuaui ('Ad Te levavi.') [&] pistelari [&] þe (erased) [&] ðe imnere. [&] ðe capitelari. (word erased) [&] þe spel boc. [&] Siga{r} pr̅st. þelece boc [&] Blakehad boc. [&] Æilmer ðe grete Sater. [&] ðe litle t{r}opere fo{r}beande. [&] ðe Donatum. xv bocas Ealfric Æilwine. Godric. [&] Bealdewuine ab̶b [&] Freoden [&] hu— (torn) [&] ðuregise.' Several leaves are wanting at the beginning and one at the end; the book commences at S. Matt. iv. 14, and ends in S. John xxi. 16. It now numbers 172 leaves, besides the fly-leaf, and contains 29 lines in a column; the Cambridge MS. has 25 lines.

Two Russian MSS. were given in this year by John Mericke, English Consul in Russia, and a collection of Italian books by Sir Michael Dormer.

A.D. 1604.

On June 20, letters patent were granted by James I, styling the library by the founder's name, and licensing the University to hold lands, &c., in mortmain for its maintenance, to an amount not exceeding 200 marks per annum[38].

In the list of donors occur Sir Christopher Heydon, Sir Jerome Horsey (whose gift includes a MS. of the Gospels in Russian, and rolls containing forms of letters, &c., in the autograph of the Czar Ivan Basilides), Sir Ralph Winwood (17 Greek MSS.), Robert Barker the printer, and Sir Henry Wotton (a MS. of the Koran).

[Pg 26]

A.D. 1605.

The bust of Bodley, which is seen in the large room, was sent by Sackville, Earl of Dorset, the Chancellor of the University. It attracted the notice of King James upon his entering the Library on the fourth day of his visit to Oxford in August of this year, who, upon reading its inscription, indulged in the very mild pun that the Founder should rather be called Sir Thomas Godly than Bodly[39]. And, looking on the well-filled cases, he said he had often had proof from the University of the fruits of talent and ability, but had never before seen the garden where those fruits grew and whence they were gathered. He examined various MSS. of the Holy Scriptures, and especially of the old English version, as well as of the Ethiopic, on the authority of which, 'more suo, summo cum judicio disceptavit.' Then, taking up Gaguinus' treatise De Puritate Conceptionis Virg. Mar., printed at Paris in 1498, he remarked that the author had so written about purity as if he wished that it should only be found on the title of his book; and said it had often been his desire that such objectionable writings (especially on religious subjects) could be altogether suppressed rather than be tolerated to the corruption of minds and manners. He admitted, however, that probably there was no disadvantage from their being stored up in collections of this kind. Moved to a wonderful temper of liberality, the king then offered to present from all the libraries of the royal palaces whatsoever precious and rare books Sir T. Bodley, on examination, might choose to carry away; and promised that the grant should be made under seal, lest any hindrance should arise. It appears[40] that this (somewhat hasty) grant was actually passed under the Privy Seal about the beginning of November in the same year, and that[Pg 27] Bodley expected to carry off a great many MSS. from Whitehall. Probably the full execution of his intentions was hindered, as he himself appears to have suspected might happen; at any rate, there is very little in the Library that tells of having come from the royal collections, except a few folio editions of the Fathers which once were in the possession of Hen. VIII, as his arms stamped upon the covers testify[41], and three or four MSS. which bear like evidence of having belonged to James I. Upon leaving the room, after spending considerable time in its examination, the king exclaimed that were he not King James he would be an University man; and that, were it his fate at any time to be a captive, he would wish to be shut up, could he but have the choice, in this place as his prison, to be bound with its chains, and to consume his days amongst its books as his fellows in captivity[42].

In this year appeared the first Catalogue of the Library, compiled by Thomas James. It is a quarto volume, published by Joseph Barnes at Oxford, consisting of 425 pages, with an Appendix of 230 more; the Preface is dated June 27. The book is dedicated to Henry, Prince of Wales[43]. It includes both printed[Pg 28] books and MSS. arranged alphabetically under the four classes of Theology, Medicine, Law, and Arts, with lists of expositors of Holy Scripture, commentators on Aristotle, Hippocrates, and Galen, and in Civil and Canon Law. The legal and medical lists were added at Bodley's special desire[44]. A continuation of this classified index, embracing writers on Arts and Sciences, Geography and History, is to be found in Rawlinson MS. Miscell. 730. It was drawn up by James, after his quitting the Library, for the use of young students in the faculty of Arts, in order to show his continued interest in them and in the place of his old occupation. In the preface he thus describes the arrangement of his book: 'Exhibeo, primo, libros distributos secundum facultates suas; secundo, dissectos in minutissimas portiones vel sectiones, idque alphabetice; tertio, habetis cognitos et exploratos auctores singulos qui de singulis subjectis vel generatim vel speciatim scripserunt libros, tractatus, epistolas; postremo, ne quid desit, habetis editiones certas, et maxime ex parte ex pluribus selectas et meliores, cito parabiles, digitos ad pluteos et pluteorum sectiones intendendo.' This volume came into Rawlinson's possession from Hearne, who notes in it: 'This MS. came out of the study of Dr. Anthony Hall, of Queen's College, Oxford, who married the widow of Dr. John Hudson, to whom this book once belong'd.'

A.D. 1606.

Chinese literature began to make its appearance even at this early date. Among the books bought with £20 given by Lady Kath. Sandys were, 'Octo volumina lingua Chinensi,' while two others, 'Excusa in regno et lingua Chinensi,' were bought, together with the donor's own 'Historie of Great Britaine,' with a gift of £5 from John Clapham.[Pg 29]

A.D. 1610.

The books having some time since begun to crowd the room provided for them, so that James, in his Preface to the Catalogue of 1605, said there already seemed to be more need of a Library for the books than books for the Library, the Founder commenced in this year an extension of his building. On July 16 the first stone was laid of the eastern wing, and of the Proscholium, or vestibule of the Divinity School, beneath; which were completed by 1612, as in that year several donations were placed in the new room[45]. An inscription in gold letters, in the front of this building, commemorates Bodley's work; having become barely legible, it has recently been restored to its pristine lustre by the care of the present Librarian. The noble east window contains some very curious and interesting relics in stained glass which were presented to the Library (with numerous other fragments, which adorn some of the other windows in the Library and partly fill two of those in the Picture Gallery[46]), in 1797, by Alderman William Fletcher of Oxford, a zealous local antiquary and Churchman of the good old school. The three principal fragments represent: 1. Henry II, stripped naked, and suffering flagellation with birch rods, at the hands of two monks, before the shrine of Thomas à Becket. 2. The marriage (as supposed) of Henry VI with Margaret of Anjou, representing, says Dr. Rock[47], that portion[Pg 30] of the ceremony which took place at the Church door; formerly in a window of Rollright Church, Oxfordshire. There is no evidence, however, to connect this representation with Henry VI, and it has been conjectured to describe his marriage chiefly from its corresponding in some very small degree to a representation of that event, formerly at Strawberry Hill, and described and engraved in Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, i. 36. It is probably of an earlier date. 3. The doing homage by William, King of Scotland, with his abbots and barons, to Henry II in York Minster in 1171. Of the first of these, two coloured engravings, and of the second, one, are found in a copy of Gutch's Wood, which came to the Library from the same donor, Alderman Fletcher, in 1818, illustrated with very numerous and curious engravings and drawings, as well as enriched with some MS. notes, and bound in seven large quarto volumes[48].

The large coats of arms appear to have been inserted in 1716, as in the accounts for that year we find, 'For paynted armes in the Library window, £5.' But one coat of arms was put up in the year 1771, (q. v.)

It was in this year that the Library began to be enlarged with the gift of copies of all works published by the members of the Stationers' Company, in pursuance of an agreement made with them by Bodley, which became the precursor of the obligations of the Copyright Acts. On Dec. 12 the Company made a grant of one perfect copy of every book printed by them, on condition that they should have liberty to borrow the books[Pg 31] thus given, if needed for reprinting, and also to examine, collate, and copy the books which were given by others. An order of the Star-Chamber was made July 11, 1637, in confirmation of this grant[49]. The proposal of such an agreement emanated from the Librarian James; but in the effecting it Bodley says that he met with 'many rubs and delays[50].' Ayliffe say[51] that the agreement was very well observed until about 1640. He should rather have said 'about 1630,' for in that year, in a paper of notes made by the Librarian for the use of Archbishop Laud, as Chancellor of the University (in which the mention of a gift of books by Fetherston, a London bookseller, fixes the date), complaint is made that the Company were very negligent in sending their books, and it is suggested that a message from the Chancellor might quickly remedy that neglect[52]. In 1642, Verneuil, the Sub-Libraria[53], complained in the Preface to his Nomenclator, &c., of the neglect which had then begun; mentioning the names of several benefactors, he adds: 'These have beene more courteous than the Stationers of London, who by indenture are bound to give the Library a copy of every booke they print.' In the Visitation Order-Book, under the year 1695, is the following 'memorandum' by Hyde, then Head Librarian: 'That in November, 1695, a copy of the indenture between Sir Thomas Bodley and the Company of Stationers, as also a copy of their By-Law to inforce their particular members to complyance, was sent up to the Master of the Company to be communicated and publicly read to the Company once every year, as is in the indenture expressed. The originall was also some years agon carryed up and shewed to the Master and Wardens, because some of them used to raile at the unjustness of the Act of Parliament in forcing them to give a copy of each book to the Bodleian[Pg 32] Library; and therefore we shewed them that we had also another antecedent right to a copy of each book printed by any member in their Company. The Indenture mentions only the giving of books new printed, but the By-law mentions books both new-printed and also reprinted with additions[54]. We have been told that Sir Thomas Bodley gave to the Company 50 pounds worth of plate when they entred into this Indenture. But its not mentioned in our counter-part. Every book is to be delivered to the junior Warden within 10 dayes after its off from the press, and we are to appoint somebody to demand them of him. The obligation is upon every printer to give books; it were to be wished it had been upon every proprietor; for the proprietor must give them to us.'

A.D. 1611.

The permanent endowment of the Library was commenced by the Founder in this year, by the purchase, from Lord Norreys, of the manor of Hendons by Maidenhead, worth annually £91 10s.; to which he added 'certain tenements in London,' producing an annual rent of £40. From the former, now called Hindhay farm, in the parishes of Bray and Cookham, Berks, the Library receives an annual rent, at the present time, of about £220; the latter, which consisted of houses situated in Distaff Lane, were sold in 1853, and the produce invested in £3455 10s. 3 per cent. Consols.

The first book which came from the Stationers' Company, in pursuance of the Indenture made in Dec. 1610, was an anonymous catechetical work printed in this year by Felix Kingston for Thomas Man, entitled, 'Christian Religion substantially, methodicallie, plainlie, and profitablie treatised.' It is now numbered 4^o R. 34 Th., and a note in Bodley's own handwriting records its presentation.[Pg 33]

Twenty Arabic, Persian, and other MSS, were presented by — Pindar, Consul at Aleppo of the Company of English Merchants, whom Bodley three years previously had requested to procure such books[55].

Among other minor matters which called forth the care of Bodley, was the providing a bell for the purpose of giving notice when the Library was about to be closed. After it had been placed in the Library some accident appears to have happened to it, since we read in one of his letters to James[56], 'As touching the bell, I would have it cast again, and if my friends think it good, made somewhat better.' In 1655 a bell-rope was bought at the price of 1s. 4d. Of late years, however, the Founder's bell had altogether disappeared, and the fact of its very existence was unknown, while a small hand-bell, suggestive of a muffin-man, and, more recently, a hand-bell taken from a Chinese temple at Tien-tsin, and presented by Col. Rigaud, supplied its place. But in July, 1866, in the course of moving some boxes and rubbish buried under some stairs, a mouldy bell of considerable size was dragged to light, which proved to be the missing bell of the Founder. It was immediately put by the Librarian into the hands of Messrs. White, of Appleton, Berks, who fitted it with a frame and wheel; and now, restored to a conspicuous place in the great room, it daily thunders forth an unmistakeable signal for departure. Around it, in gold letters, runs the inscription:—'Sir Thomas Bodley gave this bell, 1611.' The bell-founder's initials, W. S., are accompanied by the device of a crown between three bells.

Another relic of Bodley's furniture is a massy iron chest, fastened with three locks, two of which are enormous padlocks, for the preservation of the moneys of the Library, of which the keys used to be in the custody of the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors. This is now exhibited in the Picture Gallery, on account of the extreme[Pg 34] beauty of the ironwork of the locks, which covers in its intricate ramifications the whole of the inside of the lid. On the outside are painted the arms of the University (with the older motto 'Sapientiæ et Fælicitatis') and of Bodley.

A.D. 1612.

Two large donations of MSS. were received during this year; the one from the Dean and Chapter of Windsor (in imitation of their brethren of Exeter), of 159 volumes, chiefly theological; and the other of a large collection of scientific treatises, chiefly astronomical and medical, about 120 in number, from Thomas Twine, M.D., of Lewes.

The agreement that was entered into by the Stationers' Company in 1610 having probably been found in some degree inoperative from the absence of any penalty upon non-fulfilment, the Company at the commencement of this year passed the following ordinance, which made it obligatory on every one of their members to forward their books to the Library. It is here printed (for the first time) from the original, preserved in the University Archives, marked A. 27[57].

A.D. 1613.

[Pg 37]

The death of the Founder occurred on Jan. 28, after long suffering from stone, dropsy, and scurvy, for which he is said to have been mis-treated by a Dr. Hen. Atkins[59]. Two volumes of elegiac verses were thereupon issued by the University, of which one (Bodleiomnema) was written entirely by members of Merton College; the other (Justa Funebria Ptolemæi Oxoniensis) by members of the University in general. In the latter collection are Latin verses by Laud, then President of St. John's, and Greek verses by Isaac Casaubon. Bodley was buried (according to his desire in his will) in the chapel of his old College, Merton, on March 29, with all the state of a public funeral. He bequeathed the greater part of his property for the building of the east wing of the Library and the completion of the Schools, appointing Sir John Bennett and Mr. William Hakewill his executors. The former, however, proved in some measure an unfaithful steward. When prosecuted in Parliament in 1621, for gross bribery in his office as Judge of the Prerogative Court, some of Bodley's money was still remaining in his hands, and was mentioned in the charges brought against him. For the due payment of a portion of this, by annual instalments of £150, the University, on June 28, 1624, accepted four bonds from him, witnessed by Thomas Coventreye, Matthew Bennet, and Henry Wigmore; only one of these appears to have been paid off, leaving an unpaid deficit of £450[60]. The entry of this debt is carried on, together with the loan made to King Charles I in 1642, in the Library accounts[61], from year to year[Pg 38] up to 1782, when by order of the Curators the entries were discontinued. In the notice of the Library contributed (as it is said) by Dr. Hudson to Ayliffe's Ancient and Present State of Oxford (vol. i. p. 460), it is stated that the Library estate falls miserably short by reason of 'the fraud of his [Bodley's] executor, the loan of a great sum of money to Charles I in his distress, and by the fire of London,' that event, doubtless, necessitating the rebuilding of the houses in Distaff Lane.

Bodley was charged by some of his contemporaries, and apparently with some justice, with sacrificing in his will the claims of relatives and friends too much to the interests of the Library. One Mr. John Chamberlain, a friend of Bodley, whose gossiping letters to Sir Dudley Carleton, Alice Carleton, and others, are preserved in the State Paper Office, does not spare his accusations on this head. In a letter dated Feb. 4, 1613, he says that Bodley has left legacies to great people, £7000 to the Library, and £200 to Merton College, but little to his brothers, his old servants, his friends, or the children of his wife, by whom he had all his wealth[62]. In another, dated June 23, 1613, he remarks that the executors cannot excuse Bodley of unthankfulness to many of his relatives and friends, he being 'so drunk with the applause and vanitie of his librarie that he made no conscience to rob Peter to pay Paul[63].' Some inferential corroboration of this is afforded by the following curious paper preserved among Rawlinson's gatherings (now in a vol. numbered Rawl. MS. Miscell., 1203), being no other than a petition for relief addressed by the grand-nephew and grand-niece of Bodley in the year 1712 (as appears from the Library accounts) to the Heads of Houses and Curators of the Library, who appear both officially and individually to have been very parsimonious in their response:—

[Pg 39]

'Humbly sheweth,

'William Snoshill
'Jane Hatton.

• 'Thomas Paris, rector of Childrey
• 'John Holmes
• 'John Bell, vic. of Sparsholt
• 'John Aldworth, rector of East Lockinge
• 'Ralph Kedden, M.A., vicar of Denchworth, Berks.

An alphabetical catalogue was prepared in this year by James, but was not printed. The MS, in two small hand-books, remains in the Library. It was ordered by the Curators, at the Visitation[Pg 40] on Nov. 13, that 6s. 8d. be paid quarterly to the Bedel of the Stationers' Company as a gratuity for his trouble. MSS. were received from Edw. James, B.D., who had been a contributor already in the year 1601.

A.D. 1614.

Various orders were made by the Curators at the Visitation on Nov. 10, which are prefixed to the small MS. 'hand-catalogues' made at that time for the use of those authorities. They resolve that the catalogues of newly-published works issued at Frankfort in each spring and summer shall be examined by them within one week after their arrival. They make an attempt to obtain possession of a gift of the Founder's giving, which had never yet reached the place of its intended deposit. In 1609 it had been reported to Convocation that there was about to be sent to the Library by Sir T. Bodley 'toga ex lana agni Tartarici ζωοφυτον, magni quidam valoris, ei data (ut in publica Bibliotheca conservetur) ab Richardo Lee, milite, qui eandem dono recepit ab augustissimo Imperatore Muscoviæ[64].' But the precious cloak had never yet arrived; the Curators therefore resolve 'quod literæ scribantur ad exequutores domini Fundatoris pro illo pretioso pallio ex zoophyto confecto, et legato ad nos per Ric. Leigh, militem, olim legatum apud Imperatorem Russiæ, et quod in cista ex ligno bene olenti, ad eam finem comparanda, reponatur in archivis, munita sera affabre facta; clavis permaneat semper apud Vice-Cancellarium vel ejus deputatum, nec cuiquam illud inspiciendi vel contrectandi potestas esto, nisi in præsentia eorundem.' At this Visitation Joseph[Pg 41] Barnes, the Oxford printer, appeared and promised to give a copy of every book which he might print. Complaint was made that the London Stationers had already begun to fail in the fulfilment of their agreement.

On Aug. 29 the King visited the Library on his way to Woodstock, and, asking for Fulke's Annotations on the Rhemish New Test., pointed out the remarks at Rom. x. 15, on the calling of ministers; 'deprehendit calumnias et imposturas quorundam pontificiorum de ordine et vocatione ministrorum[65].' In 1620 the editions of 1601 and 1617 of these Annotations were both in the Library, as appears from the Catalogue of that year, but in Hyde's Catalogue, published in 1674, only the edition of 1633 is found. This is one out of various instances which prove that, by a great miscalculation of literary value, later editions of a writer's works were thought to supersede so entirely the earlier, that the latter could be advantageously parted with. The Library has, however, since become re-possessed of the earlier editions, that of 1601 having been presented in 1824, and that of 1617 having been bought more recently. But the most remarkable example of this mistaken alienation of books occurs with reference to the first folio edition of Shakespeare. In the Supplemental Catalogue of 1635, the folio of 1623 duly appears; but in the Catalogue of 1674 we find only the third edition, that of 1664, which doubtless had been thought to be sufficient as well as best; upon its arrival, therefore, from Stationers' Hall, the precious volume of 1623 was probably regarded as little more than waste-paper. Nor was it until the year 1821, when Malone's collection was received, that a copy was again possessed by the Library[66].

A.D. 1615.

Richard Connock, auditor and solicitor to Prince Henry of Wales, gave a MS. book of Horæ[67], which had formerly belonged to Mary I, and afterwards to Prince Henry. The donor, in a note prefixed, records that he gives the volume, 'not for the religion it contains, but for the pictures and former royall owners' sake.' It is a volume of the early part of the fifteenth century, in small quarto, containing 224 leaves, and ornamented with very beautiful illuminated borders and exquisite drawings in camaieu gris. Among these is one of the martyrdom of Becket, which, doubtless in consequence of the book being in the possession of the Princess Mary, has entirely escaped the defacement and obliteration ordered by her father to be made in all Service-books where the office for S. Thomas of Canterbury occurred. The following inscription (nearly effaced at its close by over-much handling in former years), addressed by Mary to one of her ladies, whose name does not appear, to whom probably she presented the book, occurs in the blank portion of one of the leaves:—

'Your lovyng mystres,
'Marye Princesse.'

This inscription (which does so much credit to its writer) was first printed by Hearne at the end of Titi Livii Forojulien. Vita Hen. V. (p. 228) and last, in Bliss' Reliquiæ Hearn. i. 105. Mr. Coxe has noted (from Alstedii Systema Mnemonicum, 1610, i. 705) that the latter part is taken directly and literally from Musonius, while indirectly it comes from an oration by Cato[68]. Probably the first part may be traced to some similar source.

Another autograph inscription by Mary while Princess is found in a small book (Laud MS. Miscell. i.) of private prayers in Latin and English, which belonged to Jane Wriothesley, wife of Thomas Earl of Southampton, and which she seems to have employed as a kind of album. At f. 45^a are these lines, which appear to form a triplet, although not written in metrical form by the Princess:—

'Your lovyng frend,
to my ... [power?]'

Unfortunately the conclusion, with the signature, has been cut off. A couplet, signed by Queen Katherine Parr, has an equal, and most regal, disregard of the restraints of metrical rhythm (f. 8^b.):—

'Kateryn the Quene KP.'

[Pg 44]

Other inscriptions are inserted by Margaret Queen of Scotland, Mary Countess of Lennox and mother of Lord Darnley, and by the Countess of Southampton's daughters, Elizabeth, Mary, and Anne.

James Button, Esq., of the county of Worcester, gave, on March 28, a curious relic of the ancient language of Cornwall, being three Miracle-Plays of the Creation, the Passion, and the Resurrection, in Cornish, contained in a MS. on vellum, small folio, eighty-three leaves, written in the fifteenth century; now numbered Bodl. 791. A copy on paper of the Play of the Creation, written by John Jordan in 1611, is also in the Library, numbered Bodl. 219, which appears to have come from the library of King James I, having the royal crown stamped on the parchment cover, with the initials I.K. A second modern copy has also been recently presented (in 1849) by Edwin Ley, Esq., of Bosahan, Cornwall, which is accompanied by a translation by John Keigwyn, made in 1695. The dramas were printed in two volumes at the University Press, with a translation, notes, and glossary, by Mr. Edwin Norris, in 1859.

Some MSS. were given about this time by the three sons of Rich. Colf, D.D., and in 1618 twenty Greek volumes by Cecil, Earl of Exeter.

A.D. 1620.

At the beginning of May, James resigned the office of Librarian, but not as Wood says, on account of his promotion to the Subdeanery of Wells, since that took place in the year 1614. His appointment to the rectory of Mongeham, Kent (also mentioned by Wood), was in 1617. He continued, however, to reside in Oxford, and dying there in August, 1629, was buried in New College Chapel.

On the 9th of the same month of May, John Rouse, M.A., Fellow of Oriel, was elected James' successor. No account of[Pg 45] him is given by Wood, possibly from dislike of his Puritanical principles, and of his continuing to hold office during the usurpation. He appears to have discharged his trust in the Library with faithfulness, and, at least, to have deserved some mention at the historiographer's hands for the Appendix to the Catalogue which he issued in the year 1635 (q.v.)[69] He is best known as the friend of Milton, who, on Rouse's application to him for a copy of his Poems both English and Latin, published in 1645, in the place of one previously given by Milton which had been lost, sent the volume, together with a long autograph Latin Ode, dated Jan. 23, 1646 (-7), and bearing the following title: 'Ad Joannem Rousium, Oxoniensis Academiæ Bibliothecarium, de libro poematum amisso quem ille sibi denuo mitti postulabat, ut cum aliis nostris in Bibliotheca publica reponeret, Ode Joannis Miltonj[70].' The volume is now numbered 8^o. M. 168 Art. A facsimile of a considerable portion of the Ode (which Cowper translated into English, and which is said to have been the last of Milton's Latin poetical effusions) is given in plate xvii. of Sam. Leigh Sotheby's sumptuous volume, entitled Ramblings in the Elucidation of the Autograph of Milton, 4^o. Lond. 1861; and at p. 120 there is a facsimile in full of Milton's inscription in another volume (4^o. F. 56 Th.) which contains a collection of the political and polemical treatises published by him in the years 1641-5. This latter inscription, which gives a list of the contents[Pg 46] of the volume, is addressed as follows: 'Doctissimo viro proboque librorum æstimatori Joanni Rousio, Oxoniensis academiæ Bibliothecario, gratum hoc sibi fore testanti, Joannes Miltonius opuscula hæc sua in Bibliothecam antiquissimam atque celeberrimam adsciscenda libens tradit, tanquam in memoriæ perpetuæ Fanum, emeritamque, uti sperat, invidiæ calumniæque vacationem; si Veritati, Bonoque simul Eventui satis litatum sit.' Warton tells the almost incredible story, in his edition of Milton's Poems, that about the year 1720 these two volumes were thrown out into a heap of duplicates, from which Nathaniel Crynes, who afterwards bequeathed his own collection to the Library[71], was permitted to pick out what he pleased for himself; fortunately, however, he was too good a royalist and churchman to choose anything that bore the name of Milton, and so the books, despised and rejected on both sides, by mere chance remained in the place of their original deposit! Such an incident, if true, goes far to justify the charges of ignorance and neglect of the Library which Hearne in his Diary constantly brings against Hudson, the Librarian at that time, and those whom he employed.

The second edition of the Catalogue was issued by James, shortly after his resignation of his office, with a Dedication to Prince Charles, and a Preface dated June 30. It consists of 539 quarto pages, in double columns. It abandons the classified arrangement of the former Catalogue, and adopts that (followed ever since) of one alphabet of names. James, in his Preface, gives as his reason for this course, the frequent difficulty (already experienced even in so small a collection) of deciding to what class a book should be assigned, and the inconvenience resulting from division of the works of the same author. He points out the value of the Library to foreigners, who can there consult 16,000 volumes for six hours a day, excepting Sundays and[Pg 47] holidays[72]. As instances of the copiousness of its stores, he mentions that there are to be found above 100 folio and quarto volumes on Military Art, in Greek, Latin, and other languages; and that there are 3000 or 4000 books in French, Italian, and Spanish. He notes that heretical and schismatical books are not to be read without leave of the Vice-Chancellor and Regius Professor of Divinity; and makes some remarks on the method of keeping a Common-place-book. He gives as the reason for his quitting his post, his severe sufferings from stone and paralysis[73].

On June 4, King James presented the folio edition of his Works as edited by Bishop Montague. The book (now marked B. 14. 17. Theol.) contains the following presentation inscription, written and signed by Sir R. Naunton:—

'Jacobus Dei gratia Magnæ Britanniæ, Franciæ et Hiberniæ Rex, fidei defensor, &c. Postquam decrevisset publici juris facere quæ sibi erat commentatus, ne videretur vel palam pudere literarum quas privatim amaverat, vel eorum seu opinioni seu invidiæ cedere qui Regis Majestatem literis dictitabant imminui, vel Christiani Orbis et in eo Principum judicia expavescere, quorum maxime intererat vera esse omnia quæ scripsit; circumspicere etiam cœpit certum aliquod libro suo domicilium, locum, si fieri possit, semotum a fato, æternitati et paci sacrum. Ecce commodum sua se obtulit Academia, illa pæne orbi notior quam Cantabrigiæ, ubi exulibus Musis jam olim melius est quam in patria, ubi a codicibus famæ nuncupatis tineæ absterrentur legentium manibus, sycophantæ scribentium ingeniis. In hoc immortali literarum sacrario, inter monumenta clarorum[Pg 48] virorum, quos quantum dilexit studiorum participatione satis indicavit, in bibliotheca publica, lucubrationes has suas Deo Opt. Max., Cui ab initio devotæ erant, æternum consecrat, in venerando Almæ Matris sinu, unde contra seculorum rubiginem fidam illi custodiam promittit, et contra veritatis hostes stabile patrocinium.'

The book, which was carried to Oxford by a special deputation, consisting of Patrick Young, the Librarian at St. James's (to whom £20 was given by the University for his pains), and others, was received by the University with great ceremony. A Convocation was held in St. Mary's Church, on May 29, at which an oration was delivered by Rich. Gardiner, the Deputy-Orator, and at which a letter of thanks was approved (which is printed in Wood's Annals, ii. 336); from thence the Vice-Chancellor, attended by 24 doctors in their scarlet robes, and a mixed multitude of others, carried it in solemn procession to the Library, where the keeper, Rouse, 'made a verie prettie speech,' says Patrick Young, 'and placed it in archivis ... with a great deale of respect[74].' The King was greatly pleased with the formality and flattery with which his works were received, and the more so 'because Cambridge received them without extraordinary respect[75].'

Another gift in this year, presented by Thomas Nevile, K.B., eldest son of Sir H. Nevile, Knt., is thus described in the Register: 'Elegantissimum libellum diversa scripturæ genera continentem, manu Esteris Anglicæ, characteribus exquisitis conscriptum.' This is, doubtless, the MS. of the Book of Proverbs, dated 1599, in which every chapter, as well as the dedication to the Earl of Essex, is written in a different style of caligraphy,[Pg 49] which is now exhibited in the glass case nearest the entrance to the Library. It is an extremely beautiful specimen of the handiwork of Mrs. Esther Inglis, of whose skill the Library possesses another and smaller specimen (Bodl. 987), consisting of some French verses by Guy de Faur, Sieur de Pybrac, written for Dr. Joseph Hall (afterwards the Bishop of Norwich), in 1617. These are described in the account of Mrs. Inglis, in Ballard's Memoirs of British Ladies. A third specimen of her work is in the Library of Ch. Ch.: it is a Psalter in French, presented to Queen Elizabeth in 1599, bound in embroidered crimson velvet, set with pearls[76].

The Douay Bible of 1609 was presented by Sir Rich. Anderson, and a Persian MS. of the Liturgy of the Greek Church by Sir Thos. Roe. The first architectural model also was given in this year; but unfortunately it is not now extant. Its description is as follows: 'Clemens Edmonds, eques auratus, consilio Regis ab epistolis, donavit egregium παραδειγμα quinque columnarum, nunc primum inventum, secundum formam rusticam, ex alabastrite singulari artificio confectum.'

A.D. 1621.

A gift of £5 is noticeable as coming from the Girdlers' Company, 'Societas Zonariorum.' Sir Francis Bacon occurs as a donor of books.

A.D. 1623.

Delegates were appointed by Convocation to consider 'de modulo frontispicii Bibliothecæ publicæ in parte occidentali versus collegium Exon[77].'

A.D. 1624.

'Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, and then Lord Chancellor of England, would have borrowed Paulus Benius Eugubinus De dirimend. Controvers. de Grat. et Lib. Arb., but was deny'd[78].'

The first theft of a book from the Library occurred in this year. An account of it, with several others, will be found in a note to the year 1654.

A.D. 1627.

Andrew James, of Newport, Isle of Wight, is recorded to have given 'duas capsulas in quibus asservantur scripta vetustissima, exotici et ignoti characteris, alia stylo, calamo alia, in corticibus exarata, ex orientalis Indiæ partibus allata[79].' An East India merchant, John Jourdain, gave four Arabic MSS., and Bacon's Works were presented by Peter Ince, a bookseller at Chester. It appears from the Register that Joseph Barnes, the Oxford printer and publisher, died in this year, as he bequeathed a legacy of £5.

A.D. 1628.

Twenty-nine MSS., all of which, except three, are Greek, were given by Sir Thomas Roe, who had previously been ambassador in Turkey, and who afterwards sat, at the commencement of the Long Parliament, as Burgess for the University, in company with Selden. One of the three exceptions is an original copy of the[Pg 51] Synodal Epistles of the Council of Basle, with the leaden seal attached; and another, a valuable Arabic MS. of the Apostolic Canons, &c., which is noticed at length by Selden in the second book of his treatise, De Synedriis Hebræorum. Roe proposed that his books should be permitted to be lent out for purposes of printing, on proper security being given; a proposition which was accepted by Convocation[80]. Special licence of borrowing Lord Pembroke's (the Barocci) and Roe's MSS. was granted by the donors themselves to Dr. Lindsell (afterwards Bishop of Peterborough and Hereford) and Patrick Young, the keeper of the King's Library at St. James's. The latter is found, from the Register of Readers, to have used his privilege as late as Feb. and March, 1647-8, various volumes of Pembroke's MSS. being then lent to him, together with some marked 'Archbp.', which were doubtless Laud's[81].

The copy of Bacon's Essays (1625) which was presented by the author to the Duke of Buckingham, was given to the Library by Lewis Roberts, a merchant of London. It is now exhibited among the curiosities in the first glass case, as a specimen of binding, being clad in green velvet, embroidered with gold and silver thread, with the head of the duke worked in silk. The same donor also presented the copy of Bishop Williams' Funeral Sermon on James I, which had been given to the same duke by the author. Several other specimens of embroidered bindings are preserved in the Library, which are all, it is believed, comprehended in the following list[82]:—

[Pg 52]

1. A part of L. Tomson's version of the New Test., printed by Barker, in 16^o (in 1578?), now marked MS. e Musæo, 242. This belonged to Queen Elizabeth, and is bound in a covering worked by herself, with various mottos, e.g. 'Celum patria,' 'Scopus vitæ Xpũs,' &c. And on a fly-leaf occurs this note in her handwriting: 'August[ine?]. I walke manie times into the pleasant fieldes of the Holye Scriptures, where I plucke up the goodlie greene herbes of sentences by pruning, eate them by reading, chawe them by musing, and laie them up at length in the hie seate of memorie by gathering them together; that so hauing tasted thy sweetenes I may the lesse perceave the bitternes of this miserable life[83].'

2. Another of Elizabeth's bibliopegic achievements is the cover of her own translation from the French of The Miroir or Glasse of the synnefull Soule, executed when only eleven years old. She says that she translated it 'out of frenche ryme into englishe prose, joyning the sentences together as well as the capacitie of my symple witte and small lerning coulde extende themselves;' and prefixes a dedication, dated 'from Assherige, the laste daye of the yeare of our Lord God, 1544,' in which, 'to our moste noble and vertuous quene Katherin, Elizabeth her humble daughter wisheth perpetuall felicitie and everlasting ioye.' The volume consists of 63 small quarto leaves, and has the queen's initials K. P. embroidered within an ornamental border of gold and silver thread, on a ground of blue corded silk. It is numbered Cherry MS. 38.

3. Dialogue de la Vie et de la Mort, trans. from the Italian by J. Louveau, and printed in imitation of MS., second edit., 12^o. Lyon, 1558. Red velvet, embroidered with gold and silver thread. A French inscription on a fly-leaf is in a handwriting resembling that of Queen Elizabeth. Bodl. MS., 660.[Pg 53]

4. A Testament in 16^o, printed by Norton and Bill in 1625. Very thick and clumsy embroidery: on one side, David, in a flowing wig, playing on the harp, with a dog, dragon-fly, &c.; on the other, Abraham, in a similar wig and with a falling collar, stopped in the sacrifice of his son. There is a tradition that this formed part of a waistcoat of Charles I; but it is not known on what evidence it rests, nor does the material seem likely to have been so employed. In the Douce collection. Exhibited in the glass case at the entrance of the Library.

5. Bible, 8^o Lond. 1639. Landscape, &c., worked in silk, with embroidery in gold and silver thread. Arch Bodl. D subt. 75.

6. Prayer-book, New Test., and Metrical Psalms, 1630-1, bound by the nuns of Little Gidding. Exhibited in the glass case. Bought in 1866 for £10[84].

7. New Testament, printed at Cambridge in 1628, in 16^mo. This was the first edition printed there of any portion of the Authorized Version, and only the second of any English translation[85]. The binding of the Library copy (which was bought, in 1859, for five guineas) is covered with silver filigree work.

Among Dr. Rawlinson's multifarious collections is a volume of curious early specimens of worked samplers, humorously lettered on the back, 'Works of Learned Ladies.'

A.D. 1629.

The extremely valuable series of Greek MSS., called from its collector the Barocci Collection, comprising 242 volumes, was[Pg 54] presented by Will. Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and Chancellor of the University. The manner of its acquisition is recorded in Archbp. Usher's correspondence. In a letter from Dublin of Jan. 22, 1628-9, Usher says: 'That famous library of Giacomo Barocci, a gentleman of Venice, consisting of 242 manuscript volumes, is now brought into England by Mr. Featherstone the stationer[86].' He recommended that the King should buy it, and add to it the collection of Arabic MSS. which the Duke of Buckingham had bought of the heirs of Erpenius[87]. On April 13, 1629, Sir H. Bourgchier writing to Usher, tells him that the Earl of Pembroke has bought the collection, for the University of Oxford, at the price of £700, and that it consists of 250 volumes[88]. It was forwarded to the University with the following letter, which is here copied from the Convocation Register, R. 24 (f. 9^b.):—

The Earl was willing that the MSS. should, if necessary, be[Pg 55] allowed to be borrowed. And, in pursuance of this expressed wish, Patrick Young had, in 1648, the use of various MSS. from this collection, as we find from a memorandum at the end of the Register of Readers in 1648-9. But one MS. suffered in consequence considerable injury[89]. A further portion of the collection (consisting of 22 Greek MSS. and 2 Russian), which had been retained by the Earl, was subsequently purchased by Oliver Cromwell, and given by him to the Library in 1654. There they still bear the Protector's name; but, strange to say, no entry of the gift appears in the Benefaction Book[90]. These are all fully described in the first volume of the general Catalogue of MSS., published by Rev. H. O. Coxe in 1853. A Catalogue of the Barocci and Roe MSS., by Dr. Peter Turner, of Merton College, beautifully written, filling 38 folio leaves, is bound up among Selden's printed books, marked AA. 1. Med. Seld.

On Aug. 27, the Library was visited for the first time by King Charles and his Queen, little anticipating under what circumstances that visit would be repeated. He was received with an oration by the Public Orator, Strode, a copy of which is preserved in Smith MS. xxvi. 26, and which, in the exaggerated style of the Court-adulation of the time, began with words that sound blasphemously in our ears, 'Excellentissime Vice-Deus.' From the Library the King ascended to the leads of the Schools; and there discussed the proposed removal of some mean houses in Cat Street, which then intervened between the Schools and St. Mary's Church. A plan of the ground and buildings was made at his desire, which was sent up to him at London.[Pg 56]

A.D. 1631.

Charles Robson, B.D., of Queen's College, who had been Chaplain to the Merchants at Aleppo, gave a fine Syriac MS. of the Four Gospels, which he had brought from the East; it is now numbered Bodl. Orient. 361. Another MS. of his gift has been by some mistake placed amongst the Thurston MSS., No. 13.

A.D. 1632.

William Burton, the historian of Leicestershire, gave the original MSS. of Leland's Itinerary (together with a transcript of some parts) and of his Collectanea; the former filling seven volumes in quarto[91], and the latter (including the book De Scriptoribus Britannicis) four in folio. The Collectanea, after the death of Leland, had been in the possession of Sir John Cheke, to whom Edward VI entrusted the custody of Leland's papers; on his going into exile in the reign of Queen Mary, he gave them to Humphrey Purefoy, Esq., whose son, Thomas Purefoy, presented them to Burton in the year 1612. The Itinerary was first published by Hearne in 1710, in 9 vols.; the Collectanea in 1715, in 6 vols.; the De Scriptoribus, by Ant. Hall, in 1709. The MS. of the Itinerary is much stained and injured by damp; but it is no longer in the perishable condition described by Hearne. There are, besides, three transcripts of it in the Library; one, of part of the book (Bodl. 470) is a copy (mentioned above) which was made for Burton, and sent by him to Rouse, with a letter dated 'Lindley, Leic. 17 July, 1632,' in which he describes it as being 'written, though not with so fine a letter, yet with a judicious[Pg 57] hand.' He says that another part is 'now (as I heere) in the hands of Doctor Burton, Archdeacon of Gloucester, which he received by loane from a freind of mine, but never yet restored; the which, I thinke, upon request he will impart unto you;' and adds, 'Some more partes there were of this Itinerary, but through the negligence of him to whom they were first lent, are embesiled and gone.' He undertakes to send the three parts of the Collectanea and the book De Scriptt. Angliæ, according to promise, as soon as he has done using them. Another copy, made by Burton himself in 1628, was given to Dr. W. Stukeley by Thomas Allen, Esq., lord of Finchley, in June, 1758, and finally came to the Library with Gough's collection. It is now numbered Gough, General Topog. 2. It is injured by damp at the beginning, but has been repaired by Stukeley. The third copy is a later transcript, also in Gough's collection, and numbered General Topog. 1.

A.D. 1633.

A singular motto stamped upon the binding of two books, and it may be of more, within a border of cornucopiæ, &c., attracts the attention of the reader. The books are, vols. i. ii. of Du Chesne's Historiæ Francorum Scriptores, 1636 (A. 2. 9. 10. Jur.), and Halloix's Ecclesiæ Orientalis Scriptores, 1633 (G. 2. 3. Th.); the motto is, 'Coronasti annum bonitatis Tuæ, Ps. 65. Annuo reditu quinque librarum Margaretæ Brooke.' An explanation is found in an entry in the Benefaction-Register under the year 1632 or 1633, where we read as follows: 'D. Margareta Brooke, vidua, quondam uxor Ducis Brooke, de Temple-Combe in comitatu Somerset, armigeri defuncti, donavit centum libras, quibus perquisitus est annuus reditus quinque librarum ad coemendos libros in usum bibliothecæ in perpetuum.' Probably the books thus stamped were the first that were bought after the final settlement of the[Pg 58] gift. The rent arises from land at Wick-Risington, in Gloucestershire, and the sum duly appears to this day in the annual accounts of the Library. In 1655, the then Librarian, Barlow, makes a memorandum in his accounts that the University had not paid over this rent for several years; in consequence of his calling attention to this neglect, the arrears were paid up in 1658. At the same time the rents of the houses in Distaff Lane were heavily in arrear.

A (second) gift from Sir Henry Wotton consisted of the copy of Tycho Brahe's Astronomiæ instaurandæ mechanica, 1598, which the author gave to Grimani, Doge of Venice, containing several additional pages in MS. with two autograph epigrams; and also of a MS. of the Acta Concilii Constantiensis, which had formerly belonged to Card. Bembi, now numbered e Musæo, 25.

A.D. 1634.

In this year Sir Kenelm Digby gave a collection of 238 MSS. (including five rolls) all on vellum, uniformly bound, and stamped with his arms, which still form a distinct series. They are, for the most part, of the highest interest and importance, especially with reference to the early history of science in England. Amongst them are works by Roger Bacon, Grosteste, Will. Reade, John Eschyndon or Ashton, Roger of Hereford, Richard Wallingford, Simon Bredon, Thomas of New-market, and many others. They also comprise much relating to the general history of England, and are almost entirely the work of English scribes. Many of them had previously belonged to Thomas Allen, of Gloucester Hall, who himself was a liberal donor to the Library. [See p. 19.] Two additional MSS., which formerly belonged to Digby, and which each contain his inscription, 'Hic est liber publicæ Bibliothecæ academiæ Oxoniensis, K.D.,' were purchased in 1825. One of these, R. Baconis opuscula, was bought for £51; the other, a Latin[Pg 59] translation, by W. de Morbeck, of Proclus' Commentary on Plato, for £31 10s. They are uniformly bound with the rest of the series, and are numbered 235 and 236 respectively.

The donor stipulated that his MSS. should not be strictly confined to use within the walls of the Library. Archbishop Laud says, in the letter in which, as Chancellor, he announced the gift to the University, 'hee will not subiect these manuscripts to the strictnes of Sir Thomas Bodley's statutes[92], but will haue libertie given for any man of woorth, that wilbee at the paines and charge to print any of these bookes, to haue them oute of the Librarye vpon good caution giuen; but to that purpose and noe other[93].' But he afterwards left the University at liberty to deal as it pleased with his MSS. in this particular, as well as in all other questions that might arise concerning his books. In a letter to Dr. Langbaine, dated Nov. 7, 1654, he says: 'The absolute disposition of them in all occurrences dependeth wholly and singly of the University; for she knoweth best what will be most for her service and advantage, and she is absolute mistress to dispose of them as she pleaseth[94].' He mentions in the same letter two trunks of Arabic MSS. which he gave to Archbp. Laud to send to the University or to St. John's College, but he never heard whether they reached their destination or no. He promises also to send over some more MSS. from France when he has returned thither; since, when the troubles of the Rebellion drove him into exile, he had carried his library with him. Upon the Restoration, however, and his own return to England, he unfortunately left his books behind; and after his death they were confiscated by the French King as belonging to an alien, and subsequently sold. Doubtless the two MSS. acquired in 1825 were among those to which his letter refers.

[Pg 60]

The first stone of the western end of the Library, with the Convocation House beneath, was laid on May 13, 1634; it was fitted up with shelves and ready for use by 1640. Selden's books were placed here in 1659. The hideous great west window is a monument of the bad taste of the time; it is much to be hoped that it may some day be replaced by a window more worthy of its conspicuous position, and affording a less marked contrast with its opposite neighbour, the noble east window erected by Bodley himself.

A.D. 1635.

In this year Rouse issued an Appendix to the Catalogue published in 1620, consisting of 208 pages in quarto, in double columns, and containing, as he says, about 1500 authors. James, on the title-page of his Catalogue in 1620, speaks of an Appendix accompanying that issue; hence, probably, it is that the words 'Editio secunda' are placed on the title of the Appendix of 1635. But, strange to say, no copy of the earlier Appendix can now be found existing in the Library. At the end of the later one is added [by John Verneuil, then Sub-Librarian,] an anonymous enlarged edition (which was also sold separately) of James' Catalogus interpretum S. Script, in Bibl. Bodl., with an Appendix of authors who had written on the Sentences and the Summa, on the Sunday-Gospels, on Cases of Conscience, on the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed, and the Decalogue. A book giving an account of all the copies of the Catalogue sold between 1620-47, with the names of the purchasers, still exists, the latter part being in the handwriting of Verneuil; but some leaves have been torn out at the year 1635. It appears from this book that the price of James' Catalogue was 2s. 8d., that of the Catalogue of Interpreters 6d., of the Appendix 2s., and of the whole series complete 5s.[Pg 61]

A.D. 1635-1640.

The Register for these years presents a connected series of benefactions on the part of Archbishop Laud.

On May 22, 1635, he sent to the Library the first instalment of his magnificent gifts of MSS. which consisted of 462 volumes and five rolls. Among these were 46 Latin MSS., 'e Collegio Herbipolensi [Würtzburg] in Germania sumpti A.D. 1631, cum Suecorum Regis exercitus per universam fere Germaniam grassarentur.' Laud directs, in his letter of gift, that none of the books shall on any account be taken out of the Library, 'nisi solum ut typis mandentur, et sic publici et juris et utilitatis fiant,' upon sufficient security, to be approved by the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors; the MS., in such cases, being immediately after printing restored to its place in the Library[95]. This permission was acted upon in the year 1647-8, when Patrick Young, the Librarian of the Royal Library at St. James's, was allowed to have the use of several volumes[96].

In 1636, 181 MSS. formed the Archbishop's second gift, which were accompanied by five cabinets of coins in gold, silver, and brass, with a list arranged chronologically; an Arabic astrolabe, of brass[97]; two idols, one Egyptian, the other from the West Indies; and the fine bust of King Charles I, 'singulari artificio ex purissimo ære conflatam,' which is now placed under the arch opening into the central portion of the Library. This beautiful work of art is believed by Mr. John Bruce, the learned Vice-President of the Society of Antiquaries, who is engaged in researches into the life and productions of Hubert Le Sœur, the artist of the statue at Charing Cross, to be, (as well as the bust given by Laud[Pg 62] to St. John's College,) a specimen of the skill of that famous craftsman. The existing arrangements of the Library being found insufficient for such large accessions, the lower end was fitted up in 1638-9 for the reception of Laud's books, for the cost of which £300 was voted by Convocation[98]. In the following year, 555 more MSS. were received, together with a magical wand or staff, and some additional coins. The wand is of dark polished wood, 2 feet 9 inches long, with a grotesquely-carved figure at the head, apparently of Mexican workmanship: it is now kept in one of the Sub-Librarians' studies. The last gift from the munificent Chancellor of the University came in the next year, 1640, and consisted of no more than 81 MSS.; for troubles were beginning to gather now around the head of the Archbishop, and the Library at Oxford felt the blows which were levelled at Lambeth. This was accompanied with the following touching letter:—

The collection, which contains in the whole nearly 1300 MSS., comprises works in very many languages: Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Armenian, Ethiopic, Chinese, Russian, Greek, Latin, French, German, Italian, Irish, Anglo-Saxon, and English are all represented. It is impossible, in the limits of this survey, to point out many of the treasures with[Pg 64] which the collection abounds; but that which is pre-eminently styled 'Codex Laudianus' (numbered Laud, Gr. 35) must not, of course, be omitted. It is a MS. of the Acts of the Apostles, in quarto, consisting of 227 leaves, and containing the text in both Greek and Latin, in parallel columns. Its date has been variously fixed by critics, from the sixth to the eighth century; Mr. Coxe places it towards the end of the seventh century, with whom Dr. Tischendorf, who examined it in 1865, and for whom some photographs of portions were executed, is believed to coincide. Some leaves are wanting at the end, commencing at chap. xxvi. 29. It is the only MS. known to be extant which contains the peculiar readings (in number 74) cited by Bede in his Commentary as existing in the copy which he used; it has consequently been conjectured, with much reason, that this was the very MS. which he possessed. It was published by Thomas Hearne in 1715, printed in capitals corresponding line for line with the MS., but not with entire correctness; only 120 copies were printed, and it is therefore one of the rarest in the series of his works. A very fairly engraved facsimile of one verse (vii. 2) is to be found in Horne's Introduction.

Another famous MS. (No. 636) is a copy of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which ends at the year 1154, and appears to have been written in, and to have belonged to, the abbey of Peterborough, from its containing many additions relating thereto. And a third treasure calling for special mention is an Irish vellum MS. (No. 610), which contains the Psalter of Cashel, Cormac's Glossary, Poems attributed to SS. Columb-kill and Patrick, &c.[100] The Greek MSS. of the collection are fully described in vol. i. of the[Pg 65] Catal. Codd. Bibl. Bodl., by Mr. H. O. Coxe, published in 1853; the Latin, Biblical, and Classical, with the Miscellaneous, in Part I of the second volume, published by the same gentleman in 1858; the Oriental, in the various Catalogues of Uri, Nicoll, Pusey, Dillmann, and Payne Smith.

One of the Würtzburg books rescued from the Swedish soldiery is a magnificent Missal printed on vellum by Jeorius Ryser in 1481, with illuminated initials. On a fly-leaf is the following note: '1481, Johannes Kewsch, vicarius in ecclesia Herb[ipolensi] hunc librum comparavit propriis expensis, et pro omnibus, scil. pergameno, impressura, rubricatione, illinatura, et ligatione, xviii. flor.' Then follows a bequest, in his own hand, in 1486, of the book to the successive vicars of St. Bartholomew, which is repeated at the end of the 'Canon Missæ.' In the latter place four subsequent possessors, from 1565 to 1580, have written their names, the last of them adding, 'Omnis arbor qui non facit fructum bonum excidetur et in ignem mittetur.' The Library reference is now Auct. i. Q. i. 7.

A.D. 1637.

A Bachelor of Arts and Fellow of St. John's College, one Abraham Wright, published the results of his lighter reading in the Bodleian in a little volume printed by Leonard Lichfield, which he entitled, Delitiæ Delitiarum, sive Epigrammatum ex optimis quibusque hujus et novissimi seculi Poetis in amplissima illa Bibliotheca Bodleiana, et pene omnino alibi extantibus, ανθολογια.

A.D. 1640.

On Jan. 25, 1639-40, died Robert Burton, of Ch. Ch., 'Democritus junior,' and bequeathed out of his large library whatever [Pg 66]he possessed which was wanting in the Bodleian. A list of the Latin books thus acquired is given in the Benefaction Book, followed by this sentence: 'Porro [d. d.] comœdiarum, tragediarum, et schediasmatum ludicrorum (præsertim idiomate vernaculo) aliquot centurias, quas propter multitudinem non adjecimus.' These latter were just the classes of books the admission of which the Founder had almost prohibited, viz., 'almanacks, plays, and an infinite number that are daily printed.' Even if 'some little profit might be reaped (which God knows is very little) out of some of our play-books, the benefit thereof,' said he, 'will nothing near countervail the harm that the scandal will bring upon the Library, when it shall be given out that we stuffed it full of baggage books[101].' In consequence of this well-meant but mistaken resolution, the Library was bare of just those books which Burton's collection could afford, and which now form some of its rarest and most curious divisions. In his own address 'To the Reader' of his Anatomy of Melancholy he very fully describes the nature of his own gatherings. 'I hear new news every day; and those ordinary rumours of war, plagues, fires, inundations, thefts, murders, massacres, meteors, comets, spectrums, prodigies, apparitions, of towns taken, cities besieged in France, Germany, Turkey, Persia, Poland, &c. * * * * are daily brought to our ears; new books every day, pamphlets, currantoes, stories (&c.). Now come tidings of weddings, maskings, mummeries, entertainments, jubilees, embassies, tilts and tournaments, trophies, triumphs, revels, sports, plays; then again, as in a new shifted scene, treasons, cheating tricks, robberies, enormous villainies, in all kinds, funerals, burials, death of princes, new discoveries, expeditions; now comical, then tragical matters.' His books are chiefly to be found in the classes marked 4^o Art. (particularly under letter L), Theol., and Art. BS. Amongst his smaller books is one of the only two known copies of[Pg 67] the edition of Venus and Adonis in 1602. He is specially mentioned also in the preface to Verneuil's Nomenclator, 1642, as being (together with Mr. Kilby of Linc. Coll., Mr. Prestwich, of All Souls', and Mr. Francis Wright, of Merton) a donor of Commentaries and Sermons. Besides his books, he bequeathed £100, with which an annual payment of £5 was obtained. For some time, however, this payment was subsequently lost; for in Barlow's Accounts for 1655, after mentioning the receipt of £40 paid by one Mr. Thomas Smith, occurs this 'Memorandum:—that the £40 above mentioned amongst the Recepta is a part of an £100 given to the Library by Mr. Rob. Burton of Ch. Ch. It was first lent to Mr. Thomas Smith, and he (by bond) was to pay to the Library £5 per annum. He breaking, or very much decay'd in his estate, and deade, this £40 was payd in by his executors, £50 more is to be payd us by University Coll. (it was owinge to Mr. Smith, and his executors assigned it over to us), and Dr. Langbaine hath in his keepinge a bond of one Spencer for £10 more.' The latter was paid in 1658, as appears from an entry, 'Recept. a Dno. Spicer (sic) et Hopkins, ex syngrapha;' but the former was still unpaid in 1660.

A.D. 1641.

The famous 'Guy Fawkes' Lantern,' which is to this day such an object of interest in the Picture Gallery to most sight-seers, was presented to the University by Robert Heywood, M.A., Brasenose College, who had been Proctor in 1639. It came into his possession from his being the son of a Justice of the Peace who assisted in searching the cellars of the Parliament House, and arrested Fawkes with the lantern in his hand. In 1640 this Justice Heywood was wounded by a Roman Catholic when, while still holding office as a Justice for Westminster, he was engaged in proposing[Pg 68] the oaths to the recusants of that city[102]. The following inscription is attached to it, engraved upon a brass plate: 'Lāterna illa ipsa, qua usus est et cum qua deprehensus Guido Faux in crypta subterranea, ubi domo Parlamenti difflandæ operam dabat. Ex dono Rob. Heywood, nuper Academiæ Procuratoris, Apr. 4, 1641.' From being for many years exposed to the handling of every visitor, it became much broken; but it has now for a long time been secured from further injury by being enclosed in a glass case.

In May an order was made by the Curators that no strangers should have the use of any MSS. without finding sureties for the safety of the same, in consequence of a suspicion that whole pages had been in some cases abstracted. Hereupon a very earnest, and, in sooth, indignant, remonstrance was presented to the 'Curatores vigilantissimi' by the strangers then residing in Oxford 'studiorum causa.' The original document is preserved in Wood MS. F. 27, and is signed by eleven persons from Prussia and other parts of Germany, six Danes, and one Englishman (John Wyberd), a medical student. Some of these visitors are found, by reference to the Register of Readers, to have been students for a considerable time; the Baron ab Eulenberg, for instance, having been admitted on Jan. 18, 1638-9, and one Ven, a Dane, in 1633. The memorialists say that there is not even the very slightest ground for attributing such an offence to any of them, and that the Librarian himself candidly confesses that it has never been proved to him that strangers have ever done anything of the kind; they urge the difficulty of their finding sponsors for their honesty when they themselves are strangers and foreigners; they appeal to Bodley's own statutes as providing sufficiently for the contingency by ordering the Librarian to number the pages of a MS. before giving it out, and to[Pg 69] examine it when returned; they fortify their arguments by abundant references to the civil law; they upbraid those who,—'internecino exterorum atque advenarum odio æstuantes (O celebratam Britanniæ hospitalitatem!),'—have originated the calumny; and, finally, warn the Curators against giving occasion for suspicion to the learned men of the whole world that 'doctos Angliæ viros, priscæ hospitalitatis immemores, majori exterorum quam Athenienses Megarensium odio flagrare.' The memorial is endorsed: 'De hac re amplius deliberandum censebant Præfecti ult. Maii, 1641;' and no doubt the obnoxious order was soon repealed. Half a century later, on Nov. 8, 1693, the order was in a certain degree renewed: it was then enjoined 'that no one be permitted to transcribe any manuscript, but such as have a right to study in the Library.' The revival, however, was not due to any revived fear of foreigners; the following reason is given in a letter of information on Library matters from Dr. Hyde to Hudson, his successor, written on the latter's appointment in 1701:—'Some in the University have been very troublesome in pressing that their Servitors may transcribe manuscripts for them, though not sworn to the Library, nor yet capable of being sworn; wherefore the Curators made an order (as you will find in the Book of Orders in the Archives) "that none were capable of transcribing, except those who had the right of studying in the Library," viz. Batchelors[103].' But no doubt this order also soon became dormant, even if it were not definitely repealed.

A.D. 1642.

'The Kinge, Jul. 11, 1642, had £500 out of Sir Th. Bodlyes Chest, as appeares by Dr. Chaworthes acquittance in the same box.' (Barlow's Library Accounts for 1657. MS.) This loan was,[Pg 70] of course, never repaid. It is regularly carried on in the Annual Accounts up to the year 1782.

Nov. 30. 'At night the Library doore was allmost broken open. Suspitio de incendio, &c.' (Brian Twyne's Musterings of the Univ., in Hearne's Chron. Dunst. p. 757.)

It must have been about the close of this year or beginning of the next, while the king was in winter quarters at Oxford, that the visit was paid to the Library, which is the subject of the following well-known anecdote. It is here quoted from the earliest authority in which it is found, viz. Welwood's Memoirs, Lond. 1700. pp. 105-107:—

'The King being at Oxford during the Civil Wars, went one day to see the Publick Library, where he was show'd among other Books, a Virgil nobly printed and exquisitely bound. The Lord Falkland, to divert the King, would have his Majesty make a trial of his fortune by the Sortes Virgilianæ, which everybody knows was an usual kind of augury some ages past. Whereupon the King opening the book, the period which happen'd to come up was that part of Dido's imprecation against Æneas, which Mr. Dryden translates thus:—

(Æneid, iv. 88.)

It is said K. Charles seem'd concerned at this accident, and that the Lord Falkland observing it, would likewise try his own[Pg 71] fortune in the same manner; hoping he might fall upon some passage that could have no relation to his case, and thereby divert the King's thoughts from any impression the other might have upon him. But the place that Falkland stumbled upon was yet more suited to his destiny than the other had been to the King's, being the following expressions of Evander upon the untimely death of his son Pallas, as they are translated by the same hand:—

(Æneid, xi. 220.)'

There is no copy of Virgil now in the Library amongst those which it possessed previously to 1642, which is 'exquisitely bound' as well as 'nobly printed;' it is not therefore possible to fix on the particular volume which the King consulted.

A.D. 1645.

A small slip of paper, carefully preserved, is the memorial of an interesting incident connected with the last days in Oxford of the Martyr-King whose history is so indissolubly united with that of the place. Amidst all the darkening anxieties which filled the three or four months preceding the surrender of himself to the Scots, King Charles appears to have snatched some leisure moments for refreshment in quiet reading. His own library was no longer his; but there was one close at hand which could more than supply it. So, to the Librarian Rous, (the friend of Milton, but whose anti-monarchical tendencies, we may be sure, had[Pg 72] always hitherto been carefully concealed) there came, on Dec. 30, an order, 'To the Keeper of the University Library, or to his deputy,' couched in the following terms: 'Deliver unto the bearer hereof, for the present use of his Majesty, a book intituled, Histoire universelle du Sieur D'Aubigné, and this shall be your warrant;' and the order was one which the Vice-Chancellor had subscribed with his special authorization, 'His Majestyes use is in commaund to us. S. Fell, Vice Can.' But the Librarian had sworn to observe the Statutes which, with no respect of persons, forbad such a removal of a book; and so, on the reception of Fell's order, Rous 'goes to the King; and shews him the Statutes, which being read, the King would not have the booke, nor permit it to be taken out of the Library, saying it was fit that the will and statutes of the pious founder should be religiously observed[104].'

Perhaps a little of the hitherto undeveloped Puritan spirit may have helped to enliven the conscience of the Librarian, who, had he been a Cavalier, might have possibly found something in the exceptional circumstances of the case, to excuse a violation of the rule; but, as the matter stood, it reflects, on the one hand, the highest credit both on Rous's honesty and courage, and shows him to have been fit for the place he held, while, on the other hand, the King's acquiescence in the refusal does equal credit to his good-sense and good-temper. We shall see that this occurrence formed a precedent for a like refusal to the Protector in 1654 by Rous's successor, when Cromwell showed equal good feeling and equal respect for law.

A.D. 1646.

'When Oxford was surrendered (24^o Junii, 1646) the first thing Generall Fairfax did was to set a good guard of soldiers to pre[Pg 73]serve the Bodleian Library. 'Tis said there was more hurt donne by the Cavaliers (during their garrison) by way of embezzilling and cutting off chaines of bookes then there was since. He was a lover of learning, and had he not taken this special care, that noble library had been utterly destroyed, for there were ignorant senators enough who would have been contented to have had it so. This I doe assure you from an ocular witnesse, E. W. esq[105].'

A.D. 1647.

John Verneuil, M.A., Sub-librarian, died about the end of September. He was a native of Bordeaux, and came into England as a Protestant refugee shortly before 1608. In that year he entered at Magdalene College, and was incorporated M.A. from his own University of Montauban in 1625. Besides his share in the Appendix to the Catalogue noticed under the year 1635, the following small book of a similar kind in English was issued by him: A Nomenclator of such Tracts and Sermons as have beene printed, or translated into English upon any place or booke of Holy Scripture; now to be had in the most famous and publique Library of Sir Thomas Bodley in Oxford. This is the title of the second and enlarged edition, which appeared in 1642 in a small duodecimo volume, printed at Oxford, by Henry Hall. The first edition (which was not entirely confined to books in the Library) was printed under the author's initials by William Turner in 1637. Some books communicated by friends are here cited, which would, says Verneuil, have been accessible in the Bodleian, 'had the Company of Stationers beene as mindfull of their covenant as my selfe have beene zealous for the good of this our Library.' In an interesting undated letter from Sir Richard Napier, Knt. (while apparently an undergraduate of Wadham College, before 1630) to his uncle the[Pg 74] Rev. Richard Napier, which is preserved in Ashmole MS. 1730, fol. 168, is the following curious passage relating to the facilities for studying in the Library, which were afforded to him by Verneuil:—

'I have made a faire way to goe into the Library privately when I please, and there to sitt from 6 of the clocke in the morneing to 5 at night. I have a private place in the Library to lay those bookes and to write out what I list, without being seene by any, or any comeing to me. I have made the second Keeper of the Library [i.e. Verneuil] my friend and servant, who promised me his key at all tymes to goe in privately, when as otherwise it is not opened above 4 houres a day, and some days not att all, as on Hollidays, and their eves in the afternoone, yett then by his meanes I shall [have] free accesse and recesse at all tymes. He hath pleasured me so farr as to lett me write in his counting house, or his little private study in the great publick library, where I may very privately write, and locke up all safely when I depart thence; he will write for me when I have not the leisure, or will transcribe any thinge I shall desire him, and if it be French translate it, for that is his mother tonge.'

Probably the practice here mentioned of admitting readers by favour into the Library at unstatutable times grew in the course of years to a considerable height, or was found (as might naturally be expected) productive of mischievous consequences, for on Nov. 8, 1722, it was 'ordered by the Curators that no person under any pretence whatsoever be permitted to study in the said Library at any other time than what is prescribed and limited by the Bodleian Statutes.'

Verneuil was succeeded in his office in the Library by Francis Yonge, M.A., of Oriel College.

Milton's gift of his Poems. See under 1620.

A.D. 1648.

At the end of the Readers' Register for 1647-8, 1648-9, is a list of nine volumes 'olim surrepti,' of which five had been replaced by[Pg 75] other copies. Entries are made in the same place of some coins which were given in 1648-50. At this period the Library appears to have been well attended by readers; about twelve or fifteen quarto and octavo volumes being daily entered, those of folio size being accessible (as, in regard to a portion of the Library, is still the case) by the readers themselves, and not registered because at that time chained to their shelves. The register for the next years (as well as those which followed, up to the year 1708) appears to be lost, so that it cannot be ascertained whether this daily average continued during the Usurpation; but thus far it seems that Dr. John Allibond's description of the state of the Library as consequent on the Puritan visitation of the University in 1648, is not borne out by facts. For that loyal humourist, in his Rustica Academiæ Oxoniensis nuper reformatæ Descriptio, which is supposed to commemorate the condition of Oxford in Oct. 1648, writes thus of our Library:—

A.D. 1649.

'The Jews proffer £600,000 for Paul's, and Oxford Library, and may have them for £200,000 more[106].' They wished to obtain the first for a synagogue, and to do a little commercial business with the second. It is said in Monteith's History of the Troubles (translated by Ogilvie, 1735, p. 473) that the sum they offered was[Pg 76] £500,000, but that the Council of War refused to take less than £800,000: probably they afterwards increased this their original bid to £600,000.

Philip, Earl of Pembroke, the Puritan Chancellor of the University, gave a splendidly bound copy of the Paris Polyglott, printed in 1645 in 10 vols.

A.D. 1652.

John Rous, the Librarian, died in the beginning of April, probably on April 3, as, the Statutes requiring the election of Librarian to take place within three days of a vacancy, it was on the 6th of that month that Thomas Barlow, M.A., Fellow of Queen's College, was unanimously elected to be Rous's successor. At the same time certain orders were read in Convocation which the Curators had made, for the formation by the Librarian of a Catalogue of the coins and other rarities, providing also that they should be regularly visited and verified by the Curators every November[107].

A legacy of £20 from Rous to the Library is entered in the Benefaction Register, under the year 1661, probably because it may not have been actually received until that year.

A.D. 1653.

Fifteen MSS., by Spanish authors, were given by Peter Pett, LL.B., Fellow of All Souls' College; and a sacred Turkish vestment of linen (e Mus. 45) on which the whole of the Koran is written in Arabic, by Richard Davydge, an East Indian merchant.

A.D. 1654.

'April last, 1654, my Lord Protector sent his letter to Mr. Vice-Chancellor to borrow a MS. (Joh. de Muris) for the Portugal[Pg 77] Ambassador. A copy of the Statute was sent (but not the book), which when his Highness had read, he was satisfy'd, and commended the prudence of the Founder, who had made the place so sacred[108].'

Cromwell's gift of MSS. See under 1629.

A.D. 1654-1659.

The death of John Selden occurred on Nov. 30[109]. By his will the Library became possessed at once of his collection of Oriental and Greek MSS., together with a few Latin MSS. specially designated, as well as of such of his Talmudical and Rabbinical books as were not already to be found there. It has generally been supposed that no part of his library was received before the year 1659, and that none at all was actually bequeathed by Selden. The account usually given (taken from Burnet's Life of Sir M. Hales, p. 156[110]) is that Selden was so offended with the University for refusing the loan of a MS., except upon a bond for £1000, that he revoked that part of his will which left his library to the Bodleian, and put it entirely at the free disposal of his executors, and that they, when five years had passed, during which the Society of the Inner Temple (to whom it was first offered) had[Pg 78] taken no steps to provide a building for its reception, conceiving themselves to be executors not of Selden's passion but of his will, sent it in 1659 to its original destination[111]. But it is clear from Selden's will (as printed by Wilkins in his Works, vol. i. p. lv.) that the books mentioned above were really bequeathed by him to Oxford; a line or two appears to be somehow omitted, by which the sense of the passage is lost, and in consequence of which the name of the Library does not appear, but there is a general reference to it both in the specification of such Hebrew books as are 'not already in the Library,' and in the mention of the 'said Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars' of the University (although no previous mention of them occurs); while all other books not thus conveyed are left to the disposal of his executors. But a letter from Langbaine to Pococke, written from London only three days after Selden's death, furnishes proof positive; for there the former writes, as executor, that all the Oriental MSS., with such Rabbinical and Talmudical printed books as were not already in the Library, and the Greek MSS. not otherwise disposed of, are left to Oxford[112]. And in the Annual Accounts, under the year 1655, we find the following entries:—

It is clear, therefore, that a portion of Selden's collection came to the Library by his bequest immediately after his death. And the reason why the whole was not bequeathed is[Pg 79] certainly not correctly stated by Burnet, nor even by Wood, who says that he had been informed that it was because the borrowing of certain MSS. had been refused. For the Convocation Register shows that a grace was passed in Convocation, on Aug. 29, 1654, which sanctioned the giving leave to Selden to have MSS. from the collections of Barocci, Roe, and Digby (these donors having either expressed an opinion, or distinctly stipulated, that the rigour of the Library Statutes should sometimes be relaxed), provided he did not have more than three at a time, and that he gave bond in £100 (not £1000) for the return of each of them within a year[113]. Had these conditions been really the cause of Selden's taking offence, his executors would hardly have stipulated, as they actually did, in their own conditions of gift, that no book from his collection should hereafter be lent to any person upon any condition whatsoever. But there is certainly some obscurity hanging over the matter, which probably may be dispersed by further investigation. The writer of the sketch of the history of the Bodleian prefixed to Bernard's Cat. MSS., after quoting Wood's account, only says, when barely more than forty years had elapsed, that he will not venture to speak rashly about the case of the lending of books; as if it were already forgotten how the facts stood. On the proposal to lend being first mooted, Barlow, the Librarian, drew up a paper on the general question, in which he opposed it both on the grounds of Statute and expediency; the original MS. of which still exists in the Library. Selden was at first mentioned in this paper by name, with distinct reference to his application; but the name was subsequently crossed out wherever it thus occurred, and the subject treated without any[Pg 80] personal reference[114]. In this paper the Librarian objects to the proposal, firstly, on the ground of precedent, since, though the University had power, with the joint consent of the Chancellor, Heads of Houses, and Convocation, to lend books, yet it had[Pg 81] never thought fit to do so, except with regard to Lord Pembroke's MSS.; secondly, on the ground that if the rule were once broken, it would be impossible to refuse any person, without incurring great odium, while the gratifying all applicants would[Pg 82] disperse into private hands the books intended for the public. He then proceeds as follows:—

[Pg 83]

'3. Suppose 3 bookes at a time be sent to any private man, 'tis true he is furnish'd, but 'tis manifestly to the prejudice of the Publick, the University wanting those books while he has them; so that if any forreigner coming hither from abroad desire to see them, or any at home desire to use them, both are disappointed, to the diminution of the honour of the University, in the one, and the benefit it might have by those books, in the other. And therefore it seems more agreeable to reason and the public good (and the declared will and precept of our prudent and pious Founder[115]) not to lend any books out of the Library; for by not lending, private persons only want the use of those books which are another's, whereas by lending, the University wants the use of those books which are her own. Sure no prudent man can think it fit to gratify particular persons with the publick detriment.

'4. The Library is a magazine which the pious Founder hath fix'd in a publick place for a publick use; and though his charity to private persons is such that he will hinder none (who is justly qualify'd and worthy) to come to it, yet his charity to the publick is such that he would not have it ambulatory, to goe to any private person. And sure 'tis more rational that Mahomet should go to the mountaine, than that the mountaine should come to Mahomet.

'5. Lending of books makes them lyable to many casualties, as, I. absolute losse, either 1. in via, by the carrier's negligence, or violence offer'd him, or, 2. in termino, they may be lost by the person that borrows them; for (presuming the person noble, and carefull for their preservation, yet) his house may be burn'd, or (by robbers) broken open (as Mr. Selden's unhappily was not long since): or, (in case they scape these casualties) they may be spoyl'd in the carriage, as by sad experience we find, for above 60 or 100 leaves of a Greek MS.[116] lent out of Archiva Pembrochiana to Mr. Pat. Younge were irrecoverably defaced. Now what has happen'd heretofore may happen hereafter; and therefore to keep them sacredly (and without any lending) in the Library (according to our good Founder's will and statute) will be the best way for their preservation.'

Barlow adds finally, in the sixth and seventh places, that if all lending were declared unlawful, it would greatly encourage others to give more to the Library when they saw how religiously their gifts would be preserved, and that if no exceptions were made[Pg 84] (except, as allowed by Archbp. Laud, for the purpose of printing), no applications would be made, and no one would take it ill if he were denied.

Another reason for Selden's withholding his library in its entirety has, however, been assigned, besides those mentioned above, and this, too, by closely contemporary writers. In July, 1649, the new intruded officers and fellows of Magdalene College found in the Muniment-room in the cloister-tower of the College, a large sum of money in the old coinage called Spur-royals[117], or Ryals, amounting to £1400, the equivalent of which had been left by the Founder as a reserve fund for law expenses, for re-erecting or repairing buildings destroyed by fire, &c., or for other extraordinary charges. This gold had been laid up and counted in Q. Elizabeth's time and had remained untouched since then; consequently, although some of the old members of the College were aware of its existence, to the new-comers it seemed a welcome and unexpected discovery, especially as the College was at the time heavily in debt. They immediately proceeded to divide it among all the members on the Foundation proportionately, not excluding the choristers, (who were at that time undergraduates), the Puritan President, Wilkinson, being alone opposed to such an illegal proceeding, and being with difficulty prevailed upon to accept £100 as his share, which, however, upon his death-bed he charged his executors to repay. The spur-royals were exchanged at the rate of 18s. 6d. to 20s. each, and each fellow had 33 of them. But when the fact of this embezzlement of corporate funds became known, the College was called to account by Parliament, and, although they attempted to defend themselves, they individually deemed it wise to refund the greater, or a considerable, part of what had been abstracted.[Pg 85][118] Fuller, whose Church History was published in the year following Selden's death, after telling this scandalous story, proceeds thus (book ix. p. 234):—'Sure I am, a great antiquarie lately deceased (rich as well in his state as learning) at the hearing hereof quitted all his intention of benefaction to Oxford or any place else, on suspition it would be diverted to other uses, on the same token that he merrily said, I think the best way for a man to perpetuate his memory is to procure the Pope to canonize him for a saint, for then he shall be sure to be remembred in their Calender; whereas otherwise I see all Protestant charity subject to the covetousness of posterity to devour it, and bury the donor thereof in oblivion.' And the name of this 'great antiquarie' was supplied in 1659 by the Puritan writer Henry Hickman, who, as a Demy of Magdalene College, had shared in the spoils. He, in the Appendix to his Justification of the Fathers and Schoolmen, gives (in answer to a passage in Heylin's Examen Historicum) a full account of the dividing of the gold, adding, 'which, as is said, did hinder Mr. John Selden from bestowing his library on the University.' And Wood (Hist. and Antiq. by Gutch, ii. 942) says that he had been told that this misappropriation was one reason of Selden's distaste at Oxford. From all this it is clear that Burnet's narrative gives a very inaccurate account of the matter.

It was in the year 1659 that the great mass of Selden's collection was forwarded by his executors. In the accounts for 1660 appear payments to Barlow of £20 'for his paines in procuring Mr. Selden's books,' and of £51 for his expenses thereon. The[Pg 86] bringing the books from London cost about £34, and the providing chains for them £25 10s.[119] Unfortunately, during the interval, many books had been lost which had been borrowed in London, and were never returned. (Life, in Works, I. lii.) And a part, which somehow was not sent to Oxford, afterwards altogether perished, 'for the fire of the Temple destroyed in one of their chambers eight chests full of the registers of abbeys, and other manuscripts relating to the history of England; tho' most of his law-books are still safe in Lincoln's Inn[120].' Some medical books were bequeathed to the College of Physicians. Some of the original deeds relating to the gift were bought for the Library in 1837 for £1 1s.

About 8000 volumes were, in all, added to the Library by this gift, most of which bear Selden's well-known motto: 'περι παντος την ελευθεριαν.' Amongst them are some which belonged to Ben Jonson, Dr. Donne, and Sir Robert Cotton. The number of miscellaneous foreign works, in several European languages, is noticeable, many of which had been published but a short time before Selden's death. In curious contrast to the character of the greater part of his collection (rich in classics and science, theology and history, law and Hebrew literature) there occurs one[Pg 87] volume (marked 4^o C. 32. Art. Seld.) which is priceless in the eyes of the lovers of old English black-letter tracts. It contains twenty-six tracts (most bearing the name of a previous possessor, one Thomas Newton) which are among the rarest of early popular tales and romances. As mere specimens of the collection may be mentioned, Richard Cuer de Lyon, Syr Bevis of Hampton (unique edit.?), Syr Degore, Syr Tryamoure (only two copies known), Syr Eglamoure (unique?), Dan Hew of Leicestre (unique?), Battayle of Egyngecourt (unique?), Mylner of Abyngton (unique?), Wyl Bucke, &c. Among the MSS. is one of Harding's Chronicle (Arch. Seld. B. 10) which appears to have belonged to Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, from his arms being painted at the end, and which some have supposed was also a presentation copy to Edward IV. A curious map accompanies the description of Scotland (here given in prose, not, as in the printed editions, in verse), in which, next to Sutherland and Caithness, the author, who would have won Dr. Johnson's respect as being 'a good hater,' places 'Styx, the infernal flode,' and 'The palais of Pluto, King of hel, neighbore to Scottz.' This map was engraved for the first time in Gough's British Topography, vol. ii. pl. viii.; the description of it occupies pp. 579-583 in that volume. Another interesting volume is a copy of the Latin Articles of 1562, printed by Reginald Wolfe in 1563, with the autograph signatures of the members of the Lower House of Convocation (Arch. Seld. A. 76). Fifty-four Greek MSS. are described in Mr. Coxe's Catalogue, vol. i. cols. 583-648.

A.D. 1655.

The stipends of the Librarian and Assistants at this time amounted jointly to £51 6s. 8d. Of this it appears from the account for 1657 that the Librarian received £33 6s. 8d., the[Pg 88] Second Keeper, then H. Stubbe, £10, and [the janitor] S. Rugleye (?), £8. A volume of curious tracts, published during the early part of the reign of Charles I, now marked 4^o F. 2 Art. B. S., furnishes the name of a preceding janitor, by bearing the inscription, 'Liber Thomæ Roch, defuncti, quondam janitoris bibliothecæ.' The janitor originally appointed by Bodley appears to be mentioned in the following passage in a letter from him to James: 'There is one Thomas Scott, Under-butler of Magdalen College, that hath made means unto me for the Porter's place, whom I propose to elect[122].'

John Evelyn appears in this year, as well as subsequently, as a donor of books. Nineteen MSS. were given by Peter Whalley, of Northamptonshire.

A.D. 1656.

Cowley's Poems. See 1620.

A.D. 1657.

In this year the gifts to the Library, which since 1640 had been but few, begin once more to increase in number. Five hundred gold and silver coins were given by Ralph Freke, of Hannington, Wilts, and a cabinet for their reception, 'auro gemmisque coruscum,' by his brother William. Amongst various other donations occur a copy of Caxton's Description of Britain, 1480, from Ralph Bathurst, M.D., Trinity College, and four Oriental MSS. from William Juxon, 'Londinensis olim Episc.' One entry in the Benefaction Register has been at one time carefully pasted over, and at another brought again to light; it is the record of a gift from Hugh Peters. 'Hugo Peters, serenissimo Britanniarum Protectori Olivero a sacris, pro sua in[Pg 89] academiam et rempubl. literariam benevolentia, codices insequentes Bibl. Bodleianæ dono dedit Maii iiii^o, Anno CIƆ. IƆC. LVII;' viz. the great Dutch Bible with annotations, 'edit. ult. [scil. Hague, 1637] auro sericoque compacta,' and the Æthiopic Psalter of 1513. A leaf which followed this entry has been removed from the Register, probably because it contained some further particulars of Peters' gift, or possibly the record of the MSS. presented by the Protector himself in 1654[123]. The binding of silk and gold has now altogether disappeared, and the Bible is clad in a plain calf coat, with no note of its former condition or of its donor.

Francis Yonge, M.A. of Oriel College, the Sub-librarian, died in this year. In his place succeeded, through the influence of Dr. Owen, Dean of Ch. Ch., Henry Stubbe, M.A., the well-known violent and varying political writer, then a Student of that House. From the posts, however, of both Librarian and Student Stubbe was ejected in March, 1659, on account of the publication of his book entitled, A Light Shining out of Darkness, which was supposed to attack the Universities and clergy.

A.D. 1658.

Gerard Langbaine, D.D., the learned Provost of Queen's College, died on Feb. 10 in this year. Twenty-one vols. of his Adversaria, consisting chiefly of extracts from Bodleian MSS. and of notes concerning the arrangement of the books in the Library, were bought for £11. Nine other volumes were bequeathed by Ant. à Wood in 1695. They are all fully described by Mr. Coxe in vol. i. [cols. 877-888] of the General Catalogue of the MSS. of the Library, which appeared in 1853, as well as more briefly in Bernard's Catalogue. Besides obtaining his own[Pg 90] autograph collections by purchase, the Library became possessed by bequest from him of the very valuable MS. (e Mus. 86) on the history of Wickliffe and his followers, entitled Fasciculi Zizaniorum, written by Thomas Walden. This was edited by the late Dr. Shirley in 1858, as part of the Master of the Rolls' Series of Chronicles. Dr. Shirley traced the volume to the hands of Bale and Usher, but was not aware of the way in which it came to the Library.

The effect which civil war and confusion had had upon literature may be commercially estimated by the fact that a gift of £5 from Joseph Maynard, B.D., of Exeter College, proved sufficient for the purchase of 28 printed volumes and 11 MSS., many of which were curious.

A crocodile, from Jamaica, was given by John Desborow, the republican Major-General, and brother-in-law to the Protector.

A.D. 1659.

Thomas Hyde, M.A., of Queen's College, was appointed Under-keeper on the expulsion of Henry Stubbe.

A.D. 1660.

Thomas Barlow, D.D. (who had been elected Provost of Queen's College in 1658), resigned the Librarianship on Sept. 25, in consequence of his appointment to the Margaret Professorship of Divinity. Thomas Lockey, B.D., Student of Ch. Ch., was elected in his place, on Sept. 28, by 102 votes to 80, over Mr. [John] Good, M.A., Balliol College[124].

A curious story is preserved by Wanley and Dr. Wallis, in memoranda, dated 1698-1701, on the fly-leaves of a copy of the rare Index Librorum prohibitorum printed at Madrid in 1612-14[Pg 91] (4^o U. 46. Th.), respecting the visit of a Roman Catholic priest to the Library during the period of Barlow's headship. In the course of conversation with Barlow, the priest denied that such a book as this Index had ever been printed at Madrid (there being various discrepancies between it and the Roman Index), whereupon this copy was produced, bearing the names of several inquisitors who had from time to time possessed it. The visitor was extremely surprised, and, being very desirous of purchasing it, offered any sum for it that might be demanded, with the intent (as the somewhat suspicious tellers of the tale suggest) to destroy it; but the Doctor was above corruption. The vigilance of the Librarians being aroused, the book was removed from an exposed place where it had formerly been kept, to a less accessible situation in the gallery, and securely chained. Wallis adds that one fly-leaf, containing some of the previous owners' names, had since then been torn out[125].

A.D. 1662.

A legacy of £50 was paid which had been bequeathed some time previously by Alex. Ross, now-a-days best known as the Ross of Hudibrastic memory. It is singular that a copy of the old printed quarto catalogue of the Library was amongst the books purchased with this gift; which shows that, within forty years after publication, it had become scarce even in the Library itself.

Five Arabic and eight Chinese MSS. were given by William Thurston, a London merchant. By a mistaken arrangement of various other small gifts, Thurston now passes as the donor of forty Arabic, Persian, and Syriac MSS., instead of five. Several of these, at present all numbered alike as Thurston MSS., were[Pg 92] given in 1684 by Jos. Taylor, LL.D., of St. John's College, one by Crewe, Bishop of Durham, in 1680, one by Benj. Polsted, a London African merchant, in 1678, one by Charles Robson, B.D., Queen's College, about 1630, and one is an Armenian poem of thanks for benefits received from the University, presented by the author, Jac. de Gregoriis, an Armenian priest, in 1674. One other volume (a mathematical MS. bought at Constantinople, by Const. Ravius, in 1641) was at one time, as it appears, abstracted from the Library, and was restored by means of Dr. Marshall, who, after the words 'Liber Bibliothecæ Bodleianæ Oxon.' has added the following note: 'quem ex Ratelbandi cujusdam bibliopolæ officina libraria, prope novum templum Amstelodami, redimendum pretio persoluto curavit Tho. Mareschallus, e Collegio Lincolniensi apud Oxonienses.'

The first statutory obligation upon the Stationers' Company to deliver a copy of each book printed by them to this Library, together with that of Cambridge and the Royal Library, was imposed by the act of 14 Chas. II. c. 33, for two years, which was renewed from time to time until the passing of the Copyright Act of 8 Q. Anne.

A.D. 1663.

The University was visited in September by Charles II and his Queen. And 'on Munday, September 28, about four in the afternoon, the University, being in their Formalities placed from Christ Church east-gate to the south gate of the publique Schooles, the King and Queen, the Duke and Dutches of Yorke, with the nobility and gentry attending, went to the Schooles, where the Chanceller, Vice-Chanceller and Heads of Houses received them, and invited them up to the Library; and Mr. Crew, the Senior Proctor, placed neer the globes, addrest himselfe to their Majesties in an oration upon his knees; which being ended, the King and[Pg 93] Queen, with the Royal Family and nobility, were by our Chanceller, Vice-Chanceller, and the Heads of Houses, conducted to Selden's Library, and there entertained with a very sumptuous banquett[126].'

A.D. 1664.

James Lamb, of St. Mary Hall, D.D. and Canon of Westminster, died in this year. Nine MSS. volumes, written by him, consisting of collections for an Arabic Lexicon and Grammar, together with the book of Daniel, in Syriac, are preserved in the Library, and form a small separate collection under his name.

A.D. 1665.

Thomas Lockey, D.D., resigned the Librarianship, on Nov. 29, 1665, in consequence of his appointment to a canonry of Ch. Ch. In the following year he gave some coins and the sum of £6 16s. In his place was elected, on Dec. 2, Thomas Hyde, M.A., of Queen's College, then Under-keeper. Upon Lockey's death, in 1680, books to the value of £16 15s. were bought out of his study.

A.D. 1666.

Twenty MSS. were given by Sir Thos. Herbert, Bart. of York.

An East India merchant of London, one John Ken, gave (with other MSS.) the first Gentoo [i.e. Sanscrit.] book which the Library possessed. It is noticeable what a real, although somewhat indiscriminating, interest the London merchants appear to have taken in the Library. Continual mention occurs not merely of books but of curiosities of all kinds, natural and artificial, which persons en[Pg 94]gaged in commerce, chiefly with the East Indies, sent as for a general repository. Most of these curiosities are now to be found, it is believed, in the Ashmolean Museum.

At some period between 1660 and 1667, i.e. during Clarendon's Chancellorship of the University, two volumes of MSS. notes and observations upon Josephus, by Sam. Petit, the Professor of Greek at Nismes (who died in 1643), are said by Moreri to have been purchased by Clarendon, for 150 louis d'or, and given to the University. But in Bernard's Catalogue the volumes are said to have been bought by the University 'ære suo.' Dr. T. Smith remarks, in his life of Bernard, that when the latter was preparing to edit Josephus, he used 'Sam. Petiti largis commentariis, longe antea in bibliothecæ Bodleianæ gazophylacium ex Gallia transvectis,' but found that they were filled only with notes from Rabbinical writers. They are now numbered Auct. F. infra, I. 1, 2. One other MS. was certainly given by Clarendon, during his Chancellorship. It is a Greek Evangelistarium of the fourteenth century, formerly the property of a monastery described as 'της παναγιας της αχειροποιητου,' which was given by Parthenius, Patriarch of Constantinople, to Heneage Finch, Earl of Winchelsea, when in Turkey, in 1661, as Ambassador from England, and subsequently given by Clarendon to the University. On the cover is a silver crucifix, of Byzantine work. It is now numbered Auct. D. infra II. 12.

A.D. 1668.

John Davies, of Camberwell, the storekeeper at Deptford dockyard, caused a chair to be made out of the remains of the ship, 'The Golden Hind,' in which Sir F. Drake accomplished his voyage round the world, which had been kept at Deptford until the timber decayed, and presented it to the Library. It stands now in the Picture Gallery, beside a chair which is said (but on what[Pg 95] authority is not known) to have belonged to Henry VIII[127], and bears a plate on which are inscribed some verses, in Latin and English, by Abraham Cowley. A good engraving of it is to be found in Lascelles' and Storer's Oxford, published in 1821[128], and in the Life of Drake, published in 1828.

A.D. 1670.

Thirteen Oriental MSS. (chiefly in their possessor's own writing) were bought from the heirs of Samuel Clarke, M.A., of Merton College, printer to the University and Esquire Bedel of Law, who died Dec. 17, 1669. He was greatly distinguished as an Orientalist, and assisted in the production of Walton's Polyglott. A list of his MSS. is given in Bernard's Catalogue, and another, by Prof. Nicoll, Ath. Oxon. iii. 885. He himself gave four printed Arabic books in 1663.

A.D. 1671.

Upon the death of Meric Casaubon, on July 14, the Library became possessed, by his bequest, of sixty-one volumes of the Adversaria (chiefly consisting of notes on Greek criticism) of his father, Isaac Casaubon, who died in 1614. From these Jo. Christ. Wolf made some extracts when visiting the Library in 1709, which he published in the following year at Hamburgh, under the title of Casauboniana, with a preface giving some account of all previous collections of Ana, and with copious notes. The MSS. are catalogued in Mr. Coxe's first volume, cols. 825-850.

A.D. 1673.

Thomas, Lord Fairfax, to whose care the Library had been indebted for preservation in 1646, bequeathed to it on his decease,[Pg 96] in November, 1671, twenty-eight very valuable MSS., including several early English books (Chaucer, Gower, Wickliffe's Bible, &c.) and works relating to the history of England, Scotland (Elphinston[129]), and Ireland (Keating). But besides these, he gave that invaluable collection of genealogical MSS. known to all pedigree-hunters by the name of their indefatigable compiler, Roger Dodsworth, to whom he had allowed an annuity of £40 during his life, in order to enable him the better to prosecute his researches. This collection numbers 161 volumes (bound in 86) in folio and quarto[130], and consists of extracts bearing chiefly on the family and ecclesiastical history of Yorkshire and the North of England, with an innumerable mass of pedigrees, from all the authentic records within Dodsworth's reach, including many which were destroyed when the Tower of St. Mary, at York, was blown up during the siege of that city in June, 1644. He appears to have commenced this wonderful series of notes about the year 1618, and not to have ceased before 1652, dying, in the seventieth year of his age, in August, 1654. Besides the very full catalogue of his MSS. which is given by Bernard (pp. 187-233), an extremely useful and original synopsis of their contents, prefaced with an account of Dodsworth's life and labours, and drawn up by Mr. Joseph Hunter, is to be found in the Report of the Record Commission for 1837; which was reprinted by Mr. Hunter, in an octavo volume, in 1838, together with a list of the contents of the Red Book of the Exchequer, and a Catalogue of the MSS. in Lincoln's Inn. After the MSS. were brought to the Library, they became in some way exposed to the damp, 'and[Pg 97] were in danger of being spoiled by a wet season.' Fortunately the danger was perceived by Ant. à Wood, who obtained leave of the Vice-Chancellor to dry them, which he accomplished by spreading them out in the sun upon the leads of the Schools' quadrangle. This cost him a month's labour, which, he says, he underwent with pleasure out of respect to the memory of Dodsworth, and care to preserve whatever might advantage the commonwealth of learning. The MSS. to this day give abundant proof, by their stains and tender condition, that, had it not been for Wood's unselfish labour, they would probably soon have perished. Some part of the collection appears to have been sent to the Library as late as 1684, for in the accounts of that year there is an entry of 4s. 10d. as having been paid for the 'carriage of Dodsworth's MSS.'

An interesting volume, written by the donor of these MSS., Fairfax, and entitled by him 'The Employment of my Solitude,' being metrical versions of the Psalms, with other poems, was bought, in 1858, for £36 10s., at the sale of the library of Dr. Bliss, who had purchased it at the Duke of Sussex's sale. It is described in Archdeacon Cotton's List of Bibles.

A.D. 1674.

In this year appeared the third Catalogus impressorum Librorum Bibliothecæ Bodleianæ, in one folio volume, divided into two parts of 478 and 272 pages respectively. It is dedicated to Archbishop Sheldon, by Hyde the Librarian, not without reason, as being printed in that Theatre which the Archbishop had so lately built. The Keeper, in this dedication, speaks very feelingly of the daily weariness of mind and body which the compilation of the Catalogue had cost him, and tells how his very hours for refreshment had been spent among books alone, and how [Pg 98](mirabile dictu!) he actually had not shrunk even from the inclemency of winter[131]. In his preface he says that, on his entrance into office, he reckoned that the work of a new catalogue would occupy him for two, or at most three, years; six, however, had been spent in compilation and transcription, one in revision and enlargement, and, lastly, two in the actual printing. Yet, says he, he never withdrew his neck from the yoke, and postponed all considerations of bodily health. People little know, he proceeds, what it is to accomplish a work of this kind. What is easier, say they, than to look at the beginning of a book and to copy out its title? They judge only from one or two weeks' work in some little library of their own. But, what with careful examining of volumes of pamphlets (which of itself was labour perfectly exhausting), what with distinguishing synonymous authors and works, and identifying metonymous ones, unravelling anagrammatical names and those derived from places, and the like, the poor man declares he endured the greatest torment of mind ('maximo animi cruciatu') as well as waste of precious time. It is clear, from these pathetic lamentations, that Hyde had no great love for Bibliography for its own sake. But, after all his complaints, it is actually asserted by Hearne that he 'did not do much in the work besides writing the dedication and preface[132]!' Hearne attributes the real compilation of the Catalogue to Emmanuel Prichard, or Pritchard, of Hart Hall, the janitor, who examined every book in the whole library, and wrote out the Catalogue, in two volumes, with his own hand. Hearne repeats this assertion frequently; it is found, e.g., in his preface to the Chronicon[Pg 99] Dunstap. p. xii., and in his Autobiography (1772, p. 11), where he adds that he was well informed of this by Dr. Mill and others. If this be true, the inditing such a preface, while totally suppressing Prichard's name, does little credit to Hyde.

Frequent mention of this Emmanuel Prichard is found between 1686 and 1699 as being employed upon the MSS., and as engaged in taking an account of duplicates and arranging Bishop Barlow's books. In 1687, £20 were paid him for 'writing a Catalogue of MSS.' Probably this was the list upon which Hearne asserts that the index to the Bodleian MSS., in Bernard's Catalogue, was founded[133]. Hearne describes him[134] as being 'a very industrious, usefull man.' Although a member of Hart Hall, he never took any degree; but wore a civilian's gown. He died in the Hall about 1704, aged upwards of 70, and was buried in St. Peter's-in-the-East. He left £200 to the Vice-Principal of Hart Hall, which was partly spent in building a library-room[135].

A.D. 1675.

In the Register of Benefactions, on a page faintly headed in pencil with this date, is entered a gift from Christopher, Lord Hatton, 'Homiliarum Saxonicarum 4 volumina antiqua.' The donor was consequently the second baron, and first viscount, Hatton, who succeeded his father Christopher (a firm royalist, and close friend of Clarendon, as well as antiquarian, and friend of Dodsworth) in 1670, and died in 1706. Possibly this gift may have been made through the influence of his uncle, Capt. Charles Hatton, who appears to have been much interested in Anglo-Saxon studies, who himself gave three MSS. to the Library, and several of whose letters to Dr. Charlett in 1694-1707 are preserved in vol. xxxiii. of Ballard's MSS. Strange to say, these volumes[Pg 100] of Homilies (written shortly after the Norman Conquest) are now among the Junian MSS., Nos. 22, 23, 24, 99, and their appearance in that collection is accounted for by Wanley (Cat. p. 45, where they are fully described) by a story which, he says, was often told him by Hyde, viz. that, immediately upon the arrival of the MSS. at the Library, they were lent to Dr. Marshall, who most probably in turn lent them to Junius; that, Marshall dying soon after, Junius kept them until his own death, when they returned to the Library with his own books, by his bequest. Junius himself frequently refers to them under the description of Codices Hattoniani.

The Library also contains a collection of 112 miscellaneous and valuable MSS., 'ex Codicibus Hattonianis,' of the presentation of which no record has been found[136], but which doubtless came about the same time from the same donor. Some precious Anglo-Saxon volumes form the special feature of this collection. Amongst them are, King Alfred's translation of Gregory's Pastoral Care, of which the king designed to send a copy to each Cathedral Church in the kingdom, this being the copy sent to Worcester (No. 20); the translation by Werfrith, Bishop of Worcester, of Gregory's Dialogues, with King Alfred's preface (No. 76); and a version of the Four Gospels, written about the time of Henry II (No. 65).

Henry Justell, afterwards Librarian at St. James's, sent to the University from France, through Dr. Hickes, three very precious MSS. of the seventh century, written in uncial characters, containing the Acts of the Council of Ephesus, the Canons of Carthage, Nicæa, Chalcedon, &c., which had been used by his father Christopher Justell in his Bibliotheca Juris Canonici veteris, 1661. They are now numbered, e Mus. 100-102. Several other MSS. given[Pg 101] at the same time are preserved in the same series. In return for this valuable gift Justell was created D.C.L. by diploma.

A.D. 1677.

The wonderful collection of Early English poetry known as 'the Vernon MS.,' was presented 'soon after the Civil Wars' by Col. Edward Vernon, of Trinity College, who had been an officer in the royal army. One who bore the same name, doubtless the same person, of North Aston, Oxon, was created D.C.L. Aug. 6, 1677; it was probably therefore about that time that the MS. was presented. The volume is described in Bernard's Catalogue, 1697, p. 181, as being a 'vast massy manuscript;' and very correctly. Its measurements are these: length of page, 22-1/2 inches; length of written text, 17-1/2 inches; breadth of page, 15 inches; breadth of written text, 12-1/2 inches. It is written in triple columns, on 412 leaves of stout vellum; and having been clad of late years in a proportionate russia binding, is altogether a Goliath among books. In date it is of the early part of the fourteenth century. Its first article bears the titles of 'Salus Animæ' and 'Sowle-Hele,' and its chief contents are Lives of the Saints, Hampole's Prick of Conscience, Grosteste's Castle of Love, Hampole's Perfect Living, the treatise on Contemplative Life, the Mirror of S. Edmund, the Abbey of the Holy Ghost, and Piers Plowman; besides a multitude of smaller pieces, several of which have been recently copied with a view to publication by the Early English Text Society[137]. Fifty copies of a brief list of the contents (numbering altogether 161 articles) were printed by J. O. Halliwell, Esq., in 1848. A MS., similar in size and contents, was presented to the British Museum a few years ago by Sir John Simeon; it is, apparently, the work of the same scribe as the Bodleian book.

A.D. 1678.

Francis Junius, born at Heidelberg in 1589, who had passed a large part of his life in England as librarian to that Howard Earl of Arundel who collected the marbles which go under his name at Oxford, as well as the MSS. similarly entitled, which are preserved in the British Museum and at Heralds' College, bequeathed to the Library, on his decease at Windsor in this year, all his Anglo-Saxon MSS. and his own life-long collections bearing on the philology of the Northern nations. Amongst these are some English relics of the greatest value and importance. The book of metrical Homilies on the Dominical Gospels, compiled by an Augustinian monk named Ormin, who thence called his book Ormulum ('þiss boc iss nemmnedd Orrmulum, Forrþi þatt Orrm itt wrohte') is one of the chief of these. Its date is conjectured to be the 13th century. It is written on parchment, on folio leaves, very long and very narrow (averaging 20 inches by 8) in a very broad and rude hand, with many additions inserted on extra parchment scraps. Twenty-seven leaves appear to be wanting. The whole work was first published in 2 vols., at the University Press in 1852, under the editorship of R. M. White, D.D., formerly Professor of Anglo-Saxon. Cædmon's metrical paraphrase of Genesis and other parts of Holy Scripture, illustrated with numerous curious drawings, is another of the gems of this collection. The MS. is of the end of the tenth century, but the work itself is now generally believed to be, in the main, the production of the earliest English poet, the Cædmon noticed by Bede (iii. 24), who died towards the close of the seventh century, and not, as Hickes conjectured, of some later writer of the same name. The MS. first came to light in the hands of Archbp. Usher, by whom it was given to Junius. The latter published it at Amsterdam in 1655, and it was re-edited by Mr. Benj. Thorpe in 1832; several English[Pg 103] and German translations have also appeared. Many of the drawings were engraved and published in 1754, as illustrations of the manners and buildings of the Anglo-Saxons; and the whole of them have been engraved in vol. xxiv. of the Archæologia, with some remarks by Sir H. Ellis. MS. 121 is an extremely valuable collection of the Canons of the Anglo-Saxon Church, written in the tenth century, which belonged to Worcester Cathedral; and there are four valuable volumes of Homilies, which appear, however, to have been part of Lord Hatton's gift to the Library. (See under 1675[138].) Besides books, Junius left to the University six founts of Gothic, Saxon, and other types, together with the moulds and matrices.

Fifty-five MSS. and printed books, chiefly Oriental, were purchased in this year from the library of Dr. Thomas Greaves, Deputy-professor of Arabic, who died May 22, 1676. It appears from the list in Bernard's Catalogue that sixty-five volumes were purchased, but that ten of these were never sent. With Greaves' own books were obtained also the MSS. of Richard James, of Corpus Christi College, nephew of Thomas James, the first Librarian, which had come into the possession of his friend Greaves upon his death in Dec. 1638. These amount to forty-three volumes, entirely written by James himself, in a large bold hand; they consist chiefly of Collectanea bearing on the history of England from various MSS. Chronicles, Registers, and early writers, particularly with reference to the corruption of the Church and[Pg 104] clergy before the Reformation, and in opposition to Becket. A full list of their contents, drawn up by Tanner, is given at pp. 248-253 of Bernard's Catalogue. The price paid for the books bought out of Greaves' library was £55.

Fifteen shillings were paid, as appears from the accounts for the year, for the carriage of a whale from Lechlade, which, strange to say, had been caught in the Severn, and was presented by William Jordan, an apothecary at Gloucester[139]. Ten shillings were also paid for a 'sea elephant.'

A.D. 1680. [See A.D. 1665.]

Sir W. Dugdale gave copies of his own works. Two hundred coins were given by Dr. George Hickes.

A.D. 1681.

In this year John Rushworth, of Lincoln's Inn, the historian of the Long Parliament, was a member of the Parliament held at Oxford. Probably it may have been at this time that he presented to the Library one of its most precious κειμηλια, called, from its donor, 'Codex Rushworthianus.' (Auct. D. 2. 19.) In 1665, Junius mentions it in the Preface to his Glossarium Gothicum, as being then still in Rushworth's own hands[140]. It is a MS. of the Latin Gospels, written by an Irish scribe, Mac-Regol, (who records his name on the last leaf, 'Macregol dipincxit hoc evangelium,' &c.,) and glossed with an interlinear Anglo-Saxon version by Owun and by Færmen, a priest at Harewood. The volume is traditionally reported to have been in Bede's possession, but since the Irish annals record the death of Mac Riagoil, a scribe and abbot of Birr in 820, the volume must be about a century too late. It has been[Pg 105] published in full, together with the Lindisfarne Gospels, by the Surtees Society in 3 vols., under the editorship of Rev. J. Stevenson and George Waring, Esq., M.A. A description is given in Prof. Westwood's Palæographia Sacra Pictoria.

Nine shillings were paid for the carriage of a mummy from London, probably one of those which are now in the Ashmolean Museum. It was given by Aaron Goodyear, a Turkey merchant, who gave also a model of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, and various little images, and in 1684 more than forty coins.

A.D. 1682.

Richard Davis, M.A., of Sandford, Oxon, gave the portrait of Margaret, Countess of Richmond, a book of Russian laws, and the Runic Calendar or Clog Almanack, now exhibited in the glass case at the entrance of the Library. The latter is thus described in the Register: 'Calendarium ligneum, tam materia quam usu perpetuum, unius ligni quadrati angulis incisum, more antiquo.'

Dr. John Morris, Regius Professor of Hebrew, who died in 1648, bequeathed five pounds annually to the University, to be paid to some Master of Arts of Ch. Ch., chosen by the Dean, for a speech 'in Schola Linguarum,' in honour of Sir Thomas Bodley, 'and as a panegyric and encouragement of the Hebrew studies,' on Nov. 8, in the presence of the Visitors of the Library after the conclusion of the annual visitation. The bequest was to take effect after the death of his wife, which happened on Nov. 11, 1681; and on Oct. 6, 1682, Convocation fixed 3 p.m. as the hour for delivery of the Speech on the Visitation-day.

The Speeches are continued annually, although, probably for want of public notice, only scantily attended, none but those actually interested in the Visitation of the Library, together with the speaker's friends, being generally aware of it. If provision[Pg 106] were made for the deposit of the Speeches in the Library after delivery, they would no doubt form an interesting and accurate record of its growth, and of many passing events which, for want of such a record, are soon forgotten. Only one speech appears to be preserved in the Library: it is that delivered on Nov. 8, 1701, by Edmund Smith, M.A., of Ch. Ch., and is very beautifully written in imitation of typography. But in this case nothing is recorded of the history of the preceding year, the speech being simply a panegyric of the Founder. It has been printed among Smith's Works, a pamphlet of 103 pages dignified with that name, of which the third edition appeared at London in 1719[141]. Dr. Rawlinson appears to have endeavoured to compile a list of the Speakers; for Bishop Tanner, in a letter to him dated Oct. 11, 1735, from Ch. Ch., says he will enquire them out, if he can, but that they are not entered upon the Chapter books, since they are not appointed by the Chapter, but privately by the Dean or Hebrew Professor, and paid by the Vice-Chancellor, in whose accounts alone their names are probably entered[142].

The names of the Speakers up to the year 1690 are given in Wood's Athenæ (ii. 127) as follows. They were all M.A., and Students of Ch. Ch.:—

• 1682 Thomas Sparke
• 1683 Zach. Isham
• 1684 Chas. Hickman
• 1685 Thos. Newey
• 1686 Thos. Burton
• 1687 Will. Bedford
• 1688 Rich. Blakeway
• 1689 Roger Altham, jun.
• 1690 Edward Wake
• * * * *
• 1701 Edm. Smith

The following list from 1706 to 1734 has been gathered out of Hearne's MS. Diary:—

• 1706 Rich. Newton
• 1707 Thos. Terry[Pg 107]
• 1708 Will. Periam
• 1709 Rich. Sadlington
• 1710 Richard Frewin
• 1711 — Aldred[143]
• 1712 Gilb. Lake
• 1713 Hen. Cremer
• 1714 Chas. Brent
• 1715 John White
• 1716 Edw. Ivie
• 1717 Hen. Gregory
• 1718 Thos. Fenton
• 1719 George Wiggan
• 1720 Thos. Foulkes
• 1721 Will. Le Hunt
• 1722 Hen. Shirman
• 1723 Matthew Lee
• 1724 Christopher Haslam
• 1725 Will. Davis
• 1726 Edw. Blakeway
• 1727 David Gregory
• 1728 [Rob.?] Manaton
• 1729 [Hen.?] Jones
• 1730 John Fanshaw
• 1731 Oliver Battely
• 1732 Dan. Burton
• 1733 Fifield Allen
• 1734 Pierce Manaton, M.D.

A.D. 1683.

Three MSS., containing the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Syriac Pentateuch, and the Syriac Old Testament, were purchased at the cost of the University.

A.D. 1684.

Nine Oriental and Russian MSS. were given by Joseph Taylor, LL.D., of St. John's College. And Sir Rob. Viner, Bart., the loyal alderman of London, favoured the Library with a human skeleton, a tanned human skin, and the dried body of a negro boy!

A.D. 1685.

Thomas Marshall, or Mareschall, D.D., Rector of Lincoln College, and Dean of Gloucester, who died April 18, bequeathed his MSS., and all such among his printed books as were not already in the Library. The MSS. amounted to 159, chiefly Oriental, including some valuable Coptic copies of the Gospels,[Pg 108] &c., which were procured for him by Huntington, with a few in Dutch, and others miscellaneous in language and subject. They are entered in Bernard's Catalogue, pp. 272-3, and 373-4. The printed books are still kept together under his name.

A.D. 1686.

Fell, Bishop of Oxford, who died July 10, bequeathed a few MSS. They consist of an early and curious collection of Vitæ Sanctorum in four folio volumes, of a transcript (in nine folio volumes) of a Glossarium Septentrionale by Francis Junius, Dionysius Syrus in Latin by Dudley Loftus, and two Greek MSS., Damascius and Euthymius Zigabenus, described at the end (col. 907) of Mr. Coxe's Catalogue of the Greek MSS. One other MS. has somehow been incorporated in this collection (now numbered 21-23) which does not belong to it. It is a Clavis Linguæ Sanctæ, or explanation of all the Hebrew, and some Chaldee, roots, found in the Old Testament, by Nicholas Trott, in three folio volumes, written with great care and neatness. This, of which the first part had been printed at Oxford in 1719, was sent to the Library in 1746, as appears from the following letter, preserved (without address) in a parcel of papers relating to the Library, now in the Librarian's study:—

[Pg 109]

It appears, however, from the accounts, &c., that the MS. was not actually delivered until 1748 or 1749, when it was received through Dr. Hunt.

A few of Bishop Fell's MSS. came subsequently to the Library among those of Rev. Henry Jones[144], who succeeded Fell in his rectory of Sunningwell, Berks, in the church of which parish the Bishop's wife was buried.

At the Visitation on Nov. 8, it was ordered that notice be given that 'Nullus in posterum quemlibet librum aut volumen extra Bibliothecam asportet,' and that monition be sent to every College and Hall for the return of any books taken out within three days. Several books appear to have been reported in previous years as missing; hence, doubtless, the issue of this order.

A.D. 1687.

On the occasion of the visit of King James II to Oxford, chiefly, but unsuccessfully, made for the purpose of overawing the fellows of Magdalen College, who had refused to elect as president his nominee, Anth. Farmer, he was invited by the University to partake of a breakfast or collation in the Library. For this purpose he came hither on the morning of Sept. 5, between nine and ten, where, at the south part of the Selden end, a banquet was prepared which cost the University £160, consisting of 111 dishes of meat, sweetmeats, and fruit. The King sat here for about three quarters of an hour, and held some conversation with Hyde about a Chinese, 'a little blinking fellow,' who had recently visited the place, and about the religion of China; but asked no one to join him at the table. Upon rising to depart, a scene of strange indecorum, as it would now appear, ensued; the 'rabble' (as they are described) of courtiers and academics rushed upon the mass of untouched dainties, and began a disorderly[Pg 110] scramble, in which they 'flung the wet sweetmeats on the ladies linnen and petticoats, and stained them.' The King watched the scramble for two or three minutes, and then departed, commending to the Vice-Chancellor and doctors his chaplain, W. Hall, who had preached before him the day previous, and delivering a most fatherly homily on the sin of pride, the virtue of charity, and the duty of doing as they would be done to. Good, gossipping, Ant. à Wood gives in his Autobiography a full account of all that passed, from which are taken the quotations made above[145].

A.D. 1688.

Dr. Hyde went up to London in this year to demand personally of the Company of Stationers the books which were due to the Library by Act of Parliament (1 James II, cap. 17, for seven years, continuing previous acts), but which they had neglected to send. His expenses were £6 5s.

A.D. 1690.

Thirty pounds were paid in this year to Antony à Wood for twenty-five MSS. out of his library[146]. These are volumes of great value, including Chartularies of the Abbeys of Glastonbury and Malmesbury, and of the Preceptory of Sandford, Oxon, copies of Papal bulls relating to England, a register of lands in Leicestershire temp. Hen. VI, &c.

The rest of Wood's MSS., and printed books, came to the Library, together with the other collections preserved in the Ashmolean Museum, in 1860.

It is said that Wood in this year estimated the number of MSS.[Pg 111] in the Library at 10,141. This must have been the number of separate books, not volumes, as in 1697 the latter appear from Bernard's Catalogue to have been about 6700.

A.D. 1691.

On Oct. 8, died Dr. Thomas Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln, who, retaining his attachment for the place over which he had presided from 1652 to 1660, bequeathed to it seventy-eight MSS. (now bound in fifty-four volumes), and all the printed books in his collection which the Library did not possess, the remainder going to Queen's College. They appear to have been received in the years 1693-4, as large payments for the carriage are found in the accounts then. His MSS. are described in the old Catalogue of 1697. The printed books, which are particularly rich in tracts of the time of Charles I and the Usurpation, are still kept distinct, being called Linc.; ending, in the 8^o series, at about the middle of the shelves marked with the letter C in that division. They are placed in the gallery on the left hand of the great central room[147]. His legacy included a copy of the famous Exposicio Sancti Jeronimi in Simbolo Apostolorum, which was printed at Oxford in 1468, and completed, as the colophon states, on Dec. 17. This volume was given to Barlow, as he notes at the beginning, by Bishop Juxon, July 31, 1657. It is exhibited in the glass case near the entrance. The Library possesses also seven other productions of the early Oxford press. They are as follow:—

A list of sixty-six books, which Hunt, the Oxford printer and bookseller, had in his hands for sale in 1483, is preserved in his own writing on a fly-leaf in a copy of a French translation of Livy, Paris, 1486, which was bought for the Library from Mr. C. J. Stewart, in Dec. 1860, for £12. The list is headed thus: 'Inventorium librorum quos ego Thomas Hunt, stacionarius[Pg 113] universitatis Oxoniensis, recepi de Magistro Petro Actore et Johannis (sic) de Aquisgrano ad vendendum, cum precio cujuslibet libri, et promito (sic) fideliter restituere libros aut pecunias secundum precium inferius scriptum, prout patebit in sequentibus, Anno Domini M^o. CCCC^o. octuagesimo tercio.'

A.D. 1692.

Thirty-eight Persian and Arabic MSS., with one printed book, were bought from Hyde, the Librarian. They are entered in Bernard's Catalogue, pp. 286-7. Being bought out of the funds of the University, no mention of the price paid for them is found in the Library accounts.

A.D. 1693.

The Oriental MSS., in number 420, of the famous Edward Pococke, Regius Professor of Hebrew (who had deceased Sept. 10, 1691), were purchased by the University for £600. They are chiefly in Armenian, Hebrew, and Arabic, with three volumes in Æthiopic, a Samaritan Pentateuch, and a Persian Evangeliary. A list is given at pp. 274-278 of Bernard's Catalogue. In 1822 the Library became possessed of a portion of Pococke's Collection of printed miscellaneous books, by the bequest of Rev. C. Francis, M.A., of Brasenose College. They are chiefly small volumes in Latin, on historical subjects; and are, for the most part, placed in the shelves marked 8^o Z. Jur. [Arabic version of Isaiah, see p. 81.]

Another large Oriental collection was added in this year by the purchase, from Dr. Robert Huntington, for the sum of £700, of about 600 MSS. These he had procured while holding the post of chaplain to the English merchants at Aleppo[149]. The[Pg 114] collection is one of very great value and rarity. No. 1 is a fine and ponderous Syriac volume, containing the works of Gregory Abulpharage. No. 2 is a very fine folio Arabic MS., written in the year of the Hegira 777 (= A.D. 1375), and dedicated to the Sultan Almalek Alashraf Shalian ben Hosain; in it, as Uri says in his Catalogue, 'variæ Ægypti regiones recensentur, agrorum cujusque regionis mensura definitur, et annui redditus exponuntur.' Dibdin[150] describes it in his own exaggerated style, as follows:—'One of the grandest books— ... a sort of Domesday compilation—which can possibly be seen.... The scription is in double columns, with the margins emblazoned only in stars. The title, on the reverse of the first leaf, is highly illuminated, in a fine style; not crowded with ornaments, but grand from its simplicity. At the end, we observe that it is (rightly) called Munus Pretiosum, and that the author was Sherfiddin Iahia ben Almocar ben Algiaian. The inspection of such a volume, on the coldest possible morning, even when the thermometer stands at zero, is sufficient to warm the most torpid system.' No. 80 is a copy of Maimonides' Yad Hachazaka, revised by the author, with his autograph signature at the bottom of fol. 165, and a MS. note by him on fol. 1. Of these an engraved facsimile is given in Treasures of Oxford, containing Poetical Compositions by the ancient Jewish Authors in Spain, and compiled from MSS. in the Bodl. Libr. by H. Edelman and Leop. Dukes; edited and rendered into English by M. H. Bresslau: part i. 8^o. Lond. 1851. A second part of this work was to have contained prose selections from MSS. in the Huntington, Pococke, Michael, and Oppenheim collections, but no more was published. Among Huntington's books there are also three, of no great antiquity, in the Mendean character, of which Dr. T. Smith narrates in his life of Bernard[Pg 115] (1704, p. 21) that two were said to have been given by God to Adam, and the third to the angels, 330,000 years before Adam. And one volume (No. 598) is in the Ouigour language, a Tartar dialect, of which very few specimens are known to exist. A gentleman M. Vaḿbery, the traveller in Tartary, who is engaged in forming a Chrestomathy of this dialect, came in the last year to England for the purpose of examining this volume, as one of the few on which his work could be based. Three MSS. exist at Paris; but that in the Bodleian is said to be the most beautiful of all as a specimen of writing, as well as the most ancient. It is a version of the Bakhtiar Nameh. A description of it, with an engraved facsimile, is given in Davids' Turkish Grammar, 4^o. Lond. 1832, pref. p. xxxi.

An exchange of some duplicates was made with the Library of Queen's College, and in 1695 the duplicates of Bishop Barlow's Collection were transferred, in accordance with his will, to the same Library.

A.D. 1694.

A Mr. Clarke was employed in this year in making a catalogue of Pococke's and Huntington's MSS., for which he altogether received between £13 and £14.

A.D. 1695.

Books were bought from Mr. Bobart, and at the auction of the library of Sir Charles Scarborough, M.D.

Stationers' Company. See 1610.

MSS. from Wood. See 1658.[Pg 116]

A.D. 1696.

From this year until 1700, Humphrey Wanley was an assistant in the Library, at an annual salary of £12. He had also £10 at the end of this year 'extraordinary, for his paines already past,' and £15, at the beginning of 1700, 'for his pains about Dr. Bernard's books.' Possibly this grant may have been in consequence of the interposition of Bishop Lloyd of Worcester, who, in a letter to Wanley of Jan. 6, in that year, promises to speak to the Bishop of Oxford to see whether he can get his place in the Library made better for him[151]. Wanley was no favourite with Hearne. The following passage from the MS. Diary of the latter[152] is a specimen of the censure which he on several occasions passes on him: 'Humphrey Wanley appears from several passages to be a very illiterate silly fellow. He committed strange and almost incredible blunders when he was employed by Dr. Charlett and some others in printing the catalogue of the MSS. of England and Ireland, which work was committed first to the care of Dr. Bernard; but he being then very weak and otherwise employed, he could not take so much pains about it as he would, had he not been thus hindered.' The very accurate index, however, to this Catalogue was Bernard's own work, made from the proof-sheets, and written with his own hand, 'uti ab illo accepi,' says Dr. T. Smith in his Life (1704, p. 48). He prepared also another index, which included besides the contents of eight of the great foreign libraries, but not the Royal Library at Paris, the catalogue of which he was unable to obtain.

A.D. 1697.

On the death of Edward Bernard, D.D., the Savilian Professor of Astronomy (which occurred on Jan. 12), the University became the purchaser from his widow of the greater part of his library. A selection from his printed books, made on behalf of the Library by H. Wanley, comprising many rare Aldines and specimens of the 15th century, were bought for £140, and his MSS., many of which were valuable copies of classical authors, together with collated printed texts and his own Adversaria, for £200. Of 218 of the latter, Bernard has given a very brief list in his own invaluable Catalogus Manuscriptorum Angliæ, which appeared posthumously, in the year of his death. (Vol. ii. pp. 226-8.) The bulk of his books are dispersed through various divisions of the Library; but about thirty volumes of his own Adversaria are kept together under his name. A very full account, by H. Wanley, of the purchase of the collection is printed by Dr. Bliss in his notes to the Ath. Oxon. (iv. 709), who adds that this addition 'contained many of the most valuable books, both printed and MSS., now in the Library.'

In the discharge of his duty of selection, Wanley came into sharp collision with his chief, Dr. Hyde, as is shown by a curious paper, in Wanley's handwriting, which was transcribed by Dr. Rawlinson from the original in Dr. Charlett's possession[153]. The paper gives a list of books for the not securing which, together with others, out of Dr. Bernard's collection, blame had been thrown upon Wanley, and which Hyde had said must by all means be bought at the auction which was to be held in October, 1697. To the title of each book so specified, Wanley appends some caustic remarks, exposing Dr. Hyde's little acquaintance with[Pg 118] the Library or with the books themselves; and sums up thus at the close:—'This is what I have to say to these 13 books, one whereof I look upon as imperfect, two more I was charged not to meddle with, and the other ten are in the Library already. I shall wave all unmannerly reflections, as whether this be not in you insignis insufficientia, for which you are liable to be turned out of your place; or [whether,] if you had been employed to bring in a list of Dr. Bernard's books wanting in the Library, and took the same method as now, the University would not have bought a fair parcel of duplicates, and such like; but I pass them by. Tho' it must be owned that the University being willing to lay out but 140 pounds, some different editions of the Bible, Fathers, Classicks, &c., were preferr'd to some books not at all in the Library, but they were at the same time judged to be of less moment, and likely to be given to it by future benefactors.'

The quarrel, however, soon ceased; for, in the following year, Hyde was anxious to see Wanley appointed as his successor. The latter, in a letter to Dr. Charlett, dated Oct. 10, 1698[154], repeats a conversation held with Hyde on the previous evening, in which the Librarian said 'that he is heartily weary of the place of Library-keeper; that he must use more exercise in riding out, &c., if he intends to preserve his health; which will of necessity hinder his attendance there. He had rather I succeeded him than anybody else, which I cannot do untill I am a graduate; that, if I have any friends amongst the heads of houses, they cann't do better for me than in procuring for me the degree of Batchellor of Law, that I may be in a condition to stand for his place with others, which he will resign as soon as I have obtain'd the said degree, and (for my sake) will communicate his intentions to nobody else in the mean time. He presses me to get this degree as soon as possible, urging that[Pg 119] he does not care how soon he is rid of his place.' Wanley asks for Charlett's advice; what that was does not appear, but, at any rate, he did not obtain the degree which he desired, and consequently did not become eligible as Hyde's successor.

Sixteen MS. treatises on Mathematics, Astronomy, and Ancient History, by Thomas Lydiat, were given by Will. Coward, M.D. They are placed amongst the Bodl. MSS., chiefly between Nos. 658-671.

A.D. 1700.

Considerable fears were entertained for the safety of the Divinity School and that portion of the Library which is built over it. About thirty-two years before, some failure had been observed in the roof of the former, which was rectified under the superintendence of Sir Christopher Wren. When Bishop Barlow's books were brought to the Library, in 1692 or 1693, the galleries on either side of the middle room were erected; and, as the beams of the roof of the School were then observed to give from the wall, they were anchored on both sides, under the direction of Dr. Aldrich. But the tight bracing had now caused the south wall, that which adjoins Exeter College garden, to bulge outwards, so that the book-stalls were found to have started from the wall by three and a-half inches at the top and two and a-half at the bottom; the wall itself was seven and a-half inches out of the perpendicular, and the four great arches of the vault of the School were all cracked. Hereupon Dr. Gregory, the Savilian Professor, was despatched to London to consult Sir C. Wren again, and, by his advice, additional buttresses of great depth and strength were erected on the south side, the weight of the bookstalls was removed from the roof of the School by their being trussed up to the walls with iron cramps; and the cracks in the vault were filled with lead or oyster-shells, and in some places[Pg 120] with the insertion of new stones, and were then 'wedged up with well-seasoned oaken wedges.' This work went on through the summers of 1701 and 1702; and in 1703 some similar repairs were executed in some of the other Schools. The letters and papers of Wren on the subject, with the draughts, and reports of the workmen employed, are preserved in Bodley MS. 907. They are printed in [Walker's] Oxoniana, iii. 16-27.

In this year died Henry Jones, M.A., Vicar of Sunningwell, Berks[155]. He bequeathed to the Library sixty volumes in MS., very miscellaneous in character, and chiefly of the 16th and 17th centuries. Some of them had belonged to Bishop Fell. The bequest probably came to Oxford some few years after Mr. Jones' death, as the books are entered (in a full and accurate list) by Hearne, in the Benefaction Book, among the gifts of about the years 1706-12. It was from a modern transcript among these that Hearne edited the Historia Regum Angliæ of John Ross or Rouse; and seventy-one documents from No. 23, which is an Hereford Chartulary, were printed by Rawlinson at the end of his History of Hereford, 8^o, Lond. 1717. One volume has for many years been missing from the collection, viz., a funeral oration, by John Sonibanck, on the death of Queen Elizabeth of York, in 1503. A list of the MSS. is printed from the Benefaction Register, in Uffenbach's Commercium Epistolicum, pp. 200-208.

Between 1700 and 1738 Sir Hans Sloane is recorded to have given considerably more than 1400 volumes, together with his picture in 1731; but the majority of them do not appear to have been considered of much value, and only 415 are specified by name in the Benefaction Register. Dr. Hyde, in a letter to Hudson, which accompanied a list of the books for which the latter had asked with a view to registration, says he scarce thinks the entry to be 'for the credit of the business, [Pg 121]nos inter nos[156].' But Hudson appears to have thought that the omission proceeded rather from carelessness, for, in a letter to Wanley, he says that he thinks Hyde assigned 'non causa pro causa[157].'

A.D. 1701.

The long-entertained idea of resigning the Librarianship was at length carried out by Dr. Thomas Hyde in this year, for the reasons given in the following letter, which was addressed by him to the Pro-Vice-Chancellor, probably Dr. Charlett. It is here printed from a copy sent by Hyde to Wake, then Rector of St. James, Westminster, and preserved amongst the Wake Correspondence in the library of Ch. Ch.:—

'March 10, 1700/01,
'Christ Church, Oxon.

'In the mean time I remain,
'Your humble servant,
'THOMAS HYDE.'

[Pg 123]

John Hudson, M.A., of Queen's, afterwards D.D. and Princ. of St. Mary Hall, was elected in Hyde's room; he was opposed by J. Wallis, M.A., of Magd., the Laudian Professor of Arabic, but was chosen by 194 votes to 173[161]. A letter to him from Hyde on his election, with advice about the entering of Sir H. Sloane's books in the Register, the augmentation of Mr. Crabbe's salary, the Catalogues and the Statutes, is printed in [Walker's] Letters by Eminent Persons, i. 173. He had previously, in 1696-98, given seventy books to the Library, and in 1705-10 he added nearly 600. Hyde did not long survive his resignation, dying before one year had elapsed, on Feb. 18, 1702. He was buried at Handborough, near Oxford.

In this year Thomas Hearne, the famous antiquary, was appointed Janitor, or Assistant, in the Library. He tells us in his Autobiography (p. 10) that, from the time of his taking the degree of B.A. in Act term, 1699, 'he constantly went to the Bodleian Library every day, and studied there as long as the time allowed by the Statutes would admit,' and that the fact of this his 'diligence being taken notice of by all persons that came thither, and his skill in books being likewise well known to those with whom he had at any time conversed,' occasioned Hudson's appointing him to be an Assistant immediately upon his own election as Librarian. It appears, from the Visitors' Book, that a payment of £10 was made to him in this year, and that, in the next year, £30 were voted to him for his assistance in making an Appendix to the Catalogue of printed books[162], and for enlarging and correcting the Catalogues of MSS. and Coins. Extra payments of 50s. were also made to him in 1704 and 1706, and of 20s. in 1709.

The Bodley Speech. See 1682.[Pg 124]

A.D. 1702.

A considerable number of printed books were given by Steph. Penton, B.D., and a collection of 500 coins was bequeathed about this time by Tim. Nourse, of Univ. Coll.

A.D. 1704.

The name of John Locke appears in the Register, as the donor of his own works (which he gave at Hudson's request), together with some others, including, with an honourable fairness, those of Bishop Stillingfleet written in controversy with himself. As Locke's expulsion from Ch. Ch., in 1684, by royal mandate, for political reasons, is sometimes, with an injustice which he himself would doubtless have warmly repudiated, represented as if it had been the act of Oxford itself, it is worth while to quote the language in which this gift from him, twenty years afterwards, is recorded, and recorded, too, by the pen of the earnest and conscientious Jacobite, Thomas Hearne: 'Joannes Lock, generosus, et hujus Academiæ olim alumnus, præter Opera ab ipso edita, ob ingenii elegantiam, doctrinæ varietatem, et philosophicam subtilitatem, omnibus suspicienda (here follow the titles of his own works), insuper ex suo in optimas artes amore, animoque ad supellectilem literariam augendam propenso, Bibliothecæ huic dono dedit libros sequentes;' scil. Churchill's Voyages and Travels, 4 vols., 1704, Stillingfleet's Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity, Stillingfleet's Answer to Locke, and Rob. Boyle's History of the Air. Locke desired, in a codicil to his will, that in compliance with a second request from Hudson, all his anonymous works should also be sent to the Library[163].

William Ray, formerly consul at Smyrna, presented about[Pg 125] 600 coins, chiefly Greek, which E. Lhwyd (who reported their number to be about 2000) said he had been told had been collected at Smyrna by his cook[164]. But the Benefaction Register records that they were obtained by Ray from the widow of one 'domini Dan. Patridge,' who had himself intended to present them to the University. They were put in order, and a Catalogue made of them, some years afterwards, by Hearne, who intended to have given the Catalogue to the Library, 'had not,' he says, 'the ill usage he afterwards met with there obliged him to alter his mind[165].' Ray also gave a Turkish almanac.

A.D. 1706.

The supposed original MS. of The Causes of the Decay of Christian Piety, by the author of The Whole Duty of Man, was given by Mr. Keble, the London bookseller. It is now numbered Bodl. MS. 21. Dr. Aldrich was of opinion that it is not in the author's own hand, but copied in a disguised hand by Bishop Fell. Hearne thought it to be in a disguised hand of Sancroft's; but the resemblance is very slight indeed[166].

A.D. 1707.

Six volumes of Archbishop Usher's Collectanea, with two or three other MSS. which had belonged to him, were given to the Library by James Tyrrell, the historian, who was the archbishop's grandson. He had placed them previously in the hands of Dr. Mill, for use by him in his edition of the Greek Test., and it was about a week before Mill's death, June 21, 1707, that they were transferred, together with a gift from Mill of[Pg 126] various printed books, to the Library[167]. They are now placed among the Rawlinson Miscellaneous MSS., 1065-1074, and one volume containing various readings in the Gr. Test., is numbered Auct. T. v. 30. Other volumes of his MSS. Collections in the Library are Barlow, 10 and 13; e Musæo, 46 and 47; Rawl. Misc. 225, 280; Rawl. Letters, 89, and Rawlinson C. 849, 850, which last were given to Hearne by Tyrrell. Hearne has printed some extracts at the end of Gul. Neubrig. iii. 804. Six Samaritan and other MSS. which belonged to Usher are now in the class called Bodl. Orient.

By the bequest of Dr. Humphrey Hody the Library acquired some 400 or 500 volumes, being all those in his own collection which were wanting here, together with his MSS. Collectanea. These last, amounting to twenty-three volumes, are now numbered Bodl. Addit. 1. D. 1-4, 2. B. 1-16, 2. C. 1-3.

Thomas, Archbishop of Gocthan, in Armenia, visited England on an errand which seems to have justly excited great sympathy and attention. Sensible of the low condition of his fellow-countrymen, through their want of means of instruction, and being earnestly anxious to do something towards their elevation, he had spent some forty years in travels through Europe and Asia for the purpose of procuring books, establishing printing-presses, educating young men, and obtaining help for the furtherance of his Christian and patriotic projects. His first printing establishment, at Marseilles, was ruined by the mismanagement and fraud of those to whom it was entrusted. He then, for ten years, carried on a press at Amsterdam, where he printed, in Armenian, the New Testament, the Prayers and Hymns of the Church, a translation of Thomas à Kempis, and several other theological works, together with some in geography, history, and science.[Pg 127] But troubles and trials again overtook him; disputes and law-suits involved him in debt; one hundred books, which he shipped for Armenia in 1698, were taken at sea, and so never reached their destination. And so, poor and sorrowful, in extreme old age, the Archbishop came to England to seek for help, recommended by Dr. John Cockburn, the English Minister at Amsterdam. He was well received by the Archbishops, and Sharp, of York, procured him an interview with the Queen, who gave him some assistance. Then, recommended by Bishop Compton[168], of London, he came to Oxford. What he received in the way of the help which he most of all needed, deponent sayeth not; let us hope it was not small. What he received in the way of honour, and what he did to cause the introduction of his name in these Annals, Hearne tells, in his own interesting way, in his Diary[169]:—

In another volume of memoranda[171], Hearne adds the following notice of one of the books given by the Archbishop: 'Amongst other books which he gave to the Bodleian Library is a History, at the beginning of which the Archbishop's nephew put the following memorandums: "Historia Nationis Armeniæ, a Moise Chorenensi grammatico, doctore Armeno. Amst. 1695. Maii 28, 1707, Bibliothecæ Bodleianæ dono dedit reverendiss. Thomas Archiep. S. Crucis in Majori Armenia. Per manum ejusd. reverendiss. nepotis, Lucæ Nurigianidis." Underneath which is written, at the motion of Dr. Charlett, and by the direction of the said Archbishop's nephew: "Auctorem istius libri floruisse traditur seculo quarto post Christum."' The book is now numbered, 8^o V. 134 Th.

A.D. 1709.

In this year the first Copyright Act was passed, which required the depositing of copies of all works entered at Stationers' Hall at nine libraries in England and Scotland. This number was increased upon the Union with Ireland to eleven, but finally[Pg 129] reduced to five (British Museum; Oxford; Cambridge; Advocates' Library, Edinburgh; and Trinity College, Dublin) by 5 & 6 Will. IV. c. 110.

A.D. 1710.

Dr. Richard Middleton Massey, formerly of Brasenose College, gave (with a few other books) a very curious and valuable series of Registers of the Parliamentary Committee for augmentation of poor vicarages, from 1645 to 1652, in eight folio volumes, with one earlier volume containing a list of livings in the diocese of Norwich, with their values and incumbents. To local antiquaries these proceedings are full of interest, while their historical and biographical value is equally great. They are now numbered Bodl. MSS. 322-330. Of the printed books given by Dr. Massey, most of those in octavo were placed at the end of Bishop Barlow's books, in the shelves marked D. Linc.

Three thousand pounds were offered by the University for the library of Isaac Vossius, but refused. But the books were shortly afterwards sold to the University of Leyden for the same sum[172].

A.D. 1711.

A watch which had belonged to Dudley, Earl of Leicester, is said to have been presented by Mr. Ralph Howland, of Maidenhead.

Grabe's Adversaria. See 1724.

A.D. 1712.

'July 19, Died Mr. Joseph Crabb, Under-keeper of the Bodleian Library, having kept in ever since this day sennight. He died of a rheumatism, occasion'd by a careless sort of life. He was, however, an honest harmless man. He was buried on Monday night following (between 7 and 8 o'cl.) in Haly-well Church[Pg 130]yard, very privately. Upon his coffin was put, I. C. ag. 38. 1712; but I heard him say some time since he was 39 years old[173].' He is described in the following caustic terms by Zach. Conr. Uffenbach, in a letter written in 1713, and printed in his Commercium Epistolicum[174]:—

The date of Crabb's appointment has not been ascertained, but it must have been previous to 1699, as on Nov. 8 of that year an order appears in the Visitors' Book for an extra payment to him of £10[175]; other additional payments of £5 and 50s. are made to him annually until 1710. Two vols. of an index to texts of printed sermons, ending about the year 1708, (now Bodl. MSS. 47 and 657,) which were, doubtless, intended to form a continuation of Verneuil's little book, are said in an old entry in the Catalogue to be by 'Mr. Crabb.' The following brief account of him is given in Rawlinson's MSS. collections for a continuation of Wood's Athenæ:—

[Pg 131]

Rawlinson goes on to attribute to him (as his solitary claim to a place in the Athenæ) a Poem on the late Storm, Lond. 1704, fol., but this was written (as well as a Latin poem In Georgium reducem, Lond. 1719, fol.) by John Crabb, Fellow of Exeter College (B.A., Oct. 15, 1685; M.A., June 19, 1688), who was also a Sub-librarian at an earlier period, but the date of whose entrance into office as well as of quittance is not known. The latter became Rector of Breamore, Hants, in 1709, where he died in 1748 at the age of eighty-five. He is remarkable for having married four wives, all of whom lie buried with him in his church. The third of these, Grace Shuckbridge, became his wife when he was aged seventy-six and she was forty-nine; the last (who survived until March 13, 1777) was thirty-six when she took him, at the age of eighty-one, for better or worse. There is a handsome marble tablet to his memory on the north wall of the Chancel of Breamore Church, bearing the following inscription, and surmounted by his arms (scil., on a field gules a chevron between two fleur-de-lis above and a crab displayed below or; crest, a demi-lion rampant or) painted in their proper colours:—

On July 22, Thomas Hearne was appointed Second-keeper by Dr. Hudson, in the room of Crabb, while still retaining his post as Janitor, 'with liberty allow'd him of being keeper of the Anatomy schoole, or Bodleian repository, on purpose to advance the perquisites of the place, which are very inconsiderable[177],' but with the proviso that the salary of the janitor's place should go to an assistant officer. By this arrangement Hearne retained the keys, so that he could go in and out when he pleased[178].

'Sept. 16, Dr. Hudson told me to-day that some have complain'd that books in the Publick Library are not so easily come at as usual. I am glad there is such a complaint. I am afraid the complainers are such as us'd to steal books from the Library, and, upon that account, are concern'd that they are more strictly look'd after than formerly[179].'

A.D. 1713.

The learned and munificent Narcissus Marsh, Archbishop successively of Cashel, Dublin, and Armagh, on his death, Nov. 2, in this year, bequeathed to the Library a very large and valuable[Pg 133] gathering of Oriental MSS., which had been chiefly procured for him in the East by Huntington, and at the sale of Golius' library, at Leyden, in October, 1696, by Bernard. The collection numbers at present 714 volumes, but probably some of these may have been books added for convenience' sake from other sources. Many of them bear the motto of some former owner (qu. Golius?), somewhat like in form to Selden's, but better in spirit, πανταχη την αληθειαν.' It is strange that no notice of this liberal gift is found in any of the Library Registers, and it is only from a passing mention in Hearne's preface to Camden's Elizabeth (p. lxvi.) that we find it was a death-bed legacy, and consequently learn the date of its acquisition. Hearne there says that the books were placed in the Library 'in tenebris;' and this expression was made one of the subjects of complaint against him when prosecuted in 1718 in the Vice-Chancellor's court on account of that preface. He then replied that the expression was correct, for that they were placed in a dark corner to which access was only had through a trap-door, but that he himself had put them there for want of a better place. He had wished to deposit them in one of the rooms in the Picture Gallery, but Dr. Hudson kept that for his own purposes[180].

At this period every stranger admitted to read in the Library had to pay nine shillings in fees, of which 1s. went to the Head Librarian, 3s. 6d. to the Second Librarian, 1s. 6d. to the Janitor, 2s. to the Registrar (for an order for admission, but in the Long Vacation this fee went to the Second Librarian), and 1s. to the Proctor's man[181]. In 1720 the fee to be received from every visitor not qualified to read was fixed at one penny, to be paid to a porter who was then first appointed to the charge of the Picture Gallery. It subsequently rose by a silent custom to the large sum of a shilling; but some few years ago the Curators fixed[Pg 134] the charge to visitors at threepence each, unless accompanied, and in consequence franked, by some member of the University in his academic dress. Since this moderate sum has been fixed, the number of ordinary sight-seeing visitors has, naturally, much increased[182].

The suppression, by an order of the Heads of Houses, dated March 23, 1712/3, of Hearne's edition of Dodwell's tract De Parma Equestri Woodwardiana, was attributed by Hearne himself to (as the remote occasion) an incident connected with his office in the Library, which is related very fully by himself in vol. xliv. of his MS. Diary. On Feb. 20, Mr. Keil, the Savilian Professor of Geometry, brought to the Library an Irish gentleman named Mollineux, recommended by Sir Andrew Fountaine, to whom he requested Hearne to show the curiosities of the place. As Keil was 'a very honest gentleman,' Hearne little suspected that his friend was possessed with the 'republican ill principles' and 'malignant temper' of Whiggism, and consequently was not very guarded in his talk. After showing him various MSS. and coins, he took the visitor into the Anatomy School[183], where all kinds of odds and ends were preserved; amongst which was (as Hearne gravely notes in another place) a calf which, being born in the year of the Union, 1707, had (it is to be presumed in consequence thereof) two bodies and one head. What[Pg 135] followed during the exhibition of this museum is worth relating in the diarist's own words:—

Hinc illæ lachrymæ! Poor Hearne was reported to Dr. Charlett the same afternoon for showing the Pretender's Picture; a meeting of the Curators of the Library was threatened; but eventually the matter seemed to pass over by his being desired by the Vice-Chancellor to give up the key of the Anatomy School, in order that the determining Bachelors might meet there, by which change Hearne was mulcted of the fees which he obtained for showing the room, and was sometimes detained one hour, or two, later than usual in order to see to the locking up of the staircase on which it is situated. On March 23, however, he was summoned before the Heads of Houses for remarks made in his preface to Dodwell's above-mentioned tract, and, after a sharp discussion, in which reference was made to his exhibition of the portraits, he was ordered to suppress his preface, and re-issue the book without it; to which he consented. He was pressed to make a formal retractation of the passages to which objection was made, but this he stiffly refused to do. He says in a letter to Sir Philip Sydenham that the only form of retractation or expression of sorrow he could have been prevailed on to sign (strongly resembling the famous apology of a middy to an insulted naval surgeon) would have been some such[Pg 137] form as this:—'I, Thomas Hearne, A.M., of the University of Oxford, having ever since my matriculation followed my studies with as much application as I have been capable of, and having published several books for the honour and credit of learning, and particularly for the reputation of the foresaid University, am very sorry that by my declining to say anything but what I knew to be true in any of my writings, and especially in the last book I published, intituled, Henrici Dodwelli de Parma Equestri Woodwardiana Dissertatio, &c., I should incurr the displeasure of any of the Heads of Houses, and as a token of my sorrow for their being offended at truth, I subscribe my name to this paper, and permitt them to make what use of it they please[184].'

A.D. 1714.

An evidence of the increased intercourse which sprang up between Denmark and England, in consequence of the marriage of Queen Anne, is probably to be found in the number of Danish readers who frequented the Library in the interval between her marriage and her death. Between the years 1683 and 1714, forty-nine Danes are entered in the Liber Admissorum, besides many from Sweden, Norway, and the North of Germany. The total number of foreigners admitted within the same period was no less than 244.

'In the year 1714 were in the Bodleian Library:—

(Hearne's MS. Diary, vol. xci. p. 256.)

[Pg 138]

It is strange that, notwithstanding Selden's and Laud's large additions, the Library had therefore very little more than doubled since 1620.

It is recorded in vol. li. of the same Diary (p. 187) that the old series of portraits which were painted on the wall of the Picture Gallery was renewed in November of this year. These portraits, amounting in number to about 222, ran round the gallery, immediately under the roof; many of them were fancy-heads of ancient philosophers and writers, but besides these there were some real portraits of English writers and divines, up to the time of James I. A list of the whole series, as well as of the oil paintings in the Gallery, was printed by Hearne together with his Letter containing an Account of some Antiquities between Windsor and Oxford. Of the renovation of the wall-paintings he thus speaks in his preface to Rossi Historia Regum Angliæ (1716): 'Non possim quin bibliothecæ Bodleianæ Curatores laudem, qui pictori Academico [i.e. Wildgoose] in mandatis dederunt, ut veteres effigies renovet nitorique pristino restituat: quippe quas eo pluris æstimendas esse censeo, quod eas in galeria depingendas jusserit ipse Bodleius, Loci Genius.' When the Gallery was re-roofed in 1831, all these paintings were, however, removed [see p. 15].

About the end of this year the Arundel Marbles, which, strange to say, had been exposed to the open air within the quadrangle of the Schools ever since they were given to the University, were removed into one of the rooms on the ground-floor, where they still remain. It was said that they had suffered more 'since they were exposed to our air, than they did in many hundred years before they came into it[185].' But the influence of the air was not all they had to contend against, for Hearne tells us that the defacing of the Marble Chronicle (of which there are portions that were read[Pg 139] by Selden, which now can no longer be read at all) and some others, was owing not merely to exposure to the weather, but 'to the abuses of children who are continually playing in the area, and of other ignorant persons[186].'

A.D. 1715.

We learn from Hearne's MS. Diary [vol. liii.] that differences between him and Dr. Hudson (of which he makes frequent mention) increased during this year. He was reported to the Vice-Chancellor in April for absence from the Library through his duties as Bedel, by reason of which readers had difficulty in obtaining books lodged above stairs. To this complaint his reply was that he was not bound, as Second Librarian, exclusively to do such 'drudgery,' but that Dr. Hudson was himself obliged by statute to deliver out such books as were under lock-and-key, and books in quarto and octavo, either personally or by his own special deputy. At the same time a complaint was made against him by three Bachelors of Arts of Queen's College, for refusing books to them which were out of the faculty of Arts prescribed to them by the statutes of the Library. Hearne's only reply to the Vice-Chancellor in this case was the asking whether they had, also in accordance with the Statutes, come to the Library in their hoods, if under two years' standing; at which 'he smiled.' It appears, therefore, that this requirement had already become obsolete. Dr. Hudson, however, regarded the matter more seriously, and threatened that Hearne should be turned out of both his places.

At the visitation on Nov. 8, the Curators passed a resolution that the places of Under-librarian and Bedel were inconsistent, and that on S. Thomas' day Hudson should be at liberty to appoint some other person to Hearne's office. Hereupon Hearne immediately, without a moment's delay, resigned both the offices of Architypographus and Superior Bedel of Civil Law, and claimed to remain in the Library; but Hudson had fresh locks put on the doors, of which Bowles kept the keys, so that Hearne was unable to go in and out as before. However, he continued to execute his office whenever the Library was open until Jan. 23, 1716, when the Act which imposed a fine of £500, with other penalties, upon any one who held any public office without having taken the Oaths, came into operation. Then at once, all worldly interests, all affection for the old place of his studies and his care, gave way to the honest and unwavering dictates of his conscience; the Non-juror withdrew, and, with singularly hard measure, in spite of his representations, his place was ordered by the Curators to be filled up at Lady-Day, not on the ground of his own retirement, but on that of neglect of duty! His successor was Rev.[Pg 141] John Fletcher, M.A., Chaplain, and afterwards Fellow, of Queen's College. Hearne states that his salary was, with great unfairness, withheld from him for the whole half-year preceding Lady-Day, together with some fees which were due[188]. But to the end of his life he maintained that he was still, de jure, Sub-librarian, and, with a quaint pertinacity, regularly at the end of each term and half-year, up to March 30, 1735[189], continued to set down, in one of the volumes of his Diary, that no fees had been paid him, and that his half-year's salary was due.

On Hearne's announcing John Ross's Historia Angliæ for publication in this year, W. Whiston forwarded to him a MS. of a Latin historical poem entitled Britannica, written in 1606 by an author of the same names as the forth-coming historian, with the following note inserted:—

Hearne adds that (of course) the author was altogether different from the Ross of his editing, and that the poem had been printed at Frankfort in 1607, as he learned from a MS. Catalogue of Mr. Richard Smith's books lent him by Bp. Fleetwood of Ely[190]. The MS. is now numbered, Bodley 573.

A learned tailor of Norwich was in this year recommended by[Pg 142] Dr. Tanner, then Chancellor of Norwich Cathedral, for the Janitor's place in the Library should it be vacant. Although but a journeyman tailor of thirty years of age, who had been taught nothing but English in his childhood, Henry Wild had contrived within seven years to master seven languages, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic and Persian, to which Tanner adds, in another letter to Dr. Rawlinson, Samaritan and Ethiopic. The application appears to have been unsuccessful so far as the holding office in the Library was concerned; but Wild found some employment in the Library for a time in the translating and copying Oriental MSS[191]. He removed to London about 1720, and died in the following year, as we learn from an entry in Hearne's MS. Diary, (xcii. 128-9,) under date of Oct. 29, 1721, where we read:—

Five MSS., including the Leiger Book of Malmesbury Abbey, together with a large number of printed books, were given on May 7, by William Brewster, M.D. of Hereford, a well-known antiquary[192].

A thick quarto volume (1052 pages) containing a Latin treatise[Pg 143] by Adam Zernichaus on the controversy between the Eastern and Western Churches, concerning the Procession of the Holy Ghost, was forwarded to the Library through Sir Robert Sutton, ambassador at Constantinople, by Chrysanthus, Patriarch of Jerusalem, nephew and successor of Dositheus, an autograph Greek epistle from whom, occupying seven pages, is prefixed. At the end is a list of eleven German scribes who were employed upon the transcription of the volume, with the payments they severally received. It appears from the Benefaction Register that the volume was not actually received at the Library until 1722; and in 1731, an entry in the catalogue records that the MS. 'was restored to Sir Robert Sutton, by order of the Vice-Chancellor;' but no reason or explanation is given. For more than a century the Patriarch's gift was consequently lost from the place of its destination; but in Dec. 1864, having turned up for sale among the well-known stores of Mr. C. J. Stewart, it was secured by the Librarian at the cost of £5 15s. 6d., and is once more to be found in its legitimate quarters, numbered MS. Addit. Bodl. ii. c. 9. Chrysanthus also gave, in 1725, a copy of Dositheus' History of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which was printed, in Greek, in 1715.

A.D. 1716.

On Aug. 23, a legacy of £100 from Dr. South (who died July 8), for the purchase of modern books, was paid to the Vice-Chancellor[193].

Arms in the window. See 1610.

A.D. 1718.

One Mr. Hutton appears to have been employed in the Library during this year. It seems, from a passage in a letter of[Pg 144] C. Wheatly's, printed in Letters by Eminent Persons, ii. 116, that the learned commentator Samuel Parker, son of the Bishop of Oxford, was also at some time employed in the Library; for Wheatly expresses a wish that S. Parker's son, then (1739) an apprentice to Mr. Clements the bookseller, might, if the accounts of his extraordinary proficiency be true, be placed 'in his father's seat, the Bodleian Library.' As Parker was a non-juror, his employment must doubtless have been at some earlier period than this, but his name is not met with in any of the old Account-books or Registers. One Thomas Parker occurs in the Library accounts in 1766 and in 1772.

A.D. 1719.

Dr. Hudson died, on Nov. 27, of dropsy. And at one o'clock on the afternoon of the very next day, Joseph Bowles, M.A., of Oriel College, was elected in his room.

The bitter terms in which Hearne frequently, in the course of his Diary, condemns Hudson's management, or rather mismanagement, of the Library, may be supposed to be owing in a considerable degree to personal pique and quarrel[194]. But they meet with very singular and abundant confirmation in the letter of Z. C. Uffenbach, quoted above (p. 130), when the writer expresses, in the following strong language, his opinion of Hudson's neglect and incapacity, and of the general condition of the Library under his management:—

Of Hearne, however, Uffenbach writes in the following different strain:—

Hudson's successor, Bowles, had previously been his Assistant for some years, and as, while Hearne was Under-keeper, he had come into sharp collision with that irascible antiquary (see under 1715), his election now was a matter of sore annoyance to the latter. Hearne dwells upon it in his Diary with great bitterness and at great length: 'Competitors were Mr. Hall, of Queen's, and that pert conceited coxcomb Mr. Bowles (who is not yet Regent Master) of Oriel College. Bowles carried it by a great majority, having about 160 votes, and Mr. Hall about 77. I think it the most scandalous election that I have yet heard of in Oxford.' Of his supporters he speaks thus:—'Charlett and such rogues, who contrived to bring in that most compleat coxcomb[Pg 146] Bowles to be Head-Librarian, to the immortal scandal of all that were concern'd in it[195].' And even, when ten years later he records Bowles' death, he indulges, in forgetfulness of charity to the departed, in the following strain: 'Of this gentleman (a most vile, wicked wretch) frequent mention hath been made in these Memoirs. He took the degree of M.A. Oct. 12, 1719. 'Tis incredible what damage he did to the Bodl. Library, by putting it into disorder and confusion, which before, by the great pains I had taken in it (&c.), was the best regulated library in the world[196].' Bowles' name never occurs in the Diary without some opprobrious epithet being attached to it, which may be accounted for partly from his having taken the oaths of allegiance after declaring he would never do it (a defection which Hearne never forgave in any one), but chiefly also from his having personally excluded Hearne from the Library, when the latter refused to resign his keys in 1715, by procuring new locks and keys, which he kept in his own custody.

Three or four days after Bowles' election, Mr. Fletcher, the Sub-librarian (disliking, no doubt, the appointment of his junior over his head), resigned his office, to which Bowles appointed the well-known antiquary, Francis Wise. Upon this appointment Hearne comments thus: 'Bowles put in Mr. Wise, A.M., of Trin. Coll. (a pretender to antiquities), tho' he had promised it to one of Oriel Coll., that came in fellow of Oriel when he did, and was very serviceable to him in getting the Head Librarian's place; for which Bowles is strangely scouted and despis'd at Oriel, as a breaker of his word, and a whiffling, silly, unfaithfull, coxcomb.' It must be allowed that the portrait of Bowles in the Library bears out in some degree Hearne's last epithet, by giving him the appearance rather of a fine clerical gentleman than of a student.[Pg 147]

Baskett, the printer, presented to the Library a magnificent copy on vellum of the 'Vinegar' Bible, printed by him in 1717. Only three copies were so struck off; the second was placed in the King's Library, and the third was sold to the Duke of Chandos, for five hundred guineas, at whose sale, in 1747, Lord Foley purchased it for £72 9s.

A.D. 1720.

About this time, one John Hawkins, a highwayman (who was executed in May, 1722), is said by an accomplice, Ralph Wilson, who published an account of his robberies, to have defaced some pictures in the Library. The University is said to have offered £100 for discovery, and a poor Whig tailor was taken up on suspicion, and narrowly escaped a whipping. No particulars, however, of Hawkins' act are given in the pamphlet, and no further notice of it has been found elsewhere.

Joseph Swallow, B.A., who died in this year, is found from the Accounts to have been employed, for some short time, in the Library.

In this year the titles of all books which were bought out of the Library funds begin to be recorded, together with their prices; they are entered in a Register marked with the letter C.

Visitors' Fees. See 1713.

A.D. 1721.

The inscription on the Schools' Tower, beneath the statue of James I, was renewed in this year[197].

Sir Godfrey Kneller presented his own portrait to the Gallery.[Pg 148]

A.D. 1722.

Mrs. Mary Prince is recorded to have presented heads of our Blessed Lord and of King Charles I, painted by herself. They appear to be the two paintings on copper, now hanging in the Sub-librarian's study, called Mus. Bibl. II. Beneath that of our Lord is the following inscription: 'This present figure is the symylytude of our Lorde Jesus our Saviour, imprinted in amyrald by the Predecessors of the Great Turke, & sent to Pope Innocent y^e Eight at the cost of the Great Turke for a token, for this caus, to redeme his brother that was taken prisner.' The inscription is, of course, if the painting be Mrs. Prince's work, reproduced literatim from some older copy.

The attachment to the old Stuart family, which was so warmly cherished in Oxford, appears to have lingered in the Bodleian, notwithstanding Hearne's departure, who himself would scarcely have thought that a vestige of it had been left behind. For in the Benefaction Register for this year, the gift of a portrait of Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, from his widow Catherine, a natural daughter of James II, is entered as coming from 'filia Regis Jacobi II, του μακαριτου.'

Chrysanthus, Patriarch of Jerusalem. See 1715.

A.D. 1723.

The noble brass statue of William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, (who was Chancellor of the University from 1617 to his death in 1630, and was the donor of the Barocci MSS.,) which forms such a conspicuous feature in the Picture Gallery, was presented this year by the earl's great nephew, Thomas, the seventh Earl of Pembroke. It was cast by the famous artist Hubert le Sœur, from a picture by Rubens, and is said to weigh about 1600 lbs. The[Pg 149] letter of thanks from the University was read in Convocation on April 19; it is criticized by Hearne in his Diary[198] in the following terms: 'I am told that this letter is very silly and poor, and that, among other things, his Lordship is told in it that the statue is placed in æde immortalitatis. Now what this ædes immortalitatis, church, temple or chappel of immortality is, I cannot conceive, but am sure that the statue is at present fix'd in the Picture Gallery, adjoyning to the Bodl. Library.'

A.D. 1724.

The MSS. Adversaria of Dr. J. E. Grabe came to the Library in this year after the death of Bishop Smalridge (Sept. 27, 1719), in accordance with the will of their writer, who at his death (Nov. 12, 1712) bequeathed them first to Hickes and next to Smalridge, with the final reversion to the Bodleian. They form forty-three volumes. Some account of them is given in Hickes' Discourse prefixed to Grabe's Defects and Omissions in Whiston's Collection of Testimonies, &c. (8^o. Lond. 1712), and they are fully catalogued by Mr. Coxe in vol. i. of the general Catalogue of MSS., cols. 851-876. In a written list of them, preserved in the Library, Dr. Bandinel has noted that several volumes of the series were purloined before they came to Oxford, while remaining in the possession of a friend after Grabe's death.

A Zend MS. very well and clearly written (dated in the year 1005 of the era of Yezdegird, i.e. A.D. 1635), of the Leges Sacræ, Ritus, &c. Zoroastris, was received from G. Bowcher, a merchant in the East Indies. It was given in 1718, but not forwarded until 1723, when it was brought from India by Rev. Rich. Cobbe, M.A. It is now numbered Bodl. Or. 321. And a Coptic Lexicon, compiled and prepared for the press by Rev. Thos. Edward, M.A.,[Pg 150] a former Chaplain of Ch. Ch., was bought for the sum of ten guineas, which was specially granted from the University Chest. It is now numbered Bodl. Orient. 344. The author was originally of St. John's College, Cambridge, and tells us in his preface that Bishop Fell, who was also Dean of Ch. Ch., meeting him there in the house of Dr. Edmund Castell, with whom he was living, brought him to Oxford by appointing him a Chaplain of the Cathedral, with the view of carrying on the study of the Coptic language, which had fallen to the ground upon the death of Dr. Marshal of Lincoln College. But just when Edward was prepared to begin printing the results of his labours, his patron, the Bishop, died; and, as he found no one else cared for the subject, he took the College living of Badby in Northamptonshire, and quitted Oxford. He finally became Rector of Aldwinkle in the same county, and died there in the year 1721. His book is dated 1711. It is cited by Archdeacon Tattam in his Lexicon Ægyptiaco-Latinum. Another MS. Coptic Lexicon, in two volumes, was purchased in 1857.

A.D. 1726.

A large collection (in twenty-five volumes) of the tracts on the Roman Catholic Controversy which appeared between 1680-1690, was given by Will. Smith, M.A., of Univ. Coll., and Rector of Melsonby, Yorkshire.

A.D. 1727.

Thomas Perrott, D.C.L., of St. John's College, gave nine volumes of MSS., the most important of which is a copy-book of the letters written by Sir John Perrott, Lord Deputy of Ireland, in 1584-6. Another is a book of orders from the Privy Council to[Pg 151] the officers of the Customs at London, 1604-18: a third, notes of a sermon preached by Usher at the Temple, July 2, 1620. A few political and miscellaneous tracts, tempp. Eliz.—Jac. I, and two heraldic MSS., complete the number. The MSS. are noticed in the return printed in the Record Commission Report for 1800, p. 348.

Some Greek MSS. were bought which had been brought from Mount Athos; three of them are now placed amongst the Cromwell MSS., Nos. 15, 16, and 27, and three others are numbered Miscell. Gr. 137-9.

Sale of Duplicates. See 1745.

A.D. 1729.

Mr. Bowles, the Librarian, died at Shaftesbury, the place of his birth, and was buried there on Nov. 25. On Dec. 2, Mr. Robert Fysher, B.M., Fellow of Oriel College, was elected his successor by 100 votes to 85 over Francis Wise, the Under-librarian. Mr. John Bilstone, M.A., Chaplain of All Souls' and Janitor of the Library, was also a candidate, but retired before the election, in the hope of securing Wise's return. As Wise held Hearne's old place, and was regarded by him as an usurper, and as Bilstone held in his possession the new keys which Bowles originally procured to render Hearne's old ones useless, the latter consequently regarded them both with great disfavour, and rejoiced greatly at the result of the election. His account of it is printed in the Reliqq. Hearn. vol. ii. p. 712.

Forty-two MS. volumes came to the Library by the bequest of the widow of Mr. Francis Cherry, of Shottesbrooke, Berks, the early patron and constant friend of Hearne[199]. Cherry himself[Pg 152] died Sept. 23, 1713, and Hearne says that he had intended to give his MSS. to his old protégée. They are not, for the most part, of very great value, but among them are various volumes by Dodwell; and a book written and bound by Q. Eliz. is described above, under the year 1628. Hearne was greatly annoyed at a paper of his own, containing reasons for taking the oath of allegiance, which he had written in 1700, coming into the Library amongst these books; he endeavoured in vain (although now in these days his legal right would be at once recognized) to recover it, and it was published, to his still greater annoyance, by the Whigs, under the editorship of Mr. Bilstone, the janitor. An account of Hearne's endeavours to regain it, together with a notice of Mrs. Cherry's bequest and of the MSS., is to be found in Dr. Bliss' Appendix to his Reliqq. Hearn. ii. 899-906.

In the Register of Readers admitted by favour occurs, under date of April 19, the name of 'C. Wesley, Ædis Xti alumn.,' written in a neat and clear hand. The name of his great brother is not found in any register extending over the period of his stay in Oxford. At this time the Library appears to have been almost entirely forsaken. Between 1730-1740 it rarely happens that above one or two books are registered to readers in a day, while often for whole days together not a single entry occurs; and since, in the register for this period, the books are noted down by three hands, it can hardly be possible that the blanks are due to the negligence of librarians (as might have been supposed were the same handwriting found throughout) rather than to the lack of students.

A.D. 1735.

On the death of Hearne (June 10, 1735) fifteen of the MSS. of Thomas Smith, D.D., of Magdalen College, the well-known and learned non-juror, came to the Library, Smith having bequeathed[Pg 153] them to Hearne on this condition. With them came also copies of Camden's Britannia and Annales Eliz., with MSS. notes by their author. The rest of Smith's MSS. appear to have come to the Library together with the mass of Hearne's collections, included in Rawlinson's bequest in 1755. They amount altogether to 138 thin volumes, containing notes, extracts and letters on all kinds of subjects. There is a very full written catalogue of their contents, in two volumes. Three Greek MSS. were given by Smith himself on his return from his travels in the East about 1681.

A.D. 1736.

The Library was enriched with the collections of the well-known antiquary, Thomas Tanner, Bishop of St. Asaph, who died on Dec. 14, in the preceding year. By his will, dated Nov. 22, 1733, he bequeathed his MSS. to the Library together with such printed books, not already there, as the Curators and Library-keeper should think fit to accept. But he directed his executor to burn all his sermon-notes, 'and other little pieces and attempts in divinity,' as well as all his own private papers and letters. The largest portion of his MSS. (nearly 300 volumes out of 467) consists of the papers which he himself says he 'bought of Archbishop Sancroft's executors,' but which it is said in the Gent. Mag. for 1782 (cited by Gough in his British Topography, i. 126) he bought for eighty guineas of the bookseller Bateman, to whom Sancroft's executors had sold them[200]. Together with these, and perhaps not now to be distinguished, are some of the collections of Dr. Nalson between 1640 and 1660. To the latter a claim was made through Archdeacon Knight, in 1737, by Dr. Williams of St. John's College, as grandson of Nalson; but the Bishop's brother replied (as we learn from a copy of his answer and of another letter written by[Pg 154] him in 1753) that the Bishop had bought them at Ely, where they had lain neglected for many years, and he thought possibly from some one living in the house which Nalson inhabited when Prebendary of Ely. The matter ended by Dr. Williams waiving any claim which he had, in consideration of the place of deposit being the Bodleian[201]. Sancroft's and Nalson's papers together comprise a large series of letters of the time of the Civil War, of the highest interest and value, from most of the leading personages on both sides, including Charles I, Rupert, the Protector Oliver, and Hampden. There are also collections relating to various dioceses, with very much that illustrates both the ecclesiastical and literary history of the seventeenth century[202]. A selection from the Civil War letters was published, in 2 vols. in 1842, by Rev. Henry Cary, M.A. (a son of the translator of Dante, and at that time an assistant in the Library), under the title of Memorials of the Civil War; but the transcripts were very carelessly made, and scarcely a single letter can be trusted as faithfully and verbatim representing the original. Another volume of selections from Sancroft's papers was published, with much better care, by Will. Nelson Clarke, D.C.L., 8^o, Edinb. 1848, entitled, A Collection of Letters addressed by Prelates and Individuals of high rank in Scotland, and by two Bishops of Sodor and Man, to Archbishop Sancroft, in the reigns of Charles II and James VII[203]. A catalogue of the MSS., compiled by the Rev. Alfred Hackman, M.A. (now Sub-librarian) was published in 1860, in a thick quarto volume, forming vol. iv. of the general Catalogue[Pg 155] of MSS. The several volumes are described in brief in the body of the work; but a very full Index is subjoined, in which the contents of all the letters and papers are entered in detail. The printed books (upwards of 900) contain many, by the Reformers and their opponents, which are of the utmost rarity in early English black-letter divinity. One of these is an unique copy (as it is believed) of an edition, printed without place or date, of the Pore Helpe, of which there is also an unique copy of another edition, equally without place or date, among the Douce books. It has not hitherto been remarked that two copies, or two editions, exist of this metrical satire. Another volume, which contains several tracts printed by W. de Worde and Gerard Leeu, has also two by Caxton, hitherto unnoticed as exhibiting his type, and described in the Catalogue simply as being books without place or date. The merit of their discovery as Caxton's is due to the recent research of Mr. Bradshaw, the Librarian of the Cambridge Library. The one is a clean and perfect copy of the Governayle of Helthe, with the verses called Medicina Stomachi, of which the only copy known to Mr. Blades is in the library of the Earl of Dysart at Ham House; the other a wholly unknown quarto edition, in the same type, of the Ars Moriendi.

Unfortunately, when Tanner was removing his books from Norwich to Oxford, in Dec. 1731, by some accident in their transit (which was made by river) they fell into the water, and were submerged for twenty hours[204]. The effects of this soaking are only too evident upon very many of them[205]. The whole of the printed[Pg 156] books were uniformly bound in dark green calf, apparently about fifty years ago; the binder's work was well done, but unhappily all the fly-leaves, many of which would doubtless have afforded something of interest, with regard to the books and their former possessors, were removed. Many of Tanner's own letters are to be found amongst the Ballard and Hearne MSS., as well as scattered here and there in other collections; and one volume of them was purchased in 1859. Some coins were given by him in 1733. We learn from the Accounts that Thomas Toynbee, an undergraduate of Balliol College (B.A. 1743, M.A. 1745), received £12 12s., in 1741, for making a list of Tanner's MSS., and that E. Rowe Mores, the subsequently well-known antiquary, arranged some of his deeds in 1753-4.

A.D. 1738.

The fourth Catalogue of the printed books appeared this year in two volumes, folio, of 611 and 714 pp. respectively. It is still a Catalogue of great use and value, from its remarkable accuracy, and from the abundance and minuteness of its cross-references. The secret history of this Catalogue, however, as of the preceding one, is related by Hearne. By him, as he himself frequently tells us[206], the greater portion of it was virtually prepared soon after his appointment as Sub-librarian, in 1712 (although no mention of his name is made in Fysher's preface), and to him, therefore, its accuracy is most probably in a great measure due[207]. He compared every book in the Library with Hyde's[Pg 157] Catalogue, and corrected many mistakes, adding notes here and there about anonymous and synonymous authors, and, as the Vice-Chancellor (Dr. Maunder, of Balliol) was anxious to have an Appendix issued, he transcribed for this purpose all his corrections and additions into two folio volumes, 'which' (to take up now Hearne's own account in his Diary, vol. lxii. p. 58, under date 1717) 'now lye and are to be seen in the Library.... But at last Dr. Hudson thought it more convenient with respect to himself that both Dr. Hyde's Catalogue and my Appendix should come out together as one intire work, so that he might have the honour of all. Upon which he employed one Moses Williams, his servitour[208] (the Dr. being then Fellow of University College), to transcribe it, the said Williams being in the Dr.'s debt. When Williams had done, he demanded the remaining part of his money, which was about ten or twelve pounds, the rest having been stopped by the Dr. for the debt just now mentioned. The whole was fifty lbs. which he bargained for with the Dr. But when Williams desired the said ten or twelve pounds, of which he had immediate occasion to discharge the fees and charges for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, the Dr. was in a very great passion, and refused to pay it. Upon which Williams moved the matter so far that the Catalogue was laid before the Delegates[Pg 158] of the Press, and the Dr. was called before them to his very great mortification, and they told him that 'twas highly unreasonable to stop the poor lad's money. Upon which the Dr. in a great rage and fury paid him; otherwise Williams had most certainly put him into the Court. This Catalogue was last summer ordered to be printed, and the Dr. was refunded his money; but 'tis not yet put to the press, the Dr. being unwilling it should be printed till such time as he hath done Josephus.' But Hudson died before his Josephus was finished, and the proposed new Catalogue was consequently begun, and only begun, by his successor, Bowles. The latter printed as far as p. 244 of vol. i. and p. 292 of vol. ii. His successor, Fysher, upon his appointment, engaged the assistance of his friend, Emmanuel Langford, M.A., Vice-Principal of Hart Hall, who completed the second volume, while Fysher himself finished the first. At the end of the second volume appeared an announcement of a supplemental Catalogue, as being ready for the press, containing the books existing in College Libraries but wanting in the Bodleian. This, however, never appeared, and nothing is known of the MS. from which it was to have been printed. Fysher's Catalogue appears, from the University Accounts, to have occupied from 1735 in preparation, for which, and for transcribing it for the press, £194 5s. were paid to him.

Alexander Pope gave, together with copies of his Iliad and Odyssey, a curious volume, containing a series of 178 Portraits of East Indian Rajahs and Great Moguls, down to Aurung-Zebe. It is now numbered Bodl. MS. Sansk. 14.

The names of various persons (all, probably, undergraduates) employed in the Library about this time are learned from the Accounts:—1738, Mr. Hall; 1740-1, Mr. Allen; 1740, Mr. Toynbee (Ball. Coll., B.A., 1743); 1743, Mr. Jessett (All Souls', B.A., 1745); 1747, Mr. Thomas Winbolt (All Souls', B.A. 1748).[Pg 159]

A.D. 1739.

Notification was given to the Vice-Chancellor, on June 9, that thirteen pictures (of no great value) were bequeathed to the Gallery by Dr. King, Master of the Charter House, by his will dated July 28, 1736, together with £200 for the cleansing and repairing the frames of the pictures already in the Gallery. A list of these thirteen is given in Gutch's transl. of Wood's Annals, vol. ii. pp. 969, 970. The pictures themselves are now in the Randolph Gallery. Dr. King also left a legacy of £400 to the University to prepare a complete and handsome edition of Zoroaster's Works, in Persian, with a Latin translation and notes; but this portion of his bequest was not accepted.

A.D. 1740.

A copy of the Byzantine historian, Pachymeres, was restored in this year, by order of the Curators, to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, from which it had by some means been removed; but the College paid £4 4s. for its restoration.

A.D. 1745.

In this year died Nathaniel Crynes, M.A., Fellow of St. John's College and Superior Bedel of Arts, to which latter office he had been elected Jan. 26, 1715/16[209]. He bequeathed to the Library all such books out of his own valuable collection as it did not already possess, the rest going to his own College. His books in octavo and smaller sizes, with a few quartos, are still kept distinct, under his own name, and number 968 volumes,[Pg 160] many of which are of great rarity. Seven MSS. were presented by him in 1736. In 1727 he purchased some duplicates from the Library, for £3 16s. 8d., and a story, told by Warton in connection with this purchase, of his fortunately rejecting books which bore the name of Milton, will be found under the year 1620. There is a biographical notice of him in J. Haslewood's Introduction to Juliana Barnes' Boke of St. Alban's, Lond. 1810, pp. 86-7. In the Accounts for 1746 occur special payments to Fr. Wise, and to one Mr. Gerard Bodley, for cataloguing and arranging Crynes' books.

A.D. 1746.

Trott's Clavis Linguæ Sanctæ. See 1686.

A.D. 1747.

Dr. Fysher, the Librarian, died on Nov. 4, at Mr. Warneford's, of Sevenhampton, Wilts, and was buried, on Nov. 7, in Adam de Brome's chapel in St. Mary's Church, Oxford. And on Nov. 10, Rev. Humphrey Owen, B.D., Fellow of Jesus College (afterwards D.D., and chosen Principal of his College in 1763), was unanimously elected his successor[210]. Rawlinson mentions, in a letter[Pg 161] to Owen of April 15, 1751, that he had heard a complaint that in Fysher's time 'there was a great neglect in the entry of books into the Benefactors' Catalogue, and into the interleaved one of the Library; as to these objections, my answers were as ready as true, at least I hope so, that Dr. Fysher's indisposition disabled him much from the duty of his office, and that I did not think every small benefaction ought to load the velom register[211].'

A.D. 1749.

A Runic Primstaff, or Clog Almanack, was given by Mr. Guy Dickens, a gentleman-commoner of Ch. Ch. It is now exhibited, together with another (see p. 105), in the glass case near the entrance of the Library. Pointer, in his Oxoniensis Academia (p. 143), mentions that an explanation of the Primstaff was given by himself; the Accounts show that it was also in this year.

A number of coins were added to the Numismatic Museum, which had been collected by the late Librarian, Fysher.

A.D. 1750.

A copy on vellum, with illuminated initials, &c., of vol. i. (reaching to the Psalms) of the Vulgate Bible, printed by Fust and Schoeffer in 1462, was bought for £2 10s.! The volume was imperfect at the end, ceasing at Job xxxii. 5, and seven leaves followed in contemporary and beautiful MS., which also ended imperfectly at Ps. xxxvi. 9, with one leaf wanting at the end of Job. But when the Canonici Collection of MSS. was received from Venice, in 1818, among some fragments which were found in one of the boxes were fourteen leaves of a MS. Bible, which were at once recognised as being part of those wanted to complete this book, and which left only four still deficient. The volume came to the Library from the collection of Nic. Jos. Foucault[Pg 162], 'Comes Consistorianus,' many other of whose MSS. and printed books came by Rawlinson's bequest; but through how many hands the missing leaves had passed in the seventy subsequent years ere they were thus marvellously restored to their place, it is impossible to tell[212].

A.D. 1751.

A benefaction from Lord Crewe, Bishop of Durham, of £60 to the Librarian and of £10 for the purchase of books, appears for the first time in the Accounts for this year. These sums (which are still annually paid into the General Fund) proceed from a bequest of £200 per ann. from Crewe (who died Sept. 24, 1721) to the University. A proposal to give these same sums to the Library, with other assignments for the remainder, was brought forward in Convocation on June 5, 1723, but the scheme was then rejected[213]. And thus nearly thirty years seem to have elapsed from the time of the bequest before the share for the Library was definitely fixed and paid.

Charles Gray, M.P. for Colchester, presented a MS. Roll, containing a Survey of the estates of the Abbey of Glastonbury at the Dissolution, which is printed by Hearne in his Appendix to Langtoft's Chronicle, vol. ii. pp. 343-388, from a copy made from this original; and an inscription, in the Phœnician language, upon a white marble stone, which was brought, with many others, from Citium, in the island of Cyprus, by Dr. Porter, a physician of Thaxted in Essex. The stone measures twelve inches in length, by three in breadth, and three in depth. It has been frequently engraved: first by Pocock (Travels in the East, vol. ii. pl. xxxiii. 2); next by Swinton (Inscriptiones Citieæ, 1750, and Philos. Trans. 1764); afterwards by Chandler, Barthélemy, &c.; and, lastly, by Gesenius[Pg 163] (for whom former copies were collated with the original, and corrected, by Mr. Reay) in his Scripturæ Linguæque Phœniciæ Monumenta, published in 1837, where the inscription is described at pp. 126-133, part i., and engraved at pl. xi. part iii. It appears to be an epitaph by a husband in memory of his wife. The stone is now kept in one of the Sub-librarians' studies.

Thomas Shaw, the well-known Eastern traveller, bequeathed his collection of natural curiosities, which was sent to the Ashmolean Museum, and the MS. of his own travels, with corrections, and other papers. Copies of Caxton's Game of the Chesse and Recuyell of Troye were given by Mr. James Bowen, of Shrewsbury, painter[214].

A.D. 1753.

In May of this year died Henry Hyde, Lord Cornbury, son of Henry Hyde, Earl of Rochester, and great-grandson of the great Earl of Clarendon. He had made a will bequeathing all the Chancellor's MSS. to the University of Oxford, to be printed at their press, and the profits to be devoted to a school for riding and other athletic exercises in the University, should such an institution be accepted, or else to other approved uses. Dying before his father, through the effects of an accident, his bequest was void, as he was never actually in possession of the papers to which it referred; but after the death of his father in Dec. following, his sisters, who were the co-heiresses, carried out his will, by sending all the Clarendon MSS. in their possession to the University on the same conditions[215]. From these was published in 1759 (in which year the papers appear to have been deposited in the Library) the[Pg 164] Life of the first Earl, reprinted in several editions up to the year 1827. This was followed, in 1767-73, by the publication, under the editorship of Dr. Rich. Scrope, of Magd. Coll., of vols. i., ii. of a selection from the State Papers; of which vol. iii. appeared under the editorship of Mr. Thos. Monkhouse, of Queen's Coll., in 1786. During the progress of this publication, however, the original collection of MSS. papers was very largely increased by the acquisition of various portions which had long before been detached. Some were obtained, before the publication of vol. i., from the executors of Rich. Powney, LL.D.; and many were presented to the University, before the publication of vol. ii., by the Radcliffe Trustees, who had bought them for £170 when sold by auction in 1764 by the executors of Joseph Radcliffe, Esq., one of the executors to Edward, third Earl of Clarendon, who died in 1723. Dr. Douglas (afterwards Bishop of Salisbury), who was employed in the latter purchase, himself bought and gave some MSS. which had belonged to Mr. Guthrie, and was instrumental also in procuring some letters from Viscountess Middleton, &c. Again, before the publication of vol. iii. many further papers were purchased by the Radcliffe Trustees from a Mr. Richards, near Salisbury (from whose father Mr. Powney had obtained his portion), and from Mr. W. M. Godschall, of Albury, Surrey. And lastly, about eight or ten years ago, several boxes (including Clarendon's own iron-bound escritoire), containing miscellaneous papers, were forwarded by the Clarendon Trustees in final discharge of their trust.

A MS. of the History of the Rebellion, in seven volumes, together with one of the Contemplations, in three volumes, was forwarded in 1785 or 1786 by the Duke of Queensbury. The former MS. appears to be that from which the first edition was printed by the Earl of Rochester[216].

[Pg 165]

A complete Calendar of the Clarendon State Papers is now in progress under the care of several editors. As far as it has advanced, it has proved the good judgment and the extreme correctness with which the printed selection was made; but as that selection ended with the Restoration, while the papers themselves reach on to 1667, the year of the Earl's banishment, the later portion may be expected to contain much of fresh interest and value.

It was in this year also that the first portion of the MSS. of Thomas Carte, the 'Englishman' and historian, came to the Library. It has been universally supposed that his voluminous and invaluable collections came en masse subsequently to his death, but the Library Register shows that Oxford was indebted to him for a considerable and important portion during his life. In this year we find that he sent the papers which relate to the life of the great Duke of Ormonde, with a large number of others bearing on the history of Ireland from the time of Queen Elizabeth, comprised in thirty volumes folio and quarto. In the following year, shortly before his death (which occurred on April 2, 1754) he forwarded twenty-six more of his Irish volumes, in folio, marked A, B, C, D, &c. And in 1757 nine more of the same series were forwarded by his widow from Caldecot, near Abingdon, according to an entry in the old Catalogue, which appears to correspond to one in the annual Register to the effect that four more boxes were forwarded by the executors, 'by order of Rev. Mr. Hill.' The remainder of his collections were left in the hands of his widow, who, re-marrying to Mr. Nicholas Jernegan, or Jerningham (of the family seated at Cossey, Norfolk), bequeathed them, upon her death, to him, with the reversion to the University of Oxford. While they were in Mr. Jernegan's possession they were largely used by Macpherson[Pg 166] for his publication of State Papers, for which use of them £300 were paid; and the agreement entered into by the publisher Cadell, when borrowing some of them for this purpose, is preserved in the MS. Catalogue of the collection. In 1778, however, Mr. Jernegan disposed of his life-interest to the University, for (as Nichols[217] was informed by Price) the sum of £50, and the remainder were consequently at once transferred to the Library. The collection numbers altogether 180 volumes in folio, fifty-four in quarto, and seven in octavo, besides several bundles of Carte's own papers; and is accompanied by a very full list of contents, compiled by Carte himself, in one folio volume. The mass of papers relating to Ireland which these volumes contain is enormous, drawn chiefly from the stores accumulated by Ormonde at Kilkenny Castle; to which are added miscellaneous historical collections derived from Lords Huntingdon, Sandwich, and Wharton. There are, also, several volumes of extracts and papers, collected with immediate reference to Carte's History of England. And a third, and especially interesting, portion consists of the papers of Mr. David Nairne, under-secretary to James II during his exile, which reach from 1692 to 1718, and fill two volumes in folio and eight or nine in quarto. It was from these that Macpherson chiefly compiled his Original Papers, published in 1775, in 2 vols., 4^o. A Report upon the contents of the collection, with special reference to Ireland (omitting the Nairne papers) was made to the Master of the Rolls by T. Duffus Hardy, Esq., and Rev. J. S. Brewer in 1863, and was printed in the following year, together with an extremely useful summary of the contents of the various volumes, and a reference-table of the letters, &c., printed by Carte in his Ormonde volumes. In consequence of this Report, two Commissioners (the Rev. Dr. Russell, President of Maynooth, and J. P. Prendergast, Esq.) were appointed to examine the whole series, and select for transcription all historical and official papers of interest relating to[Pg 167] Ireland, with a view to the preservation of copies in the Record Office at Dublin. Several transcribers are therefore now continuously employed in transcribing for this purpose the papers selected by the Commissioners. Some notice of the MSS. is to be found in the Record Commission Report for 1800, p. 354.

A.D. 1754.

In this year the MS. collections of Rev. John Walker, D.D., of Exeter (son of Endymion Walker, of Exeter; born 1674, dec. 1747[218]), from which he compiled his valuable and laborious work, The Sufferings of the Clergy, were forwarded to the Library by his son, William Walker, a druggist in Exeter, as appears from a letter from the latter preserved among papers relating to the Library in the Librarian's study. The annual accounts, however, mention the gift under the year 1756. Dr. Walker had expressed in his book (pref. p. xliii.) his intention to deposit his papers in some public repository, and his purpose was fortunately thus carried out. The papers have recently been bound, and now form twelve volumes in folio and eleven in quarto, with a few papers still in bundles[219]. A large number of letters from many among the sufferers and their representatives are here preserved; but, unfortunately, Walker's own handwriting is often hard to decipher. Many pamphlets which belonged to him (identified by the peculiar handwriting in MS. notes) are amongst a vast series recently bound and placed in continuation of the Godwyn Tracts; and several volumes of pamphlets written by Dissenters were given by himself in the years 1719-21.

[Pg 168]

The name of Hogarth occurs in the list of donors, as presenting his two engravings of the Analysis of Beauty, which he had published in the preceding year.

A.D. 1755.

This year is remarkable for the number and variety of the collections with which, during its course, the Library was enriched, comprehending those of Rawlinson, Furney, St. Amand, and Ballard.

On April 6 died Richard Rawlinson, D.C.L., a Bishop among the Non-jurors, notwithstanding that he passed in the world as a layman. From the time of Bodley, Laud, and Selden, he was the greatest benefactor the Library had known; and his only rivals since his own day have been Gough and Douce. In point of numbers, his donation of MSS. far exceeded all. From the short autobiographical notice of himself, given in his own collections for a continuation of the Athenæ Oxon. (where he has inserted a small portrait of himself, engraved, without his name, by Van der Gucht), we learn the following particulars. He was born Jan. 3, 1689/90, in the Old Bailey, his father being Sir Thos. Rawlinson, who was Lord Mayor of London in 1706. On March 9, 1707/8 (having been previously at St. Paul's School and Eton), he was matriculated as a commoner of St. John's College; but in consequence of the death of his father in the same year, he became a gentleman-commoner in 1709; B.A., Oct. 10, 1711[220]; M.A., July 5, 1713; Governor of Bridewell and Bethlehem Hospitals, 1713; F.R.S., 1714; ordained (among the Non-jurors) Deacon, Sept. 21, and Priest, Sept. 23, 1716[221]. He then travelled through the whole of England, except some of the northern parts, and in 1719 went[Pg 169] into Normandy, where, while staying at Rouen, he received from Oxford the degree of D.C.L. by diploma of June 30. Thence he went to the Low Countries, where, in Sept., he was admitted into the Universities of both Utrecht and Leyden, and returned into England in Nov. On June 12 in the following year, he started on a longer journey, which he extended through Holland, France, Germany, the whole of Italy, and Sicily, to Malta; and returned on the death of his elder brother Thomas, also a well-known book-collector, in 1726. During his six years' travels, he had seen, he remarks, four Popes[222]. Admitted F.S.A. May 10, 1727. On March 25, 1728, he was consecrated Bishop, by Bishops Gandy, Doughty, and Blackbourne, in Gandy's Chapel[223]. Appointed a Governor of St. Bartholomew's Hospital in March, 1733. He resided at London House, Aldersgate, so called from having been in early days a mansion of the Bishops of London. During his lifetime he was a constant benefactor to the Library; in the years 1733-4-5-7-8-9 and 1750, he is entered in the great Register for special gifts of coins, books, and pictures. Some hundreds of printed books, now in the gallery called 'Jur.,' and elsewhere, were given by him at these times; while many of the Holbeins and other valuable portraits in the Picture Gallery came from him[224]. A few MSS. also came from him during his lifetime which are now placed in the general Bodley collection. But at his[Pg 170] death all his collections came en masse[225]; collections formed abroad and at home, the choice of book-auctions, the pickings of chandlers' and grocers' waste-paper, everything, especially, in the shape of a MS., from early copies of Classics and Fathers to the well-nigh most recent log-books of sailors' voyages[226]. Not a sale of MSS. occurred, apparently, in London, during his time, at which he was not an omnigenous purchaser; so that students of every subject now bury themselves in his stores with great content and profit. But history in all its branches, heraldry and genealogy, biography and topography, are his specially strong points. The printed books bequeathed by him in selection from his whole library (of which those in quarto and smaller sizes are still called by his name) amounted to between 1800 and 1900[227], but the MSS. to[Pg 171] upwards of 4800, besides a large number of old charters and miscellaneous unsorted deeds.

The staff of the Library being very small at the time, as well as ill-paid[228], and such an accession being completely overwhelming, the officers appear to have contented themselves with duly entering[Pg 172] the printed books, while leaving the MSS. entirely neglected. About the beginning of the present century some steps were taken towards a Catalogue, and a portion were arranged and numbered; still later, considerably more was done. But it was only on the accession of the present Librarian to the Headship, that the full extent of Rawlinson's collections was ascertained. Every corner of the Library was then thoroughly examined, and cupboard after cupboard was found filled with MSS. and papers huddled together in confusion, while, last not least, a dark hole under a staircase, explored by the present writer on hands and knees, afforded a rich 'take,' including many writings of Rawlinson's Non-juring friends. The whole number of volumes thus brought to light amounted to about 1300.

The classes into which the whole collection of MSS. is now divided are the following:—

1. Class A: 500 volumes, chiefly of English history, with a few theological books. Amongst these are the Thurloe State Papers, in sixty-seven volumes, of which all of importance were published by Birch, in seven vols. folio, in 1742. These papers were found after the Revolution concealed in the ceiling of garrets in Lincoln's Inn, which belonged to the rooms formerly occupied by Thurloe; and they still bear too evident marks of the damp to which they were there exposed. They passed through Lord Somers' and Sir Jos. Jekyll's hands into those of a bookseller, Fletcher Gyles, from whom Rawlinson obtained them in 1751, and who, as Rawlinson says, asked at first an 'immoderate price' for them. Another series is that of Miscellaneous Papers of Sam. Pepys, in twenty-five volumes, containing his correspondence, collections on [Pg 173]Admiralty business, &c.[229] These, together with many other volumes which belonged to Pepys (including many curious dockyard account-books of the times of Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth) were 'redeemed from thus et odores vendentibus[230].' Of another acquisition Rawlinson writes thus:—

There are also some papers in this class and in Class C which belonged to Archbp. Wake, about which Rawlinson writes, on June 24, 1741[234]:—

2. Class B numbers 520 volumes nominally, but really, including double numbers, 534. They comprise heraldry and genealogy (including MSS. of Sir Richard and Sir Thos. St. George, W. Wyrley, Guillim, Ryley, Glover, Le Neve, and other heralds) English and Irish history, and topography, including several monastic chartularies. Among the genealogical MSS. is a remarkable collection of pedigrees, in twelve volumes, which the present writer ascertained to have been compiled by Thomas Wilkinson, Vicar of Laurence Waltham, Berks, between about 1647 and 1681. They are arranged alphabetically, as far as the letter P in tolerable order and regularity, but thenceforward only in a rough and incomplete state. Unfortunately the handwriting is far from clear, and the ink has often made it worse. Among the volumes relating to Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, &c., are twelve or thirteen which belonged to William Holman, a voluminous collector for the first-mentioned county, who incorporated the gatherings of Rev. John Ousley and Thos. Jekyll. Morant, the historian of Essex, obtained the[Pg 175] larger portion of Holman's books; some are in the British Museum; and the remainder ('the refuse,' says Morant) were bought by Rawlinson in 1752 for £10[235]. Besides the above-mentioned volumes, there are a large number of Holman's MSS. which are kept distinct, and which have been recently bound in fourteen folio volumes, eleven quarto, and five octavo. Under London are some nineteen or twenty volumes of Diocesan papers which belonged to Bp. John Robinson. They formed (with one volume in Class A and several in Class C) a mass which are described by Rawlinson, as follows[236]:—

Under Bucks are Rawlinson's own collections for a history of Eton College, and under Middlesex and Oxon. his parochial collections for those counties. The Irish MSS. include many of great antiquity and value which formerly belonged to Sir James Ware, e.g. Tigernach's Annals, Annals of Ulster, Lives of Saints,[Pg 176] Dublin Chartularies, Arms of Irish families, Irish poems, &c. Among them is the often noticed Life of St. Columba by Magnus O'Donnell, written in 1532, which was bought by Rawlinson at the Chandos sale for twenty-three shillings.

Of these two classes a Catalogue, in one volume quarto, was printed in 1862, which was compiled by the writer of this volume[238]. A full index to the contents of all the MSS. has been made, which remains at present unprinted, but may possibly at some time appear in conjunction with a volume describing the contents of the succeeding class.

3. Class C comprehends 989 MSS. of very miscellaneous character, but chiefly consisting of law, history and theology, with a few medical works. Among the theological portion are papers of John Dury, the zealous labourer for union amongst Protestants in the time of Charles I, papers of Bedell and Usher, some volumes of John Lewis of Margate[239], and some interesting Service-books of English use, including a Pontifical given to Salisbury Cathedral by Bp. Roger de Martivale between 1315-1329, and an early Oseney book. Several volumes consist of papers of Dr. Chamberlaine (author of Notitia Angliæ) and Mr. Henry Newman, secretaries of the Societies for the Propagation of the Gospel, and Promoting Christian Knowledge, which, Rawlinson mentions in a letter, dated April 28, 1744, (Ballard MS. ii.) that he had then recently purchased. Some seventeen or eighteen volumes came from the library of Bp. Turner of Ely (together with others in the classes called Miscellaneous and Letters), containing papers of himself and his brother, Dr. Thomas Turner, Dean of Canterbury. These were obtained by Rawlinson in 1742, who in them became master, as he says, of a considerable treasure[Pg 177] for ten guineas[240].' Early English poets are represented by Lydgate, Rolle of Hampole, William of Nassyngton, and others[241]; and one volume contains a few Welsh verses. A catalogue exists in MS. The volumes relating to English history in classes A and C are noticed in the return printed in the Record Commission Report for 1800, pp. 348-353.

4. The class entitled Miscellaneous numbers about 1400 volumes, and includes the greater part of those which were discovered in 1861. They are so entirely miscellaneous that it is impossible to give in a few lines a real idea of their nature. History, travels, biography, and religious controversy largely prevail. There are papers of Sir Thos. Browne, Dr. Dee, Maittaire, Peter Le Neve, Ashmole[242], John Dunton, and Bagford, with a very large mass of Hearniana. Of the Non-jurors, there are papers of Grascome, Gandy, Spinckes, Hickes, Fitzwilliams, Howell, and Dean Granville. Some nine or ten volumes are occupied with the accounts of the Royal Surveyor of Works from 1532 to 1545. The Church-wardens' accounts of Sutterton, Lincolnshire, from 1493 to 1536, and of St. Peter's, Cornhill, from 1664 to 1689, are also found here[243]. There is a large series of Italian MSS. (amongst other foreign books, chiefly French) which bear on English history, as containing copies of reports made to Rome by Papal agents and to Venice by ambassadors, together with the proceedings at many conclaves. These were bought by Rawlinson at Sir Jos. Jekyll's sale of the Somers' MSS. in 1739, for £3 15s.[244] There is also a[Pg 178] mass of papers of J. J. Zamboni, Venetian Resident in England, and a friend of Maittaire. A considerable number of autograph signatures, barbarously cut out from various books, by Thomas Rawlinson, were found in loose papers; these have now been mounted and bound in two volumes. There are not, however, many of interest among them, except several of Ben Jonson.

5. In Letters there are upwards of 100 volumes, comprising all the multifarious correspondence of Hearne with Anstis, Bagford, Baker, Barnes, Dodwell, Smith, &c., the correspondence of Rawlinson, Dr. Thomas Turner, and Bishop Francis Turner, Philip Lord Wharton, and Sir Edm. Warcupp. One volume contains a few letters by Dryden, Pope, Edw. Young, &c. There is also a series of letters in three vols. relating to Dr. John Polyander, of Kerckhoven, Professor of Divinity at Leyden, and eight or nine volumes of Vossius' correspondence, being the originals from which the folio volume published at London in 1691 was printed.

6. The class of Poetry contains 221 volumes, including Chaucer, Hoccleve, Lydgate, Capgrave (Life of St. Catherine), and Rolle of Hampole, with Piers Plowman and the Romance of Parthenope of Blois (both imperfect). The majority are miscellaneous poems and plays of the seventeenth century. One volume, containing the words of anthems with the composers' names, is supposed to be the Chapel-book used by Charles I.

Of the three last-mentioned classes, a brief MS. list was drawn up with great neatness and accuracy by Dr. Bliss, in 1812 (reaching in the case of the Miscell. only as far as No. 407); an index, in continuation, to all the later additions is now in process of formation.

7. Of Sermons there are about 200 volumes; many of which are by Non-jurors, including three by Rawlinson himself. Ten volumes are by Dan. Price, Dean of St. Asaph, 1696-1706; and one volume is said to contain unpublished sermons by[Pg 179] Leighton, apparently from notes taken by some auditor at the time of delivery. These have been copied for publication in a proposed new edition (under the care of Rev. W. West, of Nairn, N.B.) of Leighton's whole works.

8. A selection of Biblical and Classical MSS., with a few others, amounting to 199, are placed in the case marked 'Auctarium,' G. Amongst these are a few Greek volumes, with critical Adversaria of Maittaire, Josh. Lasher, and J. G. Grævius. Early copies of Statius, Ovid, Virgil, &c. form part of the classics; while among the Biblical MSS. is a grand eighth-century copy (written in rounded minuscules, in the same style as the Rushworth book) of the Gospels of St. Luke and St. John, and a beautiful eleventh-century Psalter with the commentary of St. Bruno. One other fine book is a Psalter written for Ch. Ch. Cathedral, Dublin, by the care of Stephen Derby, Prior, about A.D. 1360-80, with remarkable miniatures illustrating Psalms xxxix, liii, lxix, lxxxi, and xcviii.

9. Of Missals, Horæ, and other Service-books, there are (besides those which are scattered in Classes C and G Auct.) about 130. These (most of which are of French origin, bought out of the library of Nic. Jos. Foucault[245], of Flemish, or of Italian) are now incorporated with a large collection of Liturgical books, which are called Canon. Liturg., from their having formed part of the Canonici collection purchased in 1818.

10. A small collection of Statutes, comprising sixty-five volumes, is kept distinct. They consist of the Statutes of various Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, of the Cathedrals of Lichfield, Hereford, Worcester, Chester, Manchester, Canterbury, Exeter, and the Abbey of Westminster; of the Order of the Garter (various[Pg 180] copies); of Hospitals at Croydon, Chipping-Barnet, and Chichester; of the Gresham Charities, together with the Charters of London and Bristol; Statutes made by the Chapter of Paris for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre there in 1421, and an eighteenth-century transcript of the Statutes of the College at Bayeux. But the volume of most interest in this class is the rare printed volume of the Statutes of Thame School, issued in 1575. Of this, only five other copies are known, one kept at the School itself, a second in the custody of the Warden of New College (the Visitor of the School), a third in the Royal Library, Brit. Mus., and the fourth and fifth, both on vellum, in the possession of the Earl of Abingdon and in the Grenville Library, Brit. Mus. Rawlinson's copy, which wants the title, has in it the book-plate of John, Duke of Newcastle.

11. Of the MSS. of Dr. Thomas Smith, the Non-juror, of Magd. Coll., Oxford, there are 139 volumes, which (with the exception of a few bequeathed by Smith himself) came into Rawlinson's hands together with the rest of Hearne's collections. They are noticed above, under the year 1735.

12. Besides the multitude of books, scattered throughout every class of Rawlinson's library, which belonged to Hearne or were written by him, there are about 150 small duodecimo volumes of Hearne's daily diary and note-books, commencing in July, 1705, and ending on June 4, 1735, the last actual entry being on June 1, and his decease occurring on June 10. The character of this diary is well known from the two volumes of Extracts published by Dr. Bliss in 1857, with the title, Reliquiæ Hearnianæ. But it must not be supposed that these volumes comprehend all that deserves publication; the diary throughout is full of like curious personal history and anecdote, antiquarian gleanings and amusing gossip, mixed, of course, with a good deal of occasional acrimony against those with whom Hearne came in collision either from differences[Pg 181] in academic or literary matters, or from their being friends of the 'Elector of Hanover.' There is scarcely a subject falling within its writer's scope of observation on which this Diary may not be consulted; and as it is written in his usual plain and neat hand, with an index to each volume, it is fortunately easy for reference. Hearne bequeathed all his MSS., and books with MSS. notes, to Mr. William Bedford, son of the well-known bishop among the Non-jurors, Hilkiah Bedford; the legatee died on July 11, 1747, and Rawlinson bought them of his widow for £105. Hence it was that they came finally to the place where Hearne would himself have rejoiced to see them deposited. The autobiographical sketch of Hearne's own life, which Huddesford published in 1772, in conjunction with the lives of Leland and Wood, is preserved among the Miscellaneous MSS. Of this Rawlinson says, in a letter dated June 19, 1740[246]: 'Tom's own life was so low and poor a performance that I recommended it to Bedford to burn.' On account, probably, of the numerous reflections which the Diary contained on living persons, Rawlinson ordered in his bequest that it should not be open to inspection until after the lapse of seven years. He laid also the same restraint upon the use of his own papers noticed in the next paragraph.

13. Large collections were made by Rawlinson for a continuation of Wood's Athenæ Oxon. These contain much valuable biographical information, derived in very many cases from the actual information of the persons noticed, letters from many of whom are inserted. There are, in all, twenty-five volumes, folio and quarto; among the folios there are two series of notices arranged alphabetically, and one volume (also alphabetical) of notices of Cambridge men admitted ad eundem; the quartos contain 1331 notices, numbered but not arranged in any other[Pg 182] order, with one general alphabetical index. These collections, together with Hearne's Diaries, and Rawlinson's Non-jurors' Papers, and notes of his own Travels, were included in a fourth and last codicil, dated Feb. 14, 1755, which directed that all these papers should be kept locked up during a period of seven years. By the same codicil also were conveyed numerous engravings by Vertue, portraits of Englishmen, some paintings, and a collection of Roman, Persian, Italian, and English medals[247]. Some of the Italian medals, particularly a fine set in copper of the members of the House of Medici, are now exhibited in a case in the Picture Gallery[248]. By a codicil of June 17, 1752, Rawlinson had previously bequeathed a series of medals of Popes, of which he remarks, 'as they are, I take them to be one of the most complete collections now in Europe;' together with twenty shillings per annum for enlarging and continuing the set[249].

14. Finally (as regards MSS.), Rawlinson left a mass of ancient charters, five hundred of which were catalogued by Mr. Coxe some years ago, and of vellum deeds and documents of all kinds, chiefly of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He left, also, all the copper-plates containing engravings of some of his ancient documents and other curiosities, as well as a large number of impressions from these plates. Many of these impressions were sold at the sale of Bodleian duplicates in 1862. The copper-plates were added to his bequest by a second codicil, dated July 25, 1754, in which he desired that impressions should be taken from them, to be sold in one volume for the use and benefit of the University.[Pg 183] A last item in Rawlinson's miscellaneous gifts (besides various bas-reliefs, figures, a Jewish vessel, Muscovite cup, &c.) was a large collection of matrices of ancient conventual and personal seals, chiefly foreign; together with impressions of seals, ancient and modern, in metal and wax, 'most of which,' it is said in the Will (p. 4), 'were of the collection of Mr. Charles Christian, the celebrated seal engraver.' The wax impressions are now exhibited in the Picture Gallery.

Distinct from Rawlinson's other printed books is a curious series of Almanacs, in 175 volumes, extending from 1607 to 1747, which were sent to the Library in 1752. Some volumes in continuation, from 1747 to 1768, were given by Sir Rob. H. Inglis, Bart., in 1846[250]. Another series, between 1571 and 1663, is in the Ashmole collection.

By his second codicil, of July 25, 1754, Rawlinson bequeathed a fee-farm rent of £4 per annum to the Under-librarian, in consideration of his taking charge of the MSS., but clogged with the strange conditions that he should not be a doctor in any faculty, married, or in Holy Orders[251]. The receipt of this sum is entered in the Accounts for 1756, but in no subsequent year.

The following is an alphabetical list of the principal libraries[Pg 184] from which Rawlinson's MSS. were collected, with the dates (so far as ascertained) at which these libraries were dispersed:—

• Acton (Oliver), of Bridewell Hosp.
• Bacon (Thos. Sclater), 1737.
• Bridgeman (Will. & Rich.), 1742.
• Chandos (Duke of), 1747.
• Clarendon (Henry, Earl of). Through Chandos.
• Clavell (Walter), 1742.
• Compton (Bishop). See p. 175.
• Foucault (Nic. Jos.), 'Comes Consistorianus[252],' 1721.
• Gale (Samuel), 1755.
• Graves (Rich.), of Mickleton. Through Hearne.
• Halifax (Montagu, Earl of), 1715.
• Hearne (Thomas), 1747.
• Holman (William). See p. 174.
• Jekyll (Sir Joseph), 1739.
• Le Neve (Peter), 1731.
• Maittaire (Mich.), 1748.
• Mead (Richard, M.D.), 1754-5.
• Murray (John), 1749.
• Oxford (Harley, Earl of), 1743-5.
• Pepys (Samuel). See p. 172.
• Pole (Francis), 175-.
• Powle (Henry), in 1689 Speaker of House of Commons.
• Rawlinson (Thomas), 1734.
• Robinson (Bishop). See p. 175.
• St. George (Sir Thomas).
• Somers (Lord). Through Jekyll.
• Spelman (Sir Henry).
• Spinckes (Rev. Nathan), 1727.
• Turner (Bishop). See p. 176.
• Usher (Archbishop). Through Hearne.
• Wake (Archbp.). See p. 174.
• Ware (Sir James). Through Clarendon and Chandos.
• Whiston (William).

On July 15, a bequest of printed books and MSS. was received from Rev. Richard Furney, M.A., Archdeacon of Surrey (who had been schoolmaster at Gloucester, 1719-1724, and who died in 1753,) by the hands of the Rev. John Noel, of Oriel College. The printed books (nineteen in all) consisted almost entirely of early[Pg 185] editions of classics. The MSS. (six folio volumes) are thus described in a list made by the Librarian, Humphrey Owen, at the time of their receipt:—

The gift comprised also two ancient brass seals, and eighteen original deeds, amongst which is the original confirmation charter granted to Gloucester Abbey, by Burgred King of Mercia, in 862. This remarkable deed (which is not printed in Kemble's Codex) is in admirable preservation, is written in seventeen lines, with five lines containing seventeen signatures, and measures sixteen inches in width and ten and one-third in length. There are also original grants to the abbey from Hen. II and Stephen, and a confirmation, 29 Edw. I, of Magna Charta, which has a magnificent impression of the beautiful great seal. The deeds are noticed in the Report on the Public Records for 1800, p. 354.

By the death on Sept. 5, 1754, of James St. Amand, Esq.[253] (formerly of Lincoln College), a bequest of books, MSS., coins, &c. which had been made by a will dated Nov. 9, 1749, accrued to the Library, being received in the year 1755. The books consist chiefly of the then modern editions of the classics, and of the writings of modern Latin scholars; such of them as the Library[Pg 186] did not need, were to go to Lincoln College. The MSS., sixty-eight in number, comprise various papers relating to the history chiefly of the Low Countries[254], together with notes and indices by St. Amand himself to Theocritus and other Greek poets, Horace, &c. They are described by Mr. Coxe, in vol. i. of the Catalogue of MSS., cols. 889-908. The main part of the residue of his property was bequeathed to Christ's Hospital, together with a picture of his grandfather James St. Amand, done in miniature and set in gold, with the singular proviso that the picture should be exhibited, and the part of the will relating to these bequests be read, at the first annual court of the Hospital, and also that the picture be shown annually to the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, if required. Should a refusal to show the picture be persistently made, or any of the conditions of the will be avoided, then all the residue was to be given to the University, first to increase the stipend of the chief Librarian to £120 and of the second Librarian to £70, but only so long as both of them were unmarried, and then to be devoted to the purchasing of books and MSS., specially of classic authors.

Many of his books have a book-plate, which the author has ascertained to be that of Dr. Arthur Charlett; being the initials A. C., interlaced with the same repeated in an inverse way, surrounded by piles of books, and with the motto, 'Animus si æquus, quod petis hîc est.'

By the bequest of George Ballard (the author of the Memoirs of Learned Ladies), who died on June 24, the Library became enriched with forty-four volumes of Letters, chiefly addressed, by ecclesiastical and literary personages of all ranks, to Dr. Arthur[Pg 187] Charlett, Master of University College, between the reigns of James II and George I. For the biographical and bibliographical history of the time these letters possess great interest and value; it was from them that the Letters by Eminent Persons, published in 1813, by Rev. John Walker, M.A., Fellow of New College, were chiefly drawn. No printed catalogue of them has yet appeared, but the Library possesses a MS. index to the contents of each volume, and a more complete and minute index has been recently commenced[255]. Besides the Letters, Ballard bequeathed some other MSS., in number twenty-three, among which is a volume of various voyages and expeditions, 1589-1634; Sir Edm. Warcupp's autograph account of the treaty in the Isle of Wight;[256] a dialogue between a tutor and his pupil, by Lord Herbert, of Cherbury; the second book of the Supplication of Soules, by Sir Thos. More, a precious little volume of 103 closely-written duodecimo pages, entirely in the handwriting of the great Chancellor; the Universitie's Musterings, by Brian Twyne; collections by Ant. à Wood; a small volume of Gloucestershire notes, supposed by Guillim; and several volumes written by Mr. Elstob and his sister. An extract from Ballard's will, with a list of his MSS., is in the Register marked 'C.'

Ballard was originally a stay-maker or mantua-maker at Campden, Gloucestershire; but, following the study of antiquities with great[Pg 188] ardour, became well known and highly esteemed amongst all of like pursuits. At the age of forty-four he was appointed one of the eight clerks of Magdalen College, being matriculated Dec. 15, 1750, but never took any degree. He bequeathed to the College Library some of his books which were there wanting. The fullest account of him will be found in vol. ii. of A Register of St. Mary Magd. College, by J. R. Bloxam, D.D., pp. 95-102, 1857. Some letters from him are printed in Nichols' Lit. Hist. iv. 206-226.

The very valuable MS. of the letters of Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of London (which are of great importance for the illustration of the history of Thomas à Becket), now numbered E. Musæo 247, was given by Sir Thomas Cave, Bart. It is described in the Benefaction Book as 'liber rarissimus; per totam Angliam unum hoc tantum modo exstat exemplar.' The letters were first printed by Dr. Giles, together with the Lives of Becket, in his series of Patres Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ, in 1845.

A.D. 1756.

Dr. Samuel Johnson presented the account of Zachariah Williams' attempt to ascertain the longitude at sea, which he had published under Williams' name in the preceding year; and, as Warton noted[257], he entered it with his own hand in the Library Catalogue. The entry is still to be seen, with a memorandum of its being in Johnson's hand, in an interleaved, and now disused, copy of the Catalogue of 1738.

A.D. 1759.

Above forty Syriac, Greek and Arabic MSS. are recorded in the Registers to have been presented by Henry Dawkins, Esq.,[Pg 189] of Standlynch, Wilts, who had collected them while travelling in the East with Robert Wood, whose works on Baalbec and Palmyra he presented at the same time. There are now sixty MSS. in Syriac alone which pass under the name of Dawkins, some of which are of great age and value. They are described in Dr. R. Payne Smith's Catalogue of the Syriac MSS. Mr. Dawkins died in London, June 19, 1814, aged eighty-six.

Swedenborg's Arcana Cœlestia, published anonymously, in 8 vols. were sent 'by the author, unknown.' The same donor, still unknown, sent in 1766 Selecti Dionys. Halicarn. tractatus.

In this year and in 1761 published music began to be received from Stationers' Hall, and to be entered in the Register. It remained piled up in cupboards until about twenty-three years ago, when it was all disinterred and carefully arranged by Rev. H. E. Havergal, M.A., then Chaplain of New Coll. and Ch. Ch., and an assistant in the Library (now Vicar of Cople, Beds.), and bound in some 300 or 400 volumes. Since that time two further series of musical volumes have been arranged and bound.

A meagre list of the pictures, &c., in the Picture Gallery and Library was printed by the Janitor (or Under-janitor), N. Bull, and 'sold by him at the Picture Gallery.' It fills twelve duodecimo pages. A new edition, 'with additions and amendments,' including the pictures in the Ashmolean Museum, was issued by him in 1762, in sixteen octavo pages. This was, as it seems, the first list that had been issued since Hearne printed his original Catalogue in his Letter containing an Account of some Antiquities between Windsor and Oxford. A list, equally meagre with Bull's, was published by W. Cowderoy, Janitor, in 1806. He was succeeded in office (before 1825) by —— Lenthall; on whom followed the present Janitor, J. Norris, appointed in 1835. By him a new Catalogue, enlarged with biographical notices, was issued, filling sixty pages; which was reissued, with a few alterations, in 1847,[Pg 190] when such of the pictures as were not portraits had been removed to the new Randolph Gallery. As all the portraits were a few years ago distinctly labelled, but few copies of the Catalogue have, consequently, been since sold, and no new edition has appeared.

A.D. 1760.

The MSS. of the eminent antiquary, Browne Willis, who died on Feb. 5, in this year, came to the Library by his bequest. They were received from his executor, Dr. Eyre, on April 24. There are altogether fifty-nine volumes in folio, forty-eight in quarto, and five in octavo, consisting chiefly of Willis' own collections for his various works, with much correspondence intermingled and a few older historical papers. There is much of value for general ecclesiastical topography and biography, besides his large collections for the county of Bucks, and special volumes relating to the four Welsh Cathedrals. He desired in his will that the books should be placed in the Picture Gallery, 'next to those of my friend Bishop Tanner;' both collections have since been removed to a room on the floor below, but the presses which contain them still adjoin each other. Many of his letters are to be found among Ballard's and Rawlinson's papers, and show throughout both the warm interest which he took in ecclesiastical renovation and religious work generally, but particularly in the state of the Church in Wales, and the continual efforts which he made to rouse slothful and negligent dignitaries to a sense of their duties and responsibilities. The restoration of the ruined and desolate Cathedral at Llandaff was an object especially dear to him. By his will, which was dated Dec. 20, 1741, he bequeathed to the University, besides his MSS., all his numerous silver, brass, copper and pewter coins, and also his gold coins, if purchased at the rate of £4 per oz., as the best return he could[Pg 191] make for the many favours he acknowledged to have been conferred on him and on his grandfather, Dr. Thomas Willis, Professor of Natural Philosophy. This latter provision of his will was at once carried into execution; in the following year the University purchased one hundred and sixty-seven gold coins for £150 at £4 4s. per oz., and two more in 1743 for £8 5s. His other coins were given by him in the years 1739, 1740, 1741, 1747 and 1750; and by a codicil to his will dated Feb. 5, 1742, he desired that the whole collection should be annually visited on the Feast of St. Frideswide (Oct. 19), which day he had himself been wont annually to celebrate in Oxford. His first gift to the Library was in the year 1720, when he gave ten valuable MSS., chiefly historical (now placed among the general Bodley Series), together with his grandfather's portrait.

A bequest of £70, towards the purchase of an orrery, was received from Rev. Jos. Parsons, M.A., of Merton College.

A.D. 1761.

Kennicott's collations of Hebrew Biblical MSS., made during the years 1759-60, were received from him on Dec. 17, in this year, according to an entry in the Register. But all his MSS., collations, correspondence, and miscellaneous books (including one in Zend, upon cloth), were subsequently deposited in the Radcliffe Library, whence they were removed, in 1862, together with the other contents of that collection, to the place of their present deposit, the New Museum.

A.D. 1762.

The west, or Selden, end of the Library was re-floored at a cost of £66. Unchaining of those books which hitherto, on[Pg 192] account of their accessibility to all comers, were fastened to their shelves, appears to have been commenced in this year.

A.D. 1763.

The Janitor, Rev. John Bilstone, M.A., was deprived of his office by Dr. Owen, the Librarian, on account of his neglecting to perform his duties in person. An action for arrears of salary was subsequently brought by Bilstone against Owen[258]. He died Feb. 13, 1767, at which time he held three livings, besides his Chaplaincy of All Souls' College.

A.D. 1764.

The Editio princeps of Homer, Florence, 1488, was bought for £6 6s.

A.D. 1768.

H. Owen, the Librarian, and Principal of Jesus College, died in March of this year, and was buried in his College Chapel. In his room was elected the Rev. John Price, B.D., of Jesus College, 'after a severe contest with Mr. Cleaver, of Brasenose, afterwards head of that College and Bishop of St. Asaph, who used to say that he was indebted to Mr. Price for his mitre, for had he obtained the Bodleian he should have there continued, instead of becoming tutor in a noble family, and so placed in the road to advancement. In this election the votes were equal, and Mr. Price, being senior, was nominated by the Vice-Chancellor[259].' Price appears to have been employed in the Library as early as the year 1760, when a payment of £8 8s. was made to him; in 1766 he signs, together with Owen and Thomas Parker, an account of books received from Stationers' Hall.

A.D. 1770.

The Library was largely enriched with books which were then modern, in which it appears to have been very deficient, by the legacy of the library of Rev. Charles Godwyn, M.A., Fellow of Balliol College. The collection, which is still in the main kept undivided (although a few folio and quarto volumes are placed in the general class marked Art.), consists chiefly of works in English and general history, civil and ecclesiastical, published in the eighteenth century, and includes besides the later Benedictine editions of the Fathers. There is also a series of theological and literary pamphlets; to which have been added of late years upwards of 2400 volumes, of all dates and on all subjects, which are now all alike numbered, for convenience sake, in connection with Godwyn's own. The residue of his property, after payment of all claims and bequests, formed a further portion of his legacy; and the interest upon £1050 which accrued from this source, still forms part of the annual income of the Library.

A.D. 1771.

A payment of £2 12s. 6d. was made in this year (or rather, at the close of 1770) to a glass-painter, named Brooks, for one of the coats of arms in the great east window.

A.D. 1775.

Twenty-four Oriental MSS. and bundles of papers which had been found in the study of Rev. Dr. Thos. Hunt, Reg. Prof. of Hebrew, who died in the preceding year, were given by various persons.

A.D. 1776.

Lord North, the Chancellor of the University, presented to the Library the observations made by Dr. James Bradley, while Astro[Pg 194]nomer Royal, at Greenwich, 1750-62. These had been given to him by Mr. John Peach, son-in-law to Dr. Bradley, while a suit was pending between the Board of Longitude on behalf of the Crown and Mr. Peach respecting his right to their possession. The claim of the Crown had been first made in 1765, on the ground that they were the papers drawn up by Bradley in discharge of his public and official duties, but the executor, Mr. Sam. Peach, refused to resign them except for some valuable consideration. But after his death, his son, Mr. John Peach, who married Dr. Bradley's daughter, presented them to Lord North, with the understanding that the latter should give them to the University, on condition that they should be forthwith printed. They were, consequently, immediately put into the hands of Dr. Hornsby, the Savilian Professor of Astronomy, for publication; but the work progressed very slowly, in consequence of his ill-health, and a remonstrant correspondence ensued between the Board of Longitude, the Royal Society, and the University, which was printed by the Board, together with a statement of the whole case and of the steps taken by them for the recovery of the papers, in 1795. Several letters from Sir Joseph Banks, as President of the Royal Society, to Price the Librarian, in 1785, on the slow progress of the work, are preserved in a volume of MS. Letters to Librarians, recently bound up by Mr. Coxe. The first volume at length appeared in 1798, in folio, and the second, edited by Prof. A. Robertson, in 1805, with an appendix of observations made by Bradley's successor, Rev. Nath. Bliss, and his assistant, Mr. Charles Green, to March, 1765, which had been purchased by the Board of Longitude, and were presented by them to the University, in March, 1804. Some further remains of Dr. Bradley were, after Dr. Hornsby's death, found among the papers of the latter, and these (having been restored to the University by his family, on application, about 1829) were published in 1831, under[Pg 195] the editorship of Prof. S. P. Rigaud, in one vol. quarto, entitled Miscellaneous Works and Correspondence of Rev. J. Bradley. In 1861, a fresh application for the return of the Observations was made to the University, by Mr. Airy, the Astronomer Royal, on the ground that they were the only volumes wanting in the series preserved at Greenwich, and that they were frequently needed there for reference. By a vote of Convocation, on May 2, this application was acceded to, and thirteen volumes of Observations were returned to what was certainly their legitimate place of deposit. Some miscellaneous papers, making about thirty parcels, still remain in the Library.

A.D. 1778.

Carte's MSS. See 1753.

A.D. 1780.

On Jan. 22, a Statute was passed which imposed an annual fee of four shillings[260] on all persons entitled to read in the Library and all who had exceeded four years from matriculation, as well as assigned to the Library a share of the matriculation fees. The preamble of the Statute alleges that the funds of the Library were so insufficient for their purpose that of works of importance daily published throughout the world 'vix unus et alter publicis sumptibus adscribi possit.' The Statute also provided for the holding of regular meetings by the Curators, and the issuing of an annual Catalogue of the books purchased during the year, with their prices, together with a statement of accounts. The[Pg 196] commencement of the annual printed purchase-catalogues dates in consequence from this year.

In a letter from Thos. Burgess, afterwards the Bishop of St. David's and Salisbury, to Mr. Tyrwhitt, the editor of Chaucer, dated Corp. Chr. Coll., Nov. 16, 1779, the plan for increasing the funds of the Library, established by this Statute, is mentioned as a scheme 'much talked of,' the defects of the Library being such as 'we are now astonished should have been of so long continuance[261].' A paper in behalf of the proposal was circulated among Members of Convocation, upon a copy of which, preserved by Dr. Bliss with his set of the annual Catalogues, the latter has noted that it was written by Sir William Scott, afterwards Lord Stowell.

The exquisite portrait of Sir Kenelm Digby, supposed to be by Vandyke, was given by Edw. Stanley, Esq. It is now in the Picture Gallery; and, having recently been cleaned and covered with plate-glass, appears once more in all the freshness of its original perfection[262].

The Sub-librarian at this time was John Walters, an undergraduate Scholar of Jesus College. He published in this year a small volume of Poems ('written before the age of nineteen'), the chief portion of which consists of a description of the Library, written with a warm admiration of his subject, and by no means destitute of poetic feeling. It numbers 1188 lines, and is illustrated with some well-selected notes. In 1782, when B.A. and still Scholar of his College, he published Specimens of Welsh Poetry in English verse, with some Original Pieces and Notes. He took[Pg 197] the degree of M.A. in 1784, and died in 1791[263]. We learn from a MS. note in a copy of his Poems, presented to the Library by the present Principal of Jesus College, that he was the son of John Walters, Rector of Llandough (author of a Welsh Dictionary, 1794), by Hannah his wife, and that he was baptized there, July 9, 1760.

A.D. 1785.

George III and Queen Charlotte visited the Library, from Nuneham, on Oct. 13. Price, the Librarian, was in attendance, and kissed hands.

Several Assistants, whose names are not perpetuated in the Library records, are found perpetuated by the inscriptions written by successive generations on the old oak staircases which run from their studies to the galleries above. In June of this year, Thomas Whiting, of Jesus College (B.A. also in this year), does in this way transmit the memory of his service to posterity. E. Thomas (qu. Evan Thomas, of All Souls' College, B.A., 1793?) does the same in 1790.

A.D. 1787.

On May 31, the Reader in Chemistry, Thomas Beddoes, M.D., of Pembroke College, issued a printed Memorial to the Curators 'concerning the state of the Bodleian Library, and the conduct of the Principal Librarian.' The utmost laxity appears from this statement to have prevailed with regard to attendance, and to the hours of opening the Library; the Librarian was always absent on Saturdays and Mondays, as on those days he was occupied in journeys to and from a curacy eleven miles distant, which he held together with a living more remote; and the Library which should[Pg 198] then in summer have been opened at eight was found unopened between nine and ten, and unopened also after University sermons. The Librarian is charged besides with having discouraged readers by neglect and incivility, with being very careless in regard to the value and condition of books purchased by the Library[264], and with having but little knowledge of foreign publications. An anecdote is related (amongst others) of his lending Cook's Voyages, which had been presented by King Geo. III, to the Rector of Lincoln College, and telling him that the longer he kept it the better, 'for if it was known to be in the Library, he (Mr. Price) should be perpetually plagued with enquiries after it[265].' In consequence of these complaints, the Curators, in 1788, prepared on their part a new form of Statute, while the Heads of Houses prepared another. This separate action led to a paper war between the two bodies, in which the Regius Professors of Divinity, Law, Medicine, Hebrew and Greek, (Randolph, Vansittart, Vivian, Blayney and Jackson) appeared on the Curators' side of the question, and, as the Hebdomadal Board persisted in pressing their own scheme, they at length (with the exception of Blayney) adopted the strong step, on the day when the rival plan was proposed in Convocation (June 23, 1788), of formally protesting before a notary public against this violation of their privileges. The consequence was that the Statute was withdrawn, and the proposal for a new code abandoned by both parties. The chief points of difference were, that the Curators objected to the proposal being put forward as 'cum consensu Curatorum' instead of 'ex relatione Curatorum,' to the increase of the Librarian's stipend to £150, to the appointment of two Sub-librarians instead of one, and to the leaving the appoint[Pg 199]ment of these in the hands of the Librarian (in accordance with Bodley's own Statute) instead of assigning it to the Curators.

Eleven Arabic and Persian MSS. were given by Turner Camac, Esq., co. Down.

A first part of a Catalogue of the Oriental MSS., comprehending those in Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Æthiopic, Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Coptic, was issued in this year, in folio. It was compiled by John Uri, a Hungarian, who had studied Oriental literature under Schultens, at Leyden, and who was recommended for this purpose to Archbp. Secker, by Sir Joseph Yorke, then Ambassador in the Netherlands. Many years were occupied in the preparation of this volume, as Uri appears to have commenced his work in 1766, his signature occurring in the 'Registrum admissorum' under Feb. 17, in that year[266]. Sixty closely-printed folio pages of corrections and additions are, however, supplied by Dr. Pusey, in the second part of the Catalogue, which he completed after Dr. Nicoll's death and published in 1835. In his preface to this part, Dr. Pusey remarks that Uri frequently copied with carelessness; and that the whole series of Arabic MSS. was found to need re-examination from the discovery that all kinds of cheats and impositions had been played upon all the purchasers of Eastern MSS., Pococke alone excepted, by the cunning sellers with whom they dealt, particularly in the passing off of supposititious works for genuine[267]. And upon carrying out this re-examination, the following was found to be the result:—

A.D. 1789.

The Anatomy School, on the Library staircase, was fitted up in this year as a room for receiving the Greek and Biblical MSS., and fifteenth-century editions of classics. In 1794 it was ordered that it should be distinguished by the name of the Auctarium, a name which it still retains. Mr. John Thomas, of Wadham College, (B.A. 1790, M.A. 1793) was employed in 1790 in arranging the room and making a list of its contents.

Many early editions of the classics were purchased at the sale of the library of Mapheo Pinelli, at Venice. To enable these purchases to be made, the Curators made a public application for loans, to which a liberal response was returned, as noted under the following year.

The increased attention which began to be paid to the Library about this time is thus mentioned in a letter from Mr. Dan. Prince, the Oxford bookseller:—

A.D. 1790.

A very large number of Editiones principes and other early-printed books were purchased at the sale at Amsterdam of the library of P. A. Crevenna. The first entire Hebrew Bible, printed at Soncino in 1488, was purchased for £43 15s.; and Fust and Schoeffer's first dated Latin Bible (Mentz, 1462) for £127 15s. To enable the Library to make the purchases of this and the preceding year, benefactions were received to the amount of nearly £200, and upwards of £1550 were lent by various bodies and individuals. The repayment of the loans was completed in 1795.

£120 were received for duplicates sold to Messrs. Chapman and King. Other small receipts from similar sales are found under the years 1793, 1794 and 1804.

A.D. 1791.

From this year onwards until 1803, inclusive, the name of Mr. Edward Lewton, of Wadham College (B.A. 1792, M.A. 1794), is found as that of an Assistant employed upon the Catalogues. Further benefactions to the amount of £232, for the purpose of aiding the purchase of early-printed books, were received in this year. The list of all the donors is printed in Gutch's edition of Wood's History and Antiquities, vol. ii. part ii. p. 949.

A.D. 1792.

The collections of notes and various readings made by Joseph Torelli, of Verona, in preparation for his edition of Archimedes,[Pg 202] were deposited in the Library, (F. infra, 2. Auct.). They were given to the University after his death (in 1781) by his executor, Albert Albertini, partly through the instrumentality of Mr. John Strange, envoy to Venice, upon condition that the University undertook the publication. The work was consequently printed at the University Press, and issued in a handsome folio volume in this year.

A.D. 1793.

A magnificent copy of Gutenberg's Bible, not dated, but supposed to have been printed about 1455, fresh and clean as if it had just come from the hands of the men of the New Craft, carefully set at their work, was bought for the very small sum of £100. It is exhibited in the first glass case in the Library. This is the edition often called the Mazarine Bible, from the circumstance that the first copy which obtained notice was found in the Mazarine Library at Paris.

A.D. 1794.

The Editio princeps of the Bible in German, printed by Eggesteyn about 1466, was bought for £50.

A chronological Catalogue, in two folio volumes, of a very large and valuable collection of pamphlets (which had hitherto been kept in the Radcliffe Library), extending from 1603 to 1740, was made in 1793-4, by Mr. Abel Lendon, of Ch. Ch. (B.A. 1795, M.A. 1798.)

Mr. Rich. S. Skillerne, of All Souls' (B.A. 1796, M.A. 1800), was employed in the Library.

With a view to the formation of a new Catalogue, the Curators at the end of the annual list made a first application for returns of such books existing in the several College libraries as were not[Pg 203] in the Bodleian, in order thereby to accomplish what would be a most useful work, and is still a great desideratum, a General Catalogue of all the books in Oxford.

A.D. 1795.

A brief list (filling sixty small octavo pages) was printed at the Clarendon Press, of the Editiones principes, the fifteenth-century books, and the Aldines, then in the Library. The name of the compiler does not appear. It is entitled, 'Notitia editionum quoad libros Hebr., Gr. et Lat. quæ vel primariæ, vel sæc. xv. impressæ, vel Aldinæ, in Bibliotheca Bodleiana adservantur.'

Four cabinets of English coins were presented by Thomas Knight, Esq., of Godmersham, Kent. Among them was an ornament (now exhibited in the glass case near the Library door) said to have been worn by John Hampden when he fell at Chalgrove Field[269]. It consists of a plain cornelian set in silver, with the following couplet engraved on the rim:—

The Curators renewed a request, made ineffectually some time before, that the several Colleges would make out returns for the Library of all such books in their own collections as did not appear in the Bodl. Catalogue. In the year 1801 they acknowledged the receipt of such lists from Magdalen[270], Balliol, Exeter, and Jesus; Oriel sent a list subsequently (in 1808?); but these were all that were ever forwarded.

A.D. 1796.

A few incunabula and Aldines were purchased at Göttingen.

The annual list of donations was, for the first time, printed in this year. It does not include, however, a large gift which was partly received now, the presentation having been made in the year preceding. It was the gift by Rev. Dr. Nath. Bridges of the MSS. collections made by Mr. John Bridges for his History of Northamptonshire. They number thirty-seven volumes in folio, eight in quarto, and one in octavo; and consist chiefly of extracts from Public Records and from the Episcopal Registers of Lincoln, the volumes in quarto containing Church notes for the several parishes. Some account of them is given in Mr. Whalley's preface to vol. i. of Bridges' History, published in 1791.

A.D. 1798.

The distinguished historical antiquary, Sir Henry Ellis, D.C.L., was appointed in this year, by his friend the Librarian, to be one of the Assistant-librarians; commencing thus, while still an undergraduate Fellow of St. John's (which College he had entered in 1796) the studies and pursuits which eventually led to the post, so long and honourably held by him, of Principal Librarian and Head of the British Museum. In a letter with which the author of this volume was recently favoured by him ('jam senior, sed mente virens,') Sir Henry mentions that the Rev. Henry Hervey Baber, of All Souls' College (B.A. 1799, M.A. 1805), who was afterwards one of his colleagues in the Museum, and who now (ætat. 92) is Vicar of Stretham, in the Isle of Ely, was his senior in the Bodleian, as Coadjutor-under-librarian, by a year or two. In consequence of the insufficiency of the statutable staff, the place of the one Under-librarian was at this time, and subsequently,[Pg 205] shared by two occupants. In 1800 Sir H. Ellis signed, in conjunction with Mr. Price, the return printed in the first Record Commission Report relative to the Historical MSS. possessed by the Library.

A.D. 1799.

Some MSS. papers of the eminent French divine, Pet. Franc. le Courayer, were bequeathed by Rev. Bertrand Russel. Courayer's portrait, representing him in his alb, was given by Courayer himself in 1769.

A.D. 1800.

The chief purchases in this year were of English and foreign maps, purchases which were continued in 1802 and 1804. For Maraldi's and Cassini's Atlas of France, in 2 vols., no less than £104 was paid! The interest now taken in French politics was also shown by the purchase of a set of the Moniteur from 1789, which was bought for £66.

A.D. 1801.

A large and valuable collection of MS. and printed music was received, at the beginning of this year or the close of the preceding, by the bequest of Rev. Osborne Wight, M.A., formerly a Fellow of New College, who died Feb. 6, 1800[271]. The MSS. number about 190 volumes. They contain anthems, &c., by Arnold, Bishop, Blow, Boyce, Croft, Greene, Purcell, &c.; a large number of the works of Drs. Philip and William Hayes; with very many madrigals and motetts by early Italian and English composers, and some of Handel's compositions. The printed volumes[Pg 206] consist chiefly of the original folio editions of Handel, Arnold's and Boyce's collections, and the works of Playford, Purcell, Croft, Greene, and other English composers. A MS. Catalogue of the whole was made by Rev. H. E. Havergal, M.A., about 1846, when the collection was put in order. The Library also possesses full band and voice parts of several of the odes and other compositions by both Philip and William Hayes. Besides his books Mr. Wight also bequeathed £100 in the 3 per cents. 'to defray expenses.' Few additions have been made in the class of old music since his gift. Some rare sets of madrigals have been purchased, specially, in 1856, those of Morley, Watson, Weelkes, Wilbye, and Yonge, for £24 14s. 6d.; Mr. Vincent Novello gave, in 1849, MSS. of Handel's Te Deum in D, and Greene's anthem, 'Ponder my words,' and in the following year a MS. of part of the ancient Gregorian Mass, 'De Angelis,' harmonized by Sam. Wesley, in 1812; the Professor of Music, Sir F. Ouseley, Bart., gave some French Cantates in 1856; and two or three volumes have been added by the present writer.

A.D. 1803.

An Arabic MS., in seven volumes, written in 1764-5, and containing what is rarely met with, a complete collection of the Thousand and One Tales of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, was bought from Capt. Jonathan Scott for £50. Mr. Scott published, in 1811, an edition of the Tales, in six volumes, in which this MS. is described. He obtained it from Dr. White, the Professor of Hebrew and Arabic at Oxford, who had bought it at the sale of the library of Edward Wortley Montague, by whom it had been brought from the East. It is noticed in Ouseley's Oriental Collections, vol. ii. p. 25.[Pg 207]

A.D. 1805.

In this year the last volume (numbered 142) of Dr. Holmes' Collations of MSS. of the Septuagint-Version, was deposited in the Library. This great and important work had been commenced in the year 1789; it was intended to embrace collations of all the known MSS. of the Greek text, as well as of Oriental versions; and for seventeen years, by the help of liberal subscriptions, in spite of the difficulties interposed by the continental wars, the collection of the various readings from MSS. in libraries throughout Europe was carried on. And each year's work was, on its completion, deposited in the Bodleian. During this period, annual accounts were published of the progress of the work, which possess both critical and bibliographical interest; and the results of the whole are seen in the fine edition printed at the Clarendon Press, in five vols., folio, 1808-1827.

The MSS. of the distinguished classical scholar, James Philip D'Orville, who died at Amsterdam, Sept. 14, 1751, were bought for £1025. After the purchase was completed, a question arose whether the University of Leyden were not, by the terms of his will, entitled to them after the death of his son, but it was ascertained that this provision was only made in case his son did not reach manhood. The collection numbers about 570 volumes, containing many valuable Greek and Latin Classics, together with numerous collations of texts, and annotated printed copies. Thirty-four volumes contain correspondence (autograph and in copy) of Is. Vossius, Heinsius, Cuper, Paolo Sarpi, Beverland, and the letters addressed to D'Orville by all the great scholars of his time. And thirty-eight volumes, in folio and quarto, contain Adversaria of Scipio and Alberic Gentilis. There are also six Turkish and Arabic MSS. The gem of the collection is a quarto MS. of Euclid, containing 387 leaves, which was written,[Pg 208] 'χειρι Στεφανου κληρικου,' A.M. 6397 = A.D. 889. It contains a memorandum by one Arethas of Patras, that he bought the book for four (or, most probably, fourteen,) nummi. A Catalogue of the MSS., compiled anonymously by Dr. (then Mr.) Gaisford, was printed in quarto, in 1806. D'Orville's signature occurs in the Admission-book as having been admitted to read on Aug. 18, 1718.

A form of new Statute was put out on March 28, to be proposed to Convocation in May; but it appears to have been withdrawn, as no fresh Statutes were actually enacted until 1813. The staff was proposed to be increased to the number which was adopted in the latter year, but with smaller salaries; and the Library was to be open from nine to three, throughout the year.

A.D. 1806.

Fifty pounds were paid for some 'Tibetan MSS.' of Capt. Samuel Turner, E.I.C.S., who had been sent by Warren Hastings, on a mission to the Grand Llama, in 1785. Of this mission he published an account, in a quarto volume, in 1800. His MSS. consist chiefly of nine bundles of papers and letters in the Persian and Tartar languages, written in the last century, together with a few Chinese printed books. Capt. Turner died Jan. 2, 1802; but as one of his sisters was married to Prof. White, it was probably through him that the papers were now purchased.

A beautiful copy of the Koran which had been in the library of Tippoo Sahib (now exhibited in the glass case near the door) was presented, together with another MS. from the same collection, by the East India Company. Dibdin speaks of it as a work 'upon which caligraphy seems to have exhausted all its powers of intricacy and splendour,' and adds the following description:[Pg 209]—

The Catholicon of J. de Janua, printed at Mentz, in 1460, was bought for £63.

The following singular memorandum, relating to this year, is preserved on a small paper:—

This picture must have been the portrait of Professor White himself, which was painted and presented by Rev. Will. Peters, R.A., in 1785[273]. It has never been restored.

On the morning of Saturday, April 19, probably but little after nine o'clock, the statutable time for the opening of the Library, some zealous student stood at the door, but could get no further. No one appeared to give him entrance; the Librarian himself never came on a Saturday, and probably his Assistants were not scrupulous in punctuality; at any rate, the expectant student stood and expected in vain. But ere he departed, he denounced a 'Woe' which perpetuates to this day the memory of his vain expectancy; he affixed to the door the following text, which doubtless[Pg 210] seemed to him naturally suggested: 'Ουαι ὑμιν, ὁτι ηρατε την κλειδα της γνωσεως; αυτοι ουκ εισηλθετε, και τους εισερχομενους εκωλυσατε' The paper is now preserved over the door of one of the Sub-librarians' studies, with this note added: 'Affixed to the outer door of the Library by some scavant inconnu, April 19, 1806.'

A.D. 1807.

A list of the books printed during the year at the University Press is added to the annual account. This was not repeated.

A copy of the Speculum Christiani, printed by Will. de Machlinia, was given by Rev. A. H. Matthews, of Jesus College.

Amongst the names of Assistants, written by them, more Anglico, on the wood-work of their studies, occurs the name of 'Rob. Fr. Walker, New Coll., Dec. 1807.' Mr. Walker (B.A. 1811, M.A. 1813) was subsequently Curate of Purleigh, Essex, where he died in 1854. He was known as the translator of a Life of Bengel, and other works, from the German. A memoir of him was published by Rev. T. Pyne, from which the account given by Dr. Bloxam in his Register of Magd. Coll. ii. 115-117, was taken. In 1810, John Woodcock (B.A. 1817, M.A. 1818, Chaplain of New College) appears, from the same evidence as Mr. Walker, to have been an Assistant, one Will. John Lennox in 1808, and John Jones, (Ch. Ch.? B.A. 1808, M.A. 1815), in 1809.

A.D. 1808.

The Latin Bible printed by Ulric Zell, at Cologne, in two volumes, about 1470, was bought for £47 5s. The Bible printed at Rome, by Sweynheym and Pannartz, in 1471, had been bought, in 1804, for £35; and in 1826 a Strasburgh edition, printed with Mentelin's types, without date, was obtained for £94 10s.[Pg 211]

A set of the Oxford Almanacks, from the commencement in 1674 to this year, was given by a frequent donor, Alderman Fletcher[274].

A.D. 1809.

The death of the eminent topographer and antiquary, Richard Gough, on Feb. 20, 1809[275], brought into operation the bequest made to the Library in his will, dated ten years previously. This consisted of all his topographical collections, together with all his books relating to Saxon and Northern literature, 'for the use of the Saxon Professor,' his maps and engravings, and all the copper-plates used in the illustration of the various works published by himself. The transmission of this vast collection was accomplished by Mr. J. Nichols, the executor, in the course of the year; and some of his correspondence on the subject is printed in his Illustrations of Literary History, vol. v. pp. 556-561. The collection (which numbers upwards of 3700 volumes) was placed in the room formerly the Civil Law School, that room having been assigned to the Library a few years previously, and fitted up (at a cost of about £675) for the reception of various historical collections. In the same room are now the Carte, Dodsworth, Tanner, Willis, Junius, and portion of the Rawlinson, manuscripts, with other smaller collections; the name proposed to be given to it, and by which it was designated in Gough's will, was 'The Antiquaries' Closet.' Gough's library consists, firstly, of a large series of maps[276] and topographical prints and drawings, in ele[Pg 212]phant-folio volumes; of this a very brief outline-list is given in the printed catalogue, but a full list in detail exists in MS[277]. Secondly, of printed books and MSS., arranged under the heads of General Topography, Ecclesiastical Topography[278], Natural History, the several Counties (with London, Westminster, and Southwark) in order[279], Wales, Islands, Scotland, and Ireland. Thirdly, of 227 works connected with Anglo-Saxon literature and that of the Scandinavian races generally. Fourthly, of an extremely large and valuable series of printed Service-books of the English Church[Pg 213] before the Reformation, together with a few MSS., chiefly Horæ. The value of this series may be gathered from the following statement of the Missals, Breviaries, Manuals, Processionals, and Hours, which it comprises, besides which there are Graduals, Psalters, Hymns, Primers, &c.

Of several of these books there are more than single copies.

A fifth division of Gough's library consists of sixteen large folio volumes of coloured drawings of monuments in churches of France, chiefly at Paris, in Normandy, Valois, Champagne, Burgundy and Brie, and at Beauvais, Chartres, Vendosme and Noyon. They form part of a large collection extending through the whole of France, which was made by M. Gagnières, tutor to the sons of[Pg 214] the Grand Dauphin, and given by him to Louis XIV in 1711. Of this collection, now preserved in the Imperial Library, twenty-five volumes were lost amid the troubles of the French Revolution, between 1785 and 1801; but in what way, out of the twenty-five, these sixteen came into Gough's hands, has not been clearly ascertained. The collection is of great value, as most of the monuments were defaced or destroyed by the revolutionary mobs. Gough's volumes contain about 2000 drawings, of the whole of which facsimiles were made in 1860 by M. Jules Frappaz, by direction of the French Minister of Public Instruction, (who made application for the purpose, through Mr. J. H. Parker, in 1859) for the purpose of so far supplying the deficiency in the series at Paris[281].

The copy of the British Topography, which Gough had prepared for a third edition (of which a considerable part of vol. i. had been printed, but was burned in the disastrous fire at Mr. Nichols' printing-office in Feb., 1808,) was bought by the Curators of Mr. Nichols in 1812 for £150[282]. It has been recently bound in four very thick volumes. A fifth volume contains the proof-sheets of that portion of vol. i. which had been printed, extending to Cheshire, p. 446. The collections for the first edition make three volumes.

By Gough's bequest the Library became also possessed (as mentioned above) of the very valuable copper-plates which illustrated his Sepulchral Monuments, and other works. In 1811, one hundred guineas were paid to Basire, the engraver, for cleaning and arranging 380 of these plates. Amongst these was the actual brass effigy of one of the Wingfield family in the fifteenth century, from Letheringham Church, Suffolk, of which an engraving is found in the Monuments. The brass is now exhibited in the glass case of miscellaneous objects of curiosity in the Picture Gallery.[Pg 215]

The Catalogue of the collection was issued from the University Press, in a quarto volume, in 1814. It was chiefly compiled by Dr. Bandinel, to whom fifty guineas were paid for it, in 1813; but Dr. Bliss has noted[283] that the first 136 pages were prepared by himself. In the Bibliographical Decameron (vol. i. p. xcv.) Dibdin has made honourable mention of the 'perseverance, energy, and exactness' with which he found Dr. Bandinel working on a very hot day in the year 1812, in the arrangement of the collection, 'in an oaken-floored room, light, spacious, and dry.'

Some account and survey-books, belonging to University and Magdalen Colleges, which came to the Library among Gough's MSS., were restored by vote of Convocation on March 9, 1814.

The MSS. which the well-known traveller, Rev. Edw. Dan. Clarke, LL.D., had collected during his journeys through a large part of Europe and Asia, were purchased from him in this year for £1000. A first portion of a Catalogue, comprising descriptions of fifty volumes, of which fifteen are in Latin, two in French (Alain Chartier, one being the printed edit. of 1526), and the rest in Greek, was published in 1812, in quarto, by Dr. Gaisford, who printed in full some inedited Scholia on Plato and on the Poems of Gregory Nazianzen. A second part of the Catalogue, containing a description of forty-five volumes in Arabic, Persian, and Æthiopic, was issued by Dr. Nicoll, in 1814. The special feature in the collection is a MS. of Plato's Dialogues, from which the Scholia are printed in the Catalogue, written (on 418 vellum quarto leaves) by a scribe named John (who styles himself Calligraphus) in the year 896, for Arethas, a deacon of Patras, for the sum of thirteen Byzantine nummi. The D'Orville MS. of Euclid was also written for this Arethas (see p. 208).[Pg 216]

A.D. 1810.

In March, the Prince Regent forwarded to the University four rolls of papyrus, brought from Herculaneum, burned to a state resembling charcoal, together with engravings of rolls hitherto deciphered, and many facsimile copies, in pencil, of inedited rolls. A committee was appointed from the Curators of the Library and the Delegates of the Press, at the beginning of the year 1811, to have the charge of this gift, and £500 were granted towards publication. Two volumes of lithographed facsimiles were in consequence published at the Clarendon Press, in 1824-5. Some further selections from these papers have recently been published by a German scholar, Dr. Th. Gompertz.

On Nov. 15, it was resolved in Convocation to restore to the Chancery at Durham, on the application of the Bishop of Durham, the MS. Register of Richard Kellow, Bishop of Durham, 1310-16, containing also a portion of the Register of Rich. Bury, 1338-42, which had come to the Library among Rawlinson's collections, and was the only volume wanting at Durham in an unbroken series of Episcopal Registers, of which this was the first. It was borrowed in 1639/40, as it appeared, by an agent of the Marquis of Newcastle, for the purpose of production in some law-suit affecting his property; remained through the Civil War in his hands; fell subsequently into those of the Earl of Oxford, and was bought by Rawlinson from Osborne the bookseller, in whose sale-catalogue of the Harleian Library in 1743 it was numbered 20734.

In this year Dr. Philip Bliss, the editor of Wood's Athenæ, appears to have entered the Library as an assistant, the entries in the register of books received from Stationers' Hall being partly made by him, in his very clear and neat hand. In 1812 he drew up short catalogues of the St. Amand MSS. and of a portion of the Rawlinson collection (the Poetry, the Letters, and the commence[Pg 217]ment of the Miscell.) for which a payment was made to him of £21. He afterwards quitted the Library for the British Museum, but returned in 1822, as Sub-librarian, for a short time.

His life-long friend, Dr. Bandinel, entered the Library also in this year. To him, for a list of a further portion of the Rawlinson MSS., £26 5s. were paid in 1812.

A.D. 1811.

Only eighteen books were purchased in this year! The list, scantly filling one page, is consequently the minimum in the series of annual catalogues.

A.D. 1813.

The Rev. John Price, B.D., the Librarian, died on Aug. 11, aged seventy-nine, after forty-five years of office. A short biographical notice is given in the Gentleman's Magazine for Oct., 1813, p. 400, and a fuller account, together with many letters, and an engraved portrait, with facsimile signature, (from a sketch taken in 1798, by Rev. H. H. Baber), in vols. v. and vi. of Nichols' Illustrations of the Lit. Hist. of the 18th Century. The following character of him with regard to his discharge of his official duties is there given (vi. 471), which in some respects forms a strong contrast to the representation of Prof. Beddoes in the year 1787 (see p. 197). 'In the faithful discharge of his public duties in the University, he acquitted himself with the highest credit, and deservedly conciliated the esteem of others by his readiness to communicate information from the rich literary stores over which he presided, and of which he was a most jealous and watchful guardian. He was, from long habit, so completely attached to the Library, that he considered every acquisition made to its contents as a personal favour conferred upon himself.' It was chiefly owing[Pg 218] to his assiduous attention to Mr. Gough and his frequent correspondence with him, that the Library was enriched with the bequest of the latter's splendid topographical collections. But there is not much existing to tell of personal work in the Library during his long tenure of office, and the fact that nothing was done till near the close of that period towards arranging and cataloguing the Rawlinson MSS., seems to prove that there was no great activity in the Library under his management. This is corroborated also by the wonderful difference which is immediately seen in the annual catalogue of purchases; the Catalogue for 1813 grows at once from the two folio pages of the preceding year to seventeen, while the sum expended becomes £725 in the place of £261[284]. And the list of books forwarded from Stationers' Hall, and hitherto received only twice yearly, at Lady-day and Michaelmas, becomes in 1815 largely increased, while in the year 1822 the number of yearly parcels is increased to eight. At the present time, as for a long time past, books are received monthly.

The Rev. Bulkeley Bandinel, M.A. (D.D. in 1823), of New College, was elected Librarian by Convocation on Aug. 25. He had been appointed Sub-librarian in 1810, by Mr. Price, who was his godfather; and for a short time previously had been a Chaplain in the Royal Navy, having served with Adm. Sir James Saumarez on board the 'Victory,' in the Baltic, in 1808.

The appointment of a new Librarian was followed by the enacting of a new Statute, passed by Convocation on Dec. 2, which provided for the increase of the Librarian's stipend to £400, exclusive of his share of fees from degrees; for the appointment of two Sub-librarians, instead of one, and these not under the degree of M.A., with salaries of £150; of two assistants, Bachelors of Arts or undergraduates, with salaries of £50; and of the Janitor,[Pg 219] with a salary of £20. An additional annual grant, calculated at £680, equal to that which resulted from the provision made by the Statute of 1780, and to be paid, like that, out of the yearly fees of graduates whose names are on the books, was sanctioned, with the triple object of providing for this enlarged staff, for the commencement of a new Catalogue, and for repairs hitherto defrayed out of the general University funds. The state of the roof and ceiling were said to be such as to justify an apprehension that they must at no distant period be entirely constructed anew; happily this reconstruction was only carried out with respect to the Picture Gallery, and the roof of the Library remains as a precious relic still.

The hours at which the Library should be open, were fixed to be from 9 to 4 in the summer half-year, and 10 to 3 in the winter; the only change since made has been the enacting, in 1867, that nine o'clock shall be the invariable hour of opening on all ordinary days[285].

The junior assistants in the Library in this year were Mr. Francis Thurland, of New College (B.A. 1812, M.A. 1814), and Mr. Sam. Slack, of Ch. Ch. (B.A. 1813, M.A. 1816).[Pg 220]

A.D. 1814.

The nomination of the Rev. Henry Cotton, M.A., then Student of Ch. Ch., now the venerable Archdeacon of Cashel, as Sub-librarian, was approved in Convocation on March 9. Of the interest which he took in his work, of his qualifications for it, and of the advantages which the bibliographical world has derived from it, his Typographical Gazetteer and List of Editions of the English Bible, afford abundant testimony[286]. He remained in the Library eight years, quitting it when his friend Dr. Laurence, on his appointment to the Archbishopric of Cashel, carried him with himself to Ireland.

During his continuance in the Library, a descriptive Catalogue of the Editiones principes and Incunabula was projected by him and Dr. Bandinel; but only one specimen page in octavo was printed, of which a copy has been preserved by Dr. Bliss, with his set of the annual catalogues.

Alex. Nicoll, M.A., of Balliol College (a native of Aberdeen), was appointed Sub-librarian at the early age of twenty-one; the nomination was approved in Convocation on April 27. He at once devoted himself to the study of Oriental languages, and became a proficient in Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, Syriac, Æthiopic, and Sanscrit. His facility in acquiring languages must have been truly marvellous,[Pg 221] for, in addition to these Eastern tongues, and although his death occurred at the early age of thirty-six, it is said that 'he spoke and wrote with ease and accuracy, French, Italian, German, Danish, Swedish, and Romaic.' In 1822 he was, much to his own surprise, appointed, at the age of twenty-nine, to the Regius Professorship of Hebrew, by Lord Liverpool, on the recommendation of Dr. Laurence, who vacated that post in consequence of his appointment to the see of Cashel. Nicoll held the Professorship for only seven years, dying on Sept. 24, 1828. The records of his labours in the Bodleian are found in the Catalogue of Clarke's Oriental MSS. noticed under the year 1809, and in his second part of the General Catalogue of Oriental MSS., published in 1821, q. v.

The total receipts and expenditure of the Library were for the first time fully stated in the annual accounts. Hitherto the practice had been to omit the Bodley endowment and the Crewe benefaction, &c., which were devoted to salaries, repairs and other ordinary expenses (including also the occasional purchase of MSS.), and only to report the amount received from University fees and expended on printed books and incidental charges.

A.D. 1815.

Cedunt arma togæ! The effect which the cessation of the war produced, in diverting to quiet academic channels the stream of youth which hitherto had flowed in the turbid currents of continental strife, is shown by the large increase of the Library receipts derived from matriculation fees. These, which previously fell below (and often far below) £250, rose in 1814, on the first sign of peace, to £424, and in this year, on its final establishment, to £633.

In January, Mr. John Calcott, of Lincoln College (B.A. 1814, M.A. 1816, B.D. 1825; Fellow of Linc.; deceased 1864) was appointed Minister in the room of Mr. Francis Thurland, of New[Pg 222] College, resigned. Mr. Calcott, however, only held the office for one year, being succeeded, in Feb. 1816, by Mr. Sam. Fenton, of Jesus College (B.A. 1818, M.A., Ch. Ch. 1821).

A.D. 1816.

A very important MS., with relation to Scottish history, was placed in the Library on Dec. 5, in this year. It is a transcript (from the originals,) by Col. J. Hooke, agent in Scotland for James II[287], of all his political correspondence between the beginning of the year 1704 and the end of 1707. It forms two folio volumes, but is unfinished, as the second volume ends with the commencement of a letter from James Ogilvie, of Boyn, to M. de Torcy, Dec. 26, 1707. A brief narrative of Hooke's negotiations, which contains copies of a few of the letters here given, was published in France, in the French language, and a translation was printed in a small volume at Dublin in 1760; but the great mass of the correspondence is as yet inedited. The volumes came to the Library in pursuance of a bequest from the Rev. J. Tickell, Rector of Gawsworth, Cheshire and East Mersea, Essex, who died at Wargrave, Berks, July 3, 1802. The bequest was to take effect upon the death of his wife, which occurred towards the close of 1816[288].

The Curators reported, at the end of the annual list, that considerable progress had been made towards the formation of a new general Catalogue. Further progress was reported in the following year; in which year also Dibdin[289] announced that the Catalogue would be finished, in four folio volumes, by Messrs. Bandinel[Pg 223] and Cotton under the superintendence of Professor Gaisford[290]. He adds, 'The Prince Regent hath munificently given a considerable sum towards the completion of these glorious labours.' There is no record in the annual accounts of any such donation; but in 1823 and 1824 payments amounting to £420 were made to the Librarian, Sub-librarians, and Assistant, for their work on the new Catalogue[291], out of 'the Prince Regent's benefaction.' On the proposition of the Chancellor, Lord Grenville, in 1814, Mr. Vansittart, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had expressed his willingness to apply to Parliament for a grant of £5000 for the purpose; probably this idea was abandoned for the more easily practicable one of a grant from the Privy Purse.

Four Greek MSS. were presented in this year by Rev. —— Hall, Chaplain at Leghorn[292]; a copy of Lucan's Pharsalia, with MSS. collations by Joseph Addison, by the Warden of Merton College; and a large collection of books in Oriental literature, printed in Bengal, by the East India Company.

A.D. 1817.

The large Canonici collection of MSS. was obtained from Venice in this year, for the sum of £5444, a purchase unprecedented in greatness in the history of the Library[293]. The collection was formed by Matheo Luigi Canonici, a Venetian Jesuit, who was born in 1727 and died in Sept. 1805 or 1806. Indefatigable in his passion for antiquities, he first formed a Museum[Pg 224] of statues and of medals at Parma, but, in consequence of the Jesuits being expelled from the State, this was sold to the government. He then at Bologna set himself to collect religious objects of interest, and had succeeded to some extent, when the rector of his society observed to him that such a collection was little suitable to a poor monk, and he consequently disposed of it to a Roman prince. Finally, at Venice, he commenced the gathering of a library, in which it is said, as one evidence of its extent, there were more than four thousand Bibles written in fifty-two languages[294].

The MSS. purchased by the Bodleian amount in number to about 2045. Dibdin, almost immediately upon the acquisition, noticed it thus[295]:—

In Greek there are 128 volumes, chiefly of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with a few of earlier date, including two Evangelistaria assigned by Montfaucon to the ninth century. Of Latin classical authors and Mediæval poets there are 311 volumes; some of those of the former class are of great age and value, notably a Virgil of the tenth century (No. 50). Ninety-three MSS. form the class of Latin Bibles; the finest of these are, one written in 1178 for the church of SS. Mary and Pancras in Ranshoven, and another, in five very large folio volumes, written and illuminated in France, in the[Pg 225] years 1507-1511. Of Latin ecclesiastical writers and Fathers there are 232 volumes; and of Latin miscellanies (chiefly in medicine, philosophy and science, theology, and belles lettres, with scarcely anything of an historical character), 576 volumes. Of all these classes a catalogue was published by Mr. Coxe in 1854, forming part iii. of the new general Catalogue of MSS.

Another division consists of Liturgical books. In this class there are now 400 volumes, but about 130 of these were added from the Rawlinson collection. They consist chiefly of Horæ, Breviaries, Missals, and Psalters, with a few other service-books; most of those which belonged to Canonici being 'secundum usum Romanum.' No catalogue of this series has, as yet, been made.

A sixth division comprehends 300 Italian MSS. (including five in Spanish) of which a very elaborate catalogue was compiled, as a labour of love, by the Count Alessandro Mortara, during the years of his stay in Oxford[296]. His MS. was bought after his death from his executor the Abate Giuseppe Manuzzi, of Florence, for £201, in the year 1858; it was afterwards put to press under the care of the accomplished Italian scholar, and intimate friend of Count Mortara, Dr. H. Wellesley, the late Principal of New Inn Hall, and appeared, with an Italian preface by him giving some account of the whole collection, in one volume quarto (158 pages,) in 1864.

The last portion of the collection consists of 135 Oriental MSS., chiefly valuable Hebrew books on vellum. One of these (No. 78) is a copy of Maimonides' Commentary on the Law, in fourteen books, which is dated 1366. Seven of the Biblical volumes are noticed in De Rossi's Variæ Lectiones Veteris Testamenti. The few Arabic MSS. are described in Dr. Pusey's Continuation of Nicol's Catalogue.[Pg 226]

A curious story of the recovery, amidst these books, of some leaves belonging to a printed vellum Bible already in the Library, will be found related under the year 1750. A few other MSS. from Canonici's library were sold by auction, with some from Saibante's, in London, in 1821. And many relating to Italian and Venetian history, which were at first retained by one of the heirs, passed afterwards into the hands of the Rev. Walter Sneyd, of Baginton, Warwickshire, their present possessor. A MS. volume of notices of the Canonici library, drawn up by Signor Lorenzi, of Venice, was bought by the Bodleian, in 1859, for ten guineas[297].

A MS. of Suidas, of the fifteenth century, was purchased for £220 10s. Another acquisition was a French translation, made in 1417, by Laurens de Preme, of the Ethics, Politics, &c., of Aristotle[298]. Some specimens of the Javanese language were given by Capt. L. H. Davy.

Among printed books, the most noticeable purchase (besides the Edd. Pr. of Livy, 1469, Lactantius, 1465, &c.) was that of a vellum copy of the first edition of the Hebrew Pentateuch, printed at Bologna in 1482, for £17 10s. Some sets of controversial and political tracts, with other books, which had belonged to Thomas[Pg 227] Brande Hollis and Dr. John Disney, were bought at the sale of the library of the latter.

A.D. 1818.

A return was made to the House of Commons of such books received since 1814, in pursuance of the Copyright Act, from Stationers' Hall, as it had not been deemed necessary to place in the Library. The list is but a trifling one, consisting chiefly of school-books and anonymous novels, with music; but, nevertheless, it is sufficient to show the great need of caution in rejecting any books excepting such as are of the simplest elementary character, and the advantage of erring rather on the side of inclusiveness than exclusiveness. Miss Edgeworth's Parents' Assistant, Mrs. H. More's Sacred Dramas, Mrs. Opie's Simple Tales, and an edition of Ossian, were all consigned to the limbo of 'rubbish.' But the Cambridge Return (which is much more detailed than that from Oxford[299]) shows a recklessness of rejection which speaks little for the judgment of the Librarians for the time being. Besides school-books and music, a large number of pamphlets figure in the list, including some by Chalmers and Cobbett; the Theology includes Owen's History of the Bible Society; the History includes Memoirs of Oliver Cromwell and his Children; the Poetry, Byron's Siege of Corinth, L. Hunt's Story of Rimini, and Wordsworth's Thanksgiving Ode; and the Novels, [Peacock's] Headlong Hall, one by Mrs. Opie, and—The Antiquary! The far wiser plan is now carried out in the Bodleian of rejecting nothing; even the elementary works that do not need entering in the Catalogue, are so kept that access can be had to them at all times and examination made; and the music is from time to time sorted and bound. And this plan was commenced in the[Pg 228] year of which we are writing; for, (in consequence, of course, of this return being called for by the House of Commons,) the Curators ordered, on May 27, that all publications sent from Stationers' Hall should in future be entered and preserved.

A very valuable and curious series of original editions of Latin and German tracts, issued by the German Reformers between 1518 and 1550, in eighty-four volumes, was bought for £95 15s. Additions have been made to this collection at various times subsequently, so that now it probably comprises as complete a gathering of these controversial publications, so easily lost or destroyed from their small extent and often ephemeral character, as can anywhere be found. A kindred collection (although not of like value or interest) was obtained through the gift by Mr. A. Müller, a well-known bookseller at Amsterdam, of a series of tracts, in sixty-two volumes, and chiefly in the Dutch language, on the controversy with the Remonstrants in 1618-19. A MS. Catalogue, by Mr. Müller, dated March 3, is kept in the Librarian's study. Besides the books, Mr. Müller gave a few coins, including one struck on leather during the siege of Leyden in 1574, and some natural curiosities, which latter are now preserved in the New Museum. A black negro baby, preserved in spirits (!) has, however, unaccountably disappeared; let us hope it was decently buried. Seventeen panes of painted glass, probably by disciples of Crabeth, who painted the windows in the Church of Gouda, also formed part of this very miscellaneous donation; these, most probably, are included among the curious fragments which decorate some of the Library windows.

Six Persian MSS. were given by the late venerable Principal of Magdalen Hall, and Lord Almoner's Reader in Arabic, Dr. Macbride. The signature of this gentleman, who has only been removed by death while these sheets have been passing through the press, occurs in the Admission-book of the last century,[Pg 229] as having been admitted to read in the Library, while still an undergraduate of Exeter College, on May 10, 1797.

Alderman Fletcher's illustrated copy of Gulch's Wood. See under 1610.

Mr. John Walker, Queen's College (B.A. 1820; Chaplain of New College, M.A., 1823), succeeded Mr. Fenton as minister in July.

A.D. 1819.

A copy of the extremely rare Polish version of the Bible, made by the Socinians at the expense of Prince Nicholas Radzivil, and printed in 1563, was bought for £45[300]; and a folio Psalter, printed by Fust and Schoeffer in 1459, (finished Aug. 29), on vellum, for £70. The second vellum printed book in the Library is a copy of Durandus' Rationale, printed by the same printers in the same year, but completed on Oct. 6. This was bought in 1790 for £80 10s. Large additions were made to the collection of Aldines.

The name of Lady Hester Stanhope occurs among the benefactors as presenting an Arabic MS. of the Romance of Antar, in thirty volumes.

A.D. 1820.

From Messrs. Payne and Foss was bought, for £150, the famous MS. of the Greek New Testament called, from its former possessor, the 'Codex Ebnerianus.' It is a small quarto, containing 425 leaves of fine vellum, in excellent condition and well written, and ornamented with eleven rich paintings, besides occasional arabesque borders, &c. It comprehends all the books of the New Testament except the Apocalypse, and is assigned in date to the twelfth or thirteenth century. The former owner, whose name it perpetuates, Jerome William Ebner von Eschenbach, of Nuremberg, obtained it, it is said, when first brought[Pg 230] from the East 'ex singulari Numinis providentia.' While in his possession, a small descriptive volume, comprising forty-four pages and an engraved facsimile, was published by Conrad Schoenleben, under the title of Notitia egregii codicis Græci Novi Testamenti manuscripti, &c. 4^o. Norib. 1738. This was incorporated by De Murr in his Memorabilia Bibliothecarum publicarum Norimbergensium, published in 1788, part ii. p. 100, who added thirteen well-engraved plates of the illuminations, binding and text. It was formerly bound in leather-covered boards, ornamented with gold, with five silver-gilt stars on the sides, and fastened with four silver clasps. This cover being much decayed, Ebner cased the volume in a most costly binding of pure silver, preserving the silver stars, and affixing on the outside a beautiful ivory figure (coæval with the MS.) of our Saviour, throned, and in the attitude of benediction. Above the figure, Ebner engraved an inscription in Greek characters, corresponding to the style of the MS., praying for a blessing upon himself and his family.

A MS. of Terence, of the eleventh or twelfth century, which also belonged to Ebner, was bought from Payne and Foss, at the same time, for ten guineas. It is described in De Murr, ubi supra, pp. 135-7.

Fifty Greek manuscripts were bought for £500, which had formerly been in the possession of Giovanni Saibante, of Verona. The library of this collector is noticed in Scipio Maffei's Verona Illustrata (fol. 1731), part ii. col. 48[301]. The MSS. purchased by the Library are described in Mr. Coxe's Catalogue, cols. 774-808.

[Pg 231]

A collection of Arabic tracts and papers, which had formerly belonged to Dr. Kennicott, was given by Shute Barrington, Bishop of Durham.

A.D. 1821.

The great event of this year was the reception of the famous and extensive collection of English dramatic literature and early poetry, formed by Edmund Malone[302]. It was bequeathed by him on his decease (May 25, 1812) to his brother, Lord Sunderlin, with the expression of a wish that, if not retained as an heirloom in the family, it should be deposited in some public library. In fulfilment of this wish, Lord Sunderlin communicated to the University, in 1815, his intention to transfer the collection to the Bodleian so soon as Mr. James Boswell, to whom it was entrusted in order to assist him in the preparation of a new edition of Malone's Shakespeare, should have finished his use of it. That edition being at length issued in 1821, the library was sent to Oxford in the same year. The character of the collection is too well known to need description; suffice it to say that it contains upwards of 800 volumes, of which by far the greater number are distinguished by their rarity. There are first quartos of many of Shakespeare's plays, and second editions of others[303]; of his collected works there are both the first and second folios. Barnfield, Beaumont and Fletcher, Chapman, Decker, Greene, Heywood, Ben Jonson, Lodge, Massinger, Rich. Taylor the water-poet, and Whetstone are amongst those who are most fully represented. There are also a few MSS. A Catalogue of the collection, in folio (52 pp.), with a life of Malone by Boswell (previously printed in Gent. Magaz. and Nichol's Lit. Hist.), was published in 1836;[Pg 232] and, in 1861, Mr. J. O. Halliwell printed fifty-one copies of a small Hand-list of the early English literature preserved in it. Various volumes of Malone's own MSS. collections have been subsequently added by purchase; viz. in 1836 some papers relating to the life and writings of Pope; in 1838, his collections for the last edition of his Shakespeare and for the illustration of ancient manners, together with a portion of his literary correspondence; in 1851 a volume of letters written to him by Bishop Percy, between 1783 and 1807; in 1858 three octavo volumes of collections made by him at Oxford; and in 1864 a volume of letters to him from Dr. Johnson, Mrs. Siddons, and others. A large series of pamphlets, chiefly relating to Irish history and to literary matters, comprised in seventy-five volumes, was also purchased in 1838[304]. Almost all his books are uniformly bound in half-calf, with 'E. M.' in an interlaced monogram on the back; a very few have a book-plate consisting of his coat-of-arms within a square of books, with the inscription (in imitation of Grolier's) 'Edm. Malone et amicorum,' and a motto from the Menagiana.

A curious instance of the variableness and uncertainty of the prices of books is afforded by the purchase-list of this year, when contrasted with prices paid at the present time. A copy (wanting the preliminary leaves and a few others) of one of the Antwerp editions of Tyndale's New Test. in 1534, (which had belonged to Mr. Benj. Ibott, and is mentioned in Herbert's Ames, vol. iii. p. 1543) was bought for nineteen shillings; Mr. Stevens in 1855 priced another imperfect copy at fifteen guineas. But, on the other hand, £63 were given in this year for the rare Ed. Pr. of Virgil, printed by Sweynheim and Pannartz in 1469[305]. A somewhat[Pg 233] similar instance occurred also in 1826, when Daye's edition of the Apocrypha, printed in 1549 (being vol. iv. of his edition of the Bible in that year), was obtained for fifteen shillings, while £73 10s. were paid for an edition of Virgil printed at Venice about 1473.

The very rare German Bible, printed at Strasburgh about 1466, was bought for £42, and a perfect copy of the first edition of the Bishops' Bible, in 1568, for seven guineas[306]. A volume of interest in typographical history was presented, in the first book printed in New South Wales. It is entitled Michael Howe, the last and worst of the Bush Rangers of Van Dieman's Land; narrative of the chief atrocities committed by this great murderer and his associates during a period of six years in Van Dieman's Land: it extends to thirty-six small octavo pages, and was printed at Hobart Town, by Andrew Bent, in Dec, 1818[307].

The Catalogue of the Oriental MSS., commenced in the year 1787 by Uri, was continued in this year by the publication by Mr. Nicoll of the first part of a second volume, containing notices of 234 additional Arabic MSS. His premature death occurred before the publication of the second part, which he had printed as far as p. 388; this was completed and edited (with nine lithographic plates of specimens of Arabic MSS.) by his successor in the Hebrew Professorship, Dr. Pusey, in 1835. It contains altogether descriptions of 296 Arabic volumes, together with copious additions by Dr. Pusey to Uri's first portion, which are noticed above, p. 199.[Pg 234]

The Parish Registers of Newington, Kent, and of Bures, in Suffolk, which had come into the Library among Dr. Rawlinson's books, were restored to their respective parishes by a decree submitted to Convocation on Nov. 9. In the Register of Convocation itself, by a singular omission, no mention of the former of these parish books is made (although included in the proposal), and the restoration of that of Bures is alone recorded. But by enquiry addressed to the Vicar of Newington, it has been ascertained that one of the Registers contains a memorandum of its having been returned by vote of Convocation on the day in question.

By a vote of Convocation on July 7, the rooms on the first floor of the Schools' quadrangle, which were formerly used as the Hebrew and Greek Schools, were assigned to the Library; the former (on the south side) now contains, in two rooms, the Bodley, Laud, and other collections of MSS.; the latter (on the north side), also in two rooms, the foreign and English periodicals[308].

On May 25, a plan for warming the Library was, for the first time, adopted. It consisted in introducing hot air simply at two small gratings at one end of the Library, from pipes communicating with a stove placed (with the consent of Exeter College) where the furnace of the present apparatus is situated, in the wall between the north-west corner of the Library and the Ashmolean Museum. As a means of warming the Library generally the system was wholly ineffectual, no benefit being experienced except by those who remained in the immediate vicinity of the gratings. It remained, however, in use until 1845, when pipes were laid down through a considerable part of the Library for the purpose of warming it by steam. This plan, however, did not give satisfaction, either on the ground of safety or of effectiveness. In 1855 Mr. Braidwood, the late distinguished head of the London Fire[Pg 235] Brigade, was brought down to survey the apparatus and to examine generally how the Library could best be secured against fire; and, by his advice and that of Mr. G. G. Scott, the pipes were enclosed in slate casings, so as effectually to hinder contact with any inflammable materials, and two fire-proof iron doors were inserted at the entrances to the great Reading-room, in order to cut it off from the rest of the building[309]. But in 1861 steam was discarded for the safer and more effectual system, now in use, of warming by hot water; new pipes (cased in slate) were laid down by Messrs. Haden and Son, and were carried through the Examination Schools on the ground-floor of the quadrangle, as well as through the Library.

In Feb. Mr. J. P. Roberts, New College (B.A. 1821, M.A. 1826, now Minor Canon of Chichester) was appointed minister, vice Mr. P. Barrett, Wadham College (B.A. 1828); and Mr. Robert Eden, of St. John's College (Corp. Chr. Coll. B.A. 1825, M.A. 1827, now Vicar of Wymondham, Norfolk), was appointed vice Walker. From this time there appear to have been two assistants, although it was not until 1837 that that number was formally allowed by Statute.

A.D. 1822.

In July, the Rev. Dr. Bliss returned to the Library as Sub-librarian, in the room of Mr. Nicoll, appointed Regius Professor of Hebrew. And in October the Rev. Rich. French Laurence, M.A., of Pembroke College, succeeded Dr. Cotton, who quitted Oxford for Ireland.

'Tuesday, August 6, 1822, I was at the Library the whole day, and not a single member of the University came into the room, excepting Mr. Eden, the assistant. Oxford race-day.' This note[Pg 236] occurs in vol. x. of Dr. Bliss's MS. antiquarian and miscellaneous memoranda. Considering that the time of the year was well-nigh the middle of the Long Vacation, it does not seem surprising that on one day there should have been no academic readers in the Library, even if there may have been academic riders on the race-course. The two occurrences have so little correspondence with each other that one would hope that the zealous Sub-librarian (who has deemed the same want of readers worth commemorating also in another note) assigned non causa pro causa.

A.D. 1823.

By the exertions of the brothers J. S. and P. B. Duncan, Esqs., Fellows of New College, distinguished for their efforts to promote the study of the Arts and Sciences in the University, a subscription-fund was raised for the purpose of adorning the Picture Gallery with plaster models of some of the finest buildings of Greek and Roman antiquity. The result was that in the present year the following series, by Fouquet, of Paris, was placed in the Gallery, at a total cost of about £400:—The Arch of Constantine, the Parthenon, the Temple of the Sybil at Tivoli, the Maison Carrée at Nismes, the Erechtheum and Lantern of Demosthenes at Athens, the Theatre of Herculaneum, and the Temple of Fortuna Virilis at Rome.

A large number of works by foreign authors, chiefly theological, was bought (for £375) at the sale at Leyden of the library of Jonas Wilh. Te Water, professor of Eccl. Hist. in that University. A separate catalogue, occupying twenty-three folio pages, was issued of these books.

Mr. E. P. New, of St. John's College (B.A. 1822, M.A. 1825, B.D. 1831), was appointed in December to assist in the compilation of the new Catalogue; but how long he remained in the Library does not appear.[Pg 237]

A.D. 1824.

A collection of valuable original papers relating to affairs in Church and State, which had belonged to Archbishop Sheldon, were sold by his great-nephew, Sir John English Dolben, of Finedon, Northamptonshire, to the Library for £40 5s. They are now bound in six volumes, of which three are lettered Sheldon, and three Dolben. Of the first three, two contain letters from English, Welsh, Scotch and Irish Bishops, and the contents of the other are miscellaneous; of the second three, one contains miscellaneous letters and papers commencing at 1585, another has similar papers from 1626 to 1721, and the third contains miscellaneous ecclesiastical letters and documents. Some of the letters are addressed to the Archbishop's secretary, Miles Smyth, Esq. A short letter from Sir John Dolben to Dr. Bandinel, relating to his disposal of these papers, dated Oct. 12, 1824, is preserved in Bodl. MS. Addit. ii. A. 32. He had previously given, in 1822, a fine copy of a quarto Bible which had belonged to Sheldon, containing (1) the Prayer-Book and Metrical Psalms, printed at Cambridge in 1638, (2) the Old Test., printed by Field at London in 1648, and (3) the New Test., Cambr. 1637. At the end are some memoranda by the Archbishop of the births, baptisms, and deaths of members of the Sheldon and Okeover families, and of the legitimate children of Charles II and the Duke of York. The Library more than a century before had received benefactions from a member of the same family of Dolben; Gilbert Dolben, of Finedon, having given some printed books in 1697, together with a manuscript of Gower. And twenty vols. of Chamberlaine's State of Great Britain were given by Mr. J. E. Dolben in 1796. An additional volume of the Sheldon correspondence was given to the Library in 1840, by Dr. Routh, the President of Magdalen[Pg 238] College. It is a copy-book of business-letters written by the Archbishop. In a note to Dr. Bandinel which accompanied the gift, and which is now fixed in vol. i. of Burnet's autograph copy of his Own Times, Dr. Routh says:—

To the annual catalogue for this year was attached a special list, filling thirty-two folio pages, of the books (upwards of 1500 in number) which were bought at the Hague, at the sale of the library collected by the distinguished Dutch scholars and lawyers, Gerard and John Meerman. The sale-catalogue is a volume of more than 1200 pages. The books bought for the Library were chiefly such as supplied deficiencies in foreign history and law, together with some Greek[310] and Latin MSS., for the most part patristic and classical. The sum expended was £925. Some rare Spanish historical books (in which class of literature, thanks to Dr. Bandinel's care in keeping it steadily in view, the Library is now very rich) were bought at the sale of Don J. Ant. Conde.

But the chief distinction of this year lies in the acquisition, by bequest of Mrs. Elizabeth Dennis Denyer (widow of Mr. John Denyer, of Chelsea, who died in 1806) of a most valuable collection of early editions of the English Bible, numbering [Pg 239]altogether about twenty-five. To show the rarity and worth of this collection, it will be sufficient to mention but a few of the volumes which it contains. Imprimis, Coverdale's first edition, 1535[311], and his second edition, 1537; Cranmer's, in April, 1540 and in 1541, and by Grafton in 1553; Matthew's, by Becke, in 1551; Tyndale's New Testament, in 1536, and another of his earliest editions; Hollybush's English and Latin Testament, 1538, and Erasmus' Testament, 1540. Besides the Biblical collection, Mrs. Denyer also bequeathed twenty-one English theological works, nearly all printed before 1600; including a beautiful copy of Fisher on the Penitential Psalms (by Wynkyn de Worde) and books by (amongst others) Bale, Bonner, Brightwell, Erasmus, Hooper, Joye, and Tonstall.

Mr. L. E. Judge, New College (B.A. 1827, M.A. 1830; Chaplain; deceased 1853), succeeded Mr. Roberts, in March, as assistant; but in July of the next year retired, and was succeeded by Mr. W. Bailey, also of New College (B.A. 1829).

A.D. 1825.

The sale at Paris of the library of L. M. Langlès, the keeper of the Oriental MSS. in the Bibl. Royale, afforded a large accession of books in that branch of literature which was his specialty.

Mr. Sim. J. Etty, New College (B.A. 1829, M.A. 1832, now Vicar of Wanborough, Wilts), was appointed assistant in the room of Mr. Eden. Mr. Etty remained in the Library until the year 1834. The Catalogue of Dissertationes Academicæ, which appeared in 1832, was in a great measure his work.[Pg 240]

Two MSS. intended of old for the Library by Sir K. Digby, were bought in this year. To the account of them given at p. 58 supra, it should be added that the library left in France by Digby on his death (from which, no doubt, these volumes came) was bought back by George, Earl of Bristol, and finally sold by auction at London, in April and May, 1680. Sixty-nine MSS. were included in this dispersion. It should further be added to the previous notice that it was at Laud's instance, and through him as Chancellor of the University, that Digby presented his collection to the Library. A letter from the Archbishop, which accompanied the gift, is printed in Wharton's collection of his Remains, vol. ii. p. 73.

A.D. 1826.

There is not much to notice in the acquisitions of this year. A few Persian and other Oriental MSS. were purchased, and more in the two following years; and some Burmese MSS. were given by Sir C. Grey, Chief Justice of Calcutta. A curious volume of manuscript and printed papers relative to the siege of Oxford, 1643-46, was presented by Mr. W. Hamper, of Birmingham. In January, the Rev. Chas. Hen. Cox, M.A., Student of Ch. Ch., was appointed Sub-librarian in the room of Mr. Laurence.

A.D. 1827.

A very large collection of Academic Dissertations published in Germany, amounting to about 43,400, was bought at Altona for £332 16s. Of these a folio catalogue was published in 1834, which, by a singular error, bears on its title the date 1832, as the year in which this accession came to the Library. In 1828, 160 volumes of the same character were added, and other large[Pg 241] additions were made in 1836 and 1837, but particularly in 1846, when no fewer than 7000 were purchased[312].

Mr. Henry Forster, New College (B.A. 1832, M.A. 1834; Esquire Bedel of Divinity; deceased 1857), succeeded Mr. Bailey, in March, as Assistant.

[Pg 242]

A.D. 1828.

A collection of 153 Northern MSS., chiefly in the Icelandic and Danish languages, formed by Finn Magnusen, was purchased from him for £350[313]. A catalogue (56 pp. quarto) was published in the year 1832. Amongst them are many early and curious volumes in poetry and history. Other collections of MSS. were sold by the same collector to the British Museum and to the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh.

A large number of Aldines were obtained at the sale of the collection of M. Renouard, the Aldine bibliographer, which took place in London, June 26-30. And the rare first edition of John Knox's Historie of the Church of Scotland was purchased for sixteen guineas.

Some additional rooms on the second story of the Schools' quadrangle, on the north and east sides, which went by the names of the Schools of Geometry and Medicine, were permanently attached to the Library, by vote of Convocation, on June 5.

On June 26, the nomination of the Rev. Stephen Reay, M.A., of St. Alban's Hall (afterwards B.D., and Laudian Professor of Arabic in 1840), as Sub-librarian in the room of Mr. C. H. Cox, was approved in Convocation. Mr. Reay was appointed to the charge of the Oriental department, his knowledge of Hebrew specially qualifying him for the care of the yearly increasing mass of Rabbinical lore. To this branch he added, and retained to the close of his life, the care of the 'Progress' Room, or room containing the publications, foreign and English, which appeared in parts. And on Dec. 20, the Rev. John Besly, M.A., Fellow of Balliol (afterwards D.C.L., and Vicar of Long Benton, Northumberland, deceased April 17, 1868, aged sixty-eight), was confirmed as Mr. Reay's colleague, in the place of Dr. Bliss.[Pg 243]

A.D. 1829.

The great Hebrew collection, which at present forms so distinguished a feature in the contents of the Library, was virtually commenced in this year by the purchase, at Hamburgh (for £2080), of the famous Oppenheimer library, consisting of upwards of 5000 volumes, of which 780 are MSS[314]. Many Hebrew works had, it is true, come with Selden's library, in 1659; but little or nothing had been done since that period to advance upon that beginning. The additions made in this department from 1844 up to about the year 1857, are said, in Dr. Steinschneider's introduction to his catalogue (col. 50), to have numbered no fewer than about 2100 volumes[315].

David Oppenheimer, Chief Rabbi at Prague, devoted more than half a century to the formation of his library. On his death, Sept. 23, 1735, it came into the possession of his son, a Rabbi at Hildesheim, and thence into the hands of Isaac Seligmann at Hamburgh. Several catalogues were issued during this period, the last being one in octavo, at Hamburgh, in 1826, an index to which, compiled by Dr. J. Goldenthal, was printed at the expense of the Library in 1845. The collection would have been dispersed by auction, had it not been bought en masse for Oxford. It possesses extreme interest and value in the eyes of Jewish students, insomuch that for a series of years the Library was never without several foreign visitors engaged in its examination. A very elaborate catalogue of all the printed Hebrew books[Pg 244] contained in it, and throughout the whole of the Library, was compiled by Dr. M. Steinschneider during the years 1850-1860, and printed at Berlin, where it was published in the latter year in a very thick quarto volume. The book is divided into two parts: the first containing a description of the Biblical, Talmudical, liturgical and anonymous volumes; the second containing the works of miscellaneous authors, in the alphabetical order of their names. Prefixed is a brief list of the Hebrew MSS. in the Library, with the numbers at present attached to them, and references to the catalogues in which they are described. Of several rare books in the Oppenheimer library there are duplicate copies, varying in condition and ornamentation; of some there are copies on red, yellow, and blue paper. Distinguished amongst all is a copy of the Talmud, printed in 1713-28, in twenty-four folio volumes, entirely on vellum. 'Perhaps,' says Archdeacon Cotton, 'this work is the grandest and most extensive vellum publication extant[316].'

Mr. Robert Bowyer, miniature painter to Queen Charlotte, who had devoted a considerable part of his life to the collection of drawings and engravings illustrating the Holy Scriptures, put forward a proposal for their purchase by subscription with a view to their being deposited in the Bodleian. Their number amounted to nearly seven thousand (including 113 drawings by Loutherbourg), described as being in fine condition and of great value; and they were inserted as additional illustrations in a copy of Macklin's folio Bible, which was enlarged thereby from its original extent of seven volumes to forty-five. Hence the collection passed, and passes, under the name of Bowyer's Bible. Mr. Bowyer, who had spent upon it upwards of three thousand pounds, proposed to dispose of it for £2500, and a committee was formed[Pg 245] in London, upon which appeared the names of many distinguished persons, to raise a subscription for the purpose. But upon Mr. Bowyer's despatching an agent to Oxford, the matter met with so little encouragement here, the Librarian, in particular, being (as Dr. Bliss has noted upon his copy of the original proposal) unfavourable to it, that the project fell to the ground. The reasons why Oxford made so little response do not appear; probably the value set upon the collection was deemed to be greatly exaggerated. After the death of Mr. Bowyer (June 4, 1834, aged seventy-six) the Bible came into the hands of one Mrs. Parkes, of Golden Square, by whom it was disposed of, in 1848, in a lottery (together with a few other prizes) for which four thousand tickets were issued at one guinea each. The successful speculator was Mr. Saxon, a gentleman-farmer, near Shepton Mallet. In 1852 it was in the hands of Messrs. Puttick and Simpson, the well-known book-auctioneers, for sale. By them it was announced for an auction on Feb. 26, 1853, and was disposed of, about that time, to Messrs. Willis and Sotheran, the booksellers, for about £500. Since then it has been announced for sale at Manchester.

A.D. 1830.

A copy of the rare edition of Luther's translation of the Bible, printed at Wittemberg in 1541, was bought, through Messrs. Payne and Foss, for fifty guineas, at the sale, in London, of the library of the Archdeacon de la Tour, of Hildesheim, which was said to have been formerly the property of the English Benedictine Monastery of Landspring, and which was then, it appears, in the possession of Mr. — Solly. It contains some texts on the fly-leaves in the autograph, and with the signatures, of both Luther and Melanchthon, which seem to have been unnoticed at the time of the sale. A facsimile of a part of Luther's inscription is given[Pg 246] in plate xxxi. in Mr. Leigh Sotheby's Illustrations of the Handwriting of Melanchthon[317]. The book is now exhibited in a glass case, in one of the windows of the Library.

A.D. 1831.

In December of this year, Viscount Kingsborough[318] presented a magnificent copy (being one of four which were printed on vellum) of his Antiquities of Mexico, or coloured facsimiles, executed at his expense, in seven folio volumes, of Mexican paintings and hieroglyphics preserved in the libraries of Paris, Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, Rome, Bologna, and Oxford (in Laud's and Selden's collections), together with preliminary dissertations. This sumptuous book is exhibited near the entrance of the library, in a case made expressly for its reception.

On June 30, the nomination, as Sub-librarian, of Rev. Ernest Hawkins, M.A., of Balliol, afterwards Fellow of Exeter, (of late well-known for his labours in the cause of Missions, as Secretary to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel), was approved by Convocation. He succeeded Dr. Besly, who had taken the Balliol College living of Long Benton, in Northumberland.

A.D. 1832.

A twelfth-century MS. of Scholia on the Odyssey was purchased for £100. The collection of Bibles, which had during some time past made some slow progress, was increased by copies of various[Pg 247] early printed versions in European languages, and its further enlargement was steadily kept in view in succeeding years.

Six guineas were given for copies of Servetus' treatise De Trinitatis erroribus and his Dialogi de Trinitate, printed in 1531 and 1532, which are of very great rarity, in consequence of their having very generally shared the fate of their author.

A.D. 1833.

Some precious Shakespearian volumes, consisting of the Venus and Adonis of 1594 and 1617, the Lucrece of 1594 and 1616, with a subsequent edition of 1655, and the Sonnets of 1609, were presented by the well-known collector, Mr. Thomas Caldecott, who had been formerly a Fellow of New College. They are now incorporated with the Malone collection. Several MSS. of Sir William Jones were presented by the brothers Augustus and Julius C. Hare. An interesting and large collection of tracts on the Roman Catholic disabilities, affairs in Ireland, &c., in forty-five volumes, was purchased at the sale of the library of Charles Butler, of Lincoln's Inn.

An anonymous pamphlet, entitled, A Few Words on the Bodleian Library, appeared in this year; its author was Sir Edmund Head, M.A., Merton College. The object was to urge the desirableness of allowing books to be borrowed from the Library, after the example of Cambridge. One of the arguments by which the author supported the proposal, viz. that College tutors were unable to visit the Library in term time during the hours at which it is open, has since been entirely removed by the attachment of the Radcliffe Library as a Reading-room, which remains open until ten o'clock at night. The pamphlet was reprinted in the Report of the University Commission in 1852.[Pg 248]

A.D. 1834.

Numerous purchases were made during the sale of Mr. Heber's library. Amongst these were some rare English tracts of the Reformers, Bale, Becon, Tyndal, Knox, &c.; a large and valuable collection of booksellers' catalogues and sale catalogues of books and coins between 1726 and 1814[319]; and a mass of some 1100 or 1200 plays, published in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries[320]. Numerous early Shakespeare editions were also obtained; inter alias, the first edition (1594) of the first part of the Contention betwixt the Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, for £64; Richard III, 1598, £17; fourth edit. of Henry IV, 1608, £12 12s.[321], &c. The greater part of the collection of editions of Horace up to the year 1738, formed by Dr. Douglas, a collection which was used in the preparation of the edition published at London, by James Watson, in 1760, was bought for £20. It consists of twenty-seven vols. in folio, thirty-nine in quarto, and 248 in octavo and smaller sizes. Dibdin (Introd. to the Classics) says that the whole collection consisted of 450 editions. A Prayer-Book of 1707, with MSS. collations by Rev. John Lewis, of Margate, of alterations in editions between 1549 and 1637, was bought for £8 8s. One of the chief gems in the Picture Gallery was bequeathed by James Paine, Esq., being the portrait of his father, James Paine, the architect[322], while instructing his son in drawing, by Sir Joshua Reynolds. This beautiful picture has retained its freshness of colour far more perfectly than[Pg 249] most others of Sir Joshua's paintings; and it has recently, under the direction of the present Librarian, been carefully cleaned, and protected with glass and a curtain, that its brilliancy may incur no risk of deterioration. But this year is chiefly distinguished in the Annals of the Library by the bequest of the

Douce Collection.

Francis Douce, the donor of this magnificent library (who died on March 30, in this year), is said to have been induced to make this disposition of his treasures through the courteous reception afforded to him by Dr. Bandinel, upon the occasion of a visit to Oxford, in 1830. The gatherings of a lifetime with which the Bodleian was thus enriched, consist of 393 manuscripts, ninety-eight charters, about 16,480 printed volumes, a very large collection of early and valuable prints and drawings, and some coins[323]. For the most part, the books which thus came were of classes in which the Library was then deficient. Nearly all the finest specimens of Missal-painting which it now possesses are found among the Douce MSS., several of which are exhibited in a glass case at the further end of the Library. Chief among these are three volumes of Horæ, one executed, perhaps by G. da Libri, at the beginning of the sixteenth century for Leonora Gonzaga, Duchess of Urbino, a second belonged to Mary de Medici, and the other was completed in 1527 for B. Sforza, second wife of Sigism. I of Poland. These are priceless gems, rivalled only by such as the Bedford Missal. In the same case is a Psalter on purple vellum, probably of the ninth century, which came from the old Royal Library of France, and which, from this circumstance[Pg 250] and its age, has sometimes been called Charlemagne's Psalter. The printed books are rich in history, biography, antiquities, manners and customs, and the fine arts[324]. In Bibles (English and French), Horæ, Primers, Books of Common Prayer and Psalters, the collection is very strong. Among the Psalters is a copy of Archbishop Parker's rare metrical version. Early French literature is also a conspicuous feature, in which the Library had previously been very deficient. Of fifteenth-century typography there are no fewer than 311 specimens. The finest of these is a magnificent copy of Christoforo Landino's Italian translation of Pliny's Natural History, printed on vellum by Nic. Janson, at Venice, in 1476. It is enriched with exquisite illuminated borders at the commencement of each book, a specimen of which, together with a description of the volume, is given in Shaw's Illuminated Ornaments, pl. xxxviii[325]. There are also a large number of fragments of works by early English printers, including two by Caxton, which are unique. One of these is a portion (two quarters of an octavo or duodecimo sheet) of an edition of the Horæ, conjecturally assigned by Mr. Blades to 1478, and the other is of an edition of the Booke of Curtesye, probably printed in 1491, consisting of two quarto pages. There is also one of the two known copies of a curious placard, issued by Caxton, inviting those who were disposed to buy 'ony pyes of two and thre comemoracions of Salisburi vse' to come to him at Westminster, and they should have them 'good[Pg 251] chepe[326].' The other copy is in the possession of Earl Spencer. A very different, but still very curious, item is a large collection of chap-books and children's penny books of the last century and commencement of the present; and two folio volumes are filled with black-letter ballads. A catalogue of the library was published in one volume, in folio, in 1840; the part containing the printed books was the work of Mr. H. Symonds, of Magdalen Hall (B.A. 1840, M.A. 1842, now Precentor of Norwich), and that which describes the Fragments, the Charters and the Manuscripts was drawn up by Rev. H. O. Coxe. From the year 1839 until the commencement of 1842, Mr. Thomas Dodd, formerly a well-known London dealer in prints, and author of the Connoisseur's Repertory, was employed in making a catalogue of the Douce prints and drawings. This catalogue still remains in MS. Four very grand studies of heads, drawn either by Raffaelle or Giulio Romano, have recently been framed and hung at the western end of the Library.

On June 25, Convocation sanctioned the transfer to the Library of the room immediately over the entrance in the gateway-tower of the Schools, (now called the Mason Room) which had been hitherto assigned as the 'Savile Study,' on condition that a small room in the adjoining south-east angle of the quadrangle should be prepared at the expense of the Bodleian for the reception of the MSS. and printed books, instruments, &c., which were given to the University by Sir Henry Savile for the use of his Professors. This is the room in which the Savile library (which includes also some books given by Dr. Wallis and Sir Christopher Wren) is still preserved, under the charge of the Savilian Professors of Geometry and Astronomy.

On July 5, Convocation confirmed the nomination of Rev. William Cureton, M.A., of Ch. Ch. (afterwards so well known for[Pg 252] his Syriac studies, which gained him the patronage of the Prince Consort and a Canonry at Westminster), to the Sub-librarianship vacated by Rev. E. Hawkins.

Mr. Edmund Grove, of Magdalen College (who never graduated), was appointed Assistant in April, vice Mr. Stephen Exup. Wentworth, of Balliol (B.A. 1833, M.A. 1835). Mr. Wentworth appears to have succeeded Mr. Forster in 1832.

A.D. 1835.

The original MS. of Burnet's History of his Own Times, with a copy prepared for the press, a portion of his History of the Reformation, and some other papers by him, was purchased, from a family descended from the Bishop, for £210. An account of these MSS. may be found at p. 474 of the Appendix to Burnet's History of James II, being an extract from the Own Times which Dr. Routh edited, with additional notes, when ninety-six years old, in 1852. The copy prepared for the press is expressly mentioned in the catalogue for 1835 as forming part of the purchase; and yet that copy appears from a passage in a letter from Rawlinson, dated Aug. 18, 1743, to have been then in the hands of that collector, whence it would have been supposed that it must have passed at once into the possession of the Library. After mentioning the book, Rawlinson says, 'I purchased the MSS. of a gentleman who corrected the press where that book was printed, and amongst his papers I have all the castrations[327].'

The MS. of Lewis' Life of Wyclif, with some additions by the author, was bought for £4 14s. 6d. Various other MSS. by Lewis were already in the Library among Dr. Rawlinson's collections. The purchases of printed books were chiefly amongst early editions of Classics (Juvenal, Ovid, Virgil, &c.), Fathers[Pg 253] (Augustine, Jerome), Schoolmen, and a very large series of fifteenth-century editions of the Decretals, Digest, Institutes, and other works in Canon and Civil Law. These were obtained at the sale of the famous library of Dr. Kloss, of Frankfort, whose collection was so remarkably rich in books bearing MS. notes by Melanchthon.

A curious collection of papers and pamphlets, printed and MS., relating to Spanish affairs, and of much interest to students of Spanish history, contained in thirty-two volumes in folio and eighty in quarto, was purchased for £40. It was lot 4583 in Heber's sale, by whom it had been bought at the Yriarte sale for more than £100.

A.D. 1836.

Aubrey's collection of notes and drawings concerning Druidical and Roman antiquities in Britain, together with some miscellaneous historical notes, entitled by him Monumenta Britannica, in four parts (now bound in two folio volumes), was purchased, for £50, of Col. Charles Greville. Accounts of Avebury and Stonehenge, which are important from their early date (the former being the earliest known), are to be found in these curious and interesting volumes[328]. The remainder of Aubrey's MSS. came to the Library in 1860, upon the transfer of the books from the Ashmolean Museum. See sub anno 1858.

A collection of about 300 tracts, relating to American affairs and the War of Independence, in forty-one vols., formed by Rev.[Pg 254] Jonathan Boucher[329], was bought for £8 18s. 6d. These are now included in the series of tracts called Godwyn Pamphlets, in continuation of those which came, in 1770, from the donor so named. Another large gathering of American tracts, collected by Mr. George Chalmers, when engaged in writing his History of the Revolt, was bought in 1841 for £24 13s.; at the same time, the first and only volume of his History, which itself was never actually published, was bought for £2 7s.

Sale Catalogues. See 1834.

When the new Copyright Act was introduced into Parliament in this year, it was proposed to allow £500 per annum to the Bodleian, in the manner adopted with regard to six other libraries, in lieu of the old privilege of receiving a copy of every book entered at Stationers' Hall. The Curators, however, on May 27, resolved that it would be highly desirable to retain the privilege, but that, should an alteration be made, it would be inexpedient to receive an annual grant by way of compensation; and in consequence of this opinion, the proposed abolition of the privilege was abandoned.

A.D. 1837.

The magnificent series of historical prints and drawings which is called, from the name of its collectors and its donor, the Sutherland collection, was presented to the University on May 4 in this year, although it was not actually deposited in the Library until March, 1839[330]. The six volumes of the folio editions of Clarendon's History of the Rebellion and Life, and of Burnet's Own Times, are inlaid and bound in sixty-one elephant folio volumes,[Pg 255] and illustrated with the enormous number of 19,224 portraits of every person and views of every place in any way mentioned in the text, or connected with its subject-matter[331]. The gathering was commenced in 1795 by Alexander Hendras Sutherland, Esq., F.S.A.; on his death (May 21, 1820) it was taken up by his widow[332], who spared neither labour nor money to render it as complete as possible, and by whom its contents were, consequently, nearly doubled. At length, desiring, in accordance with her husband's will, that the results of her own and his labour should be always preserved intact, Mrs. Sutherland presented the whole collection to the Bodleian. Its extent may be in some degree appreciated when it is mentioned that there are (according to Mrs. Sutherland's statement in the preface to the Supplementary Catalogue) 184 portraits of James I, of which 135 are distinct plates; 743 of Charles I, of which 573 are distinct plates, besides sixteen drawings; 373 of Cromwell (253 plates); 552 of Charles II (428 plates); 276 of James II; 175 of Mary II (143 plates); and 431 of William III, of which 363 are separate plates[333]. There are also 309 views of London and 166 of Westminster. Amongst those of London is a drawing on many sheets, by a Dutch artist, Antonio van den Wyngaerde, executed between 1558-1563. It affords a view which extends from the Palace at Westminster to that at Greenwich, both included; and comprehends also Lambeth Palace and part of Southwark, with the palace[Pg 256] there of the Protector Somerset, in which the Mint was situated. The whole amount expended on the formation of the series is estimated at £20,000.

The collection is accompanied by a handsomely printed Catalogue, compiled by Mrs. Sutherland, and published in 1837 in three volumes quarto, two containing the portraits, and one the topography[334]. A Supplement to this was printed in the following year, in the preface to which Mrs. Sutherland records her transfer of the collection. She adds that 'the University of Oxford, by the manner in which it has received the collection, has afforded her the high gratification of witnessing the fulfilment, in their utmost extent, of the wishes of its founder; and in the liberal step which its future conservators have taken, to insure a direct and easy means of reference to the prints, she finds proof of their intention to comply with her own earnest desire, that the books should be as freely open to those really interested in them as may be consistent with their safe preservation. Under the superintendence of the compiler, but at the expense of the University, a copy of the Catalogue has been prepared, in which every print is marked with the page which it respectively fills in the volumes; by means of this, every difficulty of reference, and every doubt as to the print intended to be described, is obviated, and the manuscript indices will be preserved from the injury of constant use. In order to prevent the possibility of disappointment in referring from this marked catalogue, every print (with four exceptions only) of which the page has not been ascertained, has been struck out, although probably several of the portraits not at present[Pg 257] found are still in the volumes.' The following letter of thanks was addressed by Convocation to the donor[335]:—

[Pg 258]

A few other books were sent by Mrs. Sutherland at the same time, including Boydell's Shakespeare, Heath's Chronicle, Scott's edition of Dalrymple's Preservation of Charles II, Faber's Kit-Cat Club, Wilson's Catalogue of an Amateur, &c. And in 1843 she increased her former gift by the presentation of copies of a large number of illustrated, biographical, and historical works, many of which are in a like manner enriched with additional engravings. Chief amongst these is a copy of Park's edition of Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors, enlarged from five vols. 8^o. to 20 vols. 4^o. by the insertion of prints, portraits, and some of the original drawings. Similarly enlarged copies of Dr. Dibdin's works are also included; together with framed oil-portraits of Frederic, King of Bohemia, and of Mr. Sutherland.

A curious collection of rare Dutch tracts, in two vols., printed at Amsterdam between 1637 and 1664, and relating to English, Irish, and Scottish affairs, chiefly during the Civil Wars, was bought for £2 13s. And an enormous gathering of English pamphlets, on every kind of subject, in prose and verse, between about 1600 and 1820, said to number 19,380 articles, and which had accumulated in the stores of the well-known bookseller, Mr. Thomas Rodd, was bought of him for £101 14s. 6d. These exceeding, from their number, the powers of the then very slender staff of the Library for arrangement and cataloguing, remained piled up in cupboards for about twenty-five years. But a general clearance out of all neglected corners taking place on the appointment of the present Librarian to the Headship, they were then sorted (to a certain extent), bound, numbered, and incorporated in the general Catalogue; when they proved to be a valuable addition to the pamphlet-literature, comparatively few of them being found to be duplicates.

Shakespeare; Romeo and Juliet. See 1834.

Sanscrit MSS. See 1842.[Pg 259]

A grant was made by Convocation of £400 annually, for five years, towards the expense of the new Catalogue, the printing of which was commenced in the summer. A statute also was passed providing that there should be two 'ministri,' or assistants, with salaries regulated by the Curators.

The Rev. Herbert Hill, M.A., Fellow of New College, was approved by Convocation, on Oct. 26, as Sub-librarian, in the room of Mr. Cureton, who removed in this year to the British Museum. Mr. Hill, however, only held the office for one year. And Mr. Richard Firth, New College (B.A. 1839, M.A. 1849, now, and from 1850, a Chaplain in the diocese of Madras), became minister in the room of Mr. F. J. Marshall, New College (B.A. 1834, M.A. 1837, Chaplain of New College, deceased 1843), who had probably entered the Library in 1834 in the place of Mr. Etty.

A.D. 1838.

One of the 'curiosities of literature' was obtained by the purchase (for £10 10s.) of the System of Divinity, in a Course of Sermons on the first Institutions of Religion, by Rev. Will. Davy, A.B., Vicar of Lustleigh, Devon. It is a work in twenty-six volumes, of which only fourteen copies were printed, entirely by the hands of the indefatigable author himself, between the years 1795 and 1807. It is very roughly executed, the author having purchased only just so much old and worn-out type, as sufficed for the printing of two pages at once; accomplishing in this way the work upon which he had set his heart, 'arte meâ, diurno nocturnoque labore' (as he says in a Latin preface), in consequence of having failed to procure in any other way the publication of his book. The copy in our Library is distinguished by having many additions inserted, printed (in many cases with later and better type) upon small slips[337].

[Pg 260]

A set of the Monthly Review, from the commencement to 1828, in 200 volumes, in which the names of the contributors are appended in MS. to their several articles, together with a volume of Correspondence with the Editor, Ralph Griffiths, LL.D., between 1758 and 1802 (now numbered Bodl. MS. Addit. VII. D. 11), was bought for £42.

Among the donations were: 1. A collection of twenty-one Oriental works, printed between 1808-1835 by the East India Company, presented by the Directors, and, 2. A valuable series, MS. and printed, of the Statutes of various Italian cities, presented by George Bowyer, Esq. (the present baronet, who succeeded to the title in 1860), who also in the years 1839, 1842, and 1843, forwarded large additions to the printed series. These volumes are now kept distinct as a separate collection. Altogether there are seventy-eight printed volumes, besides four MSS.

On Nov. 15, a Statute was approved by Convocation which raised the stipend of the Sub-librarians from £150 to £250.

From the year 1825 an annual folio Catalogue had been printed, containing, in one list, all the accessions accruing in each year[Pg 261] from purchases, gifts, and the supply of new publications from Stationers' Hall. The issue of these lists was discontinued after the appearance of that for the years 1837 and 1838 jointly; except that in 1843 one for that year was printed in octavo.

A form of declaration and promise for due use of the privilege of admission to the Library, to be made by all graduates upon taking their first degree, in lieu of the oath formerly required, was approved by Convocation, on June 9[338]. In accordance with this form, which is still used, each graduate now promises: 'Me libros cæterumque cultum sic tractaturum ut superesse quam diutissime possint, et, quantum in me est, curaturum ne quid Bibliotheca detrimenti aut incommodi capiat.' The same declaration is subscribed in the Library by all non-graduates who are admitted to read there, with the addition of a promise that they will devote their attention 'ad studia et silentium.' The statutable penalty for any wilful mutilation or abstraction of any book, or portion of a book, is immediate expulsion from the Library and University, 'sine ulla spe regressûs.'

On the resignation of Rev. H. Hill, Sub-librarian, in this year, he was succeeded by Rev. H. O. Coxe, M.A., of Worcester College, who had previously worked for five years and a-half in the Department of MSS. in the British Museum[339]. Mr. Coxe's nomination was approved by Convocation on Nov. 16.

A.D. 1839.

An application was made by Magdalen College for the return of a copy of the Statutes of the College, found among the Raw[Pg 262]linson MSS., but it was refused by the Curators, on the ground that sufficient evidence was not produced of its having ever been the property of the College.

A.D. 1840.

Ninety specimens of the Aldine press, together with other volumes chiefly printed at Venice by A. de Asula, were purchased at the sale of the library of Dr. Samuel Butler, Bishop of Lichfield. From the same library was purchased, in the following year, a collection of portions of more than twenty of the very earliest editions of Donatus' De Octo Partibus Orationis, many of which were unknown; these had previously come from the library of Dr. Kloss. A ninth-century MS. of St. Gregory's Sacramentary was purchased for £63; and early MSS. of Juvenal, Lucan, &c. A fine and perfect copy of Caxton's Dictes and Sayinges of the Philosophres, printed in 1477, was purchased for £50. It had previously been sold, at Dr. Vincent's sale in 1816, for £99 15s.; this sum, which is marked in pencil on a fly-leaf, having been altered by some practical joker, by the insertion of a figure, to £199 15s., Mr. Blades has in consequence recorded that as being the price at which the Library secured the volume[340].

The Rev. Rob. J. M'Ghee, Rector of Holywell, Hunts, deposited in the Bodleian (as also in the University Library, Cambridge, and in that of Trinity College, Dublin,) a collection of thirty-one volumes relating to the controversy with the Church[Pg 263] of Rome, and to the Moral Theology taught at Maynooth. The volumes consist of editions of the Douay and Rheims versions, of some Irish diocesan Statutes, of Bailly's Theologia Moralis, and Delahogue's Dogmatic Treatises, and of various Irish polemical pamphlets; and they are enclosed in a mahogany case, with glass door. In consequence of reference having been made to this collection by the donor, at a County Meeting held at Huntingdon, Dec. 28, 1850, upon the occasion of the 'Papal Aggression,' some slight degree of public attention was called to it; and a controversial volume was in consequence published by Mr. M'Ghee, in 1852, entitled, The Church of Rome; a Report on the Books and Documents on the Papacy, deposited in the University Library, Cambridge, &c.

Shakespeare; Richard III and Hamlet. See 1834.

The first non-academic minister was appointed in Mr. H. S. Harper (vice Mr. Firth), of whose valuable services and acquaintance with details the Library still enjoys the benefit. Mr. Harper had acted for three years previously as an under-assistant.

A.D. 1841.

The very large and valuable MS. collections of the Rev. John Brickdale Blakeway, relating to the history of Shropshire, were presented by his widow. Mr. Blakeway was minister of St. Mary's Church, Shrewsbury, for thirty-two years, and died March 10, 1826. He was long engaged in gathering materials for a county history, and his collections now form fifteen closely-written volumes in folio, nine in quarto, and two in octavo, arranged, and lettered on their backs, according to their several subjects, viz. Pedigrees, County History, Parochial History, &c. A list of them is given at the end of the Annual Catalogue. They were supplemented in 1850 by the purchase (for £42) of a copy of Mr. T. F.[Pg 264] Dukes' Antiquities of Shropshire (4^o. Shrewsbury, 1844), divided into two large volumes, and enriched by the author with many MS. additions and copies of ancient deeds, and with upwards of 700 portraits and original drawings of churches, fonts, &c. relating to almost every parish in the county. As Mr. Blakeway's collections are not accompanied with engravings or drawings, these volumes largely assist to make the materials for the history of this county complete.

A parcel of 136 early French and Anglo-Saxon coins was presented by Her Majesty the Queen, out of a mass of upwards of 6700 which were found in digging at the bank of the river Ribble, at Cuerdale, in Lancashire, and were adjudged to belong to Her Majesty in right of the Duchy of Lancaster. The largest part of the Saxon coins were of the reigns of S. Edmund of East Anglia (in number 1770) and of Alfred (793); of the Continental, of Charles le Chauve (712) and, apparently, of Charles le Simple (2942).

Some rare and interesting books issued by English printers about the middle of the sixteenth century were acquired in this year; among them, the Boke of Common Prayer, printed by Oswen, at Worcester, in 1552, bought for the very moderate sum of £3 16s. Two rare American Psalters were purchased, the one called The Massachuset Psalter, printed at Boston in 1709, for £2, and the other, the Psalms in blank verse with tunes, printed at Boston in 1718, for £1 19s.

Shakespeare, Henry VI. See 1834.

American Tracts. See 1836.

Donatus. See 1840.

The hitherto somewhat narrow funds of the Library received in this year a welcome increase by the bequest of the large sum of £36,000 in the Three per Cents. from Rev. Robert Mason, D.D., of Queen's College, deceased Jan. 5. He bequeathed also a[Pg 265] further sum of £30,000 for a new library to his own College. In commemoration of this munificent legacy, one room, devoted to the reception of costly illustrated works, and works of some degree of value or rarity in various languages, has been styled the Mason Room (see p. 251). The elegant model of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, now exhibited in the Library, came by his bequest, together with a painting of the Zodiac of Tentyra, in Egypt, which is hung in the Picture Gallery.

A.D. 1842.

Seven Sanscrit MSS. had been given to the Library in 1837 by B. H. Hodgson, Esq., the British Resident in Nepaul, before which time there were but a very few works in that language scattered through some of the various Oriental collections, and most of them recently acquired[341]. But in this year the real foundation of the present very large and valuable collection was laid, by the purchase for £500 of the MSS. obtained by Professor H. H. Wilson (dec. May 8, 1860) during his residence in India, numbering 616 works and 540 volumes, of which 147 are MSS. of the Vedas. A brief list of them is attached to the Annual Catalogue for 1842, and the whole are fully described in the catalogue of the Sanscrit MSS., compiled by Theod. Aufrecht, M.A., now Professor of Sanscrit in the Univ. of Edinburgh, the second and last part of which was published in 1864. The greater part of Mr. Wilson's collection consists of MSS. written in the last and present centuries.

Some small collections towards the history of Cheshire, made by Rev. F. Gower, were purchased in this year and in 1846.[Pg 266]

In printed books the chief purchase was a copy (at the price of fifty guineas) of the original and hitherto unknown edition of the poems of Drummond, of Hawthornden. It is in quarto, with a portrait, having the letter-press only on one side of the page, and was printed at Edinburgh by Andro Hart in 1614. There are three or four small corrections in Drummond's own handwriting[342].

Bowyer. Italian Municipal Statutes. See 1838.

Laing. Almanac by W. de Worde. See 1755.

Old Plays. See 1834.

In March, Mr. J. B. Taunton, All Souls' College (B.A. 1843, M.A. 1848), was appointed Assistant vice Mr. F. E. Thurland, New College (B.A. 1841, M.A. 1846, now Rector of Thurstaston, Cheshire), who was made an extra, in the place of Mr. Symonds, resigned. Mr. Thurland had, probably, succeeded Mr. Grove in 1838 or 1839.

The stipend of the Librarian was increased by £150, by a statute which passed on May 6. By the same statute an annual payment was ordered of £20 to the Janitor, in lieu of fees hitherto taken for showing the Library or Picture Gallery to Members of the University. These, undergraduates as well as graduates, have now, if wearing their academical dress, the right of free entrance for themselves and friends; other visitors are admitted, by a regulation made five or six years ago, at the very moderate fee of threepence each person. (See p. 134.)

A.D. 1843.

The valuable collection of Oriental MSS. formed by the celebrated traveller, James Bruce, of Kinnaird, was purchased for[Pg 267] £1000. It consists of ninety-six volumes, of which twenty-six are in Ethiopic, and seventy in Arabic; there is also one Coptic MS. on papyrus. Included in vol. iv. of an Ethiopic copy of the Old Testament is one of the three copies of the Book of Enoch, which were brought by Bruce from Abyssinia, and which were then (if they be not even still) the only manuscripts of the book to be found in Europe. One of the three had been given by Bruce himself to the University, in 1788, through the hands of Dr. Douglas, Bishop of Salisbury; it is written on forty leaves of vellum, in triple columns, and is now exhibited in the glass case near the entrance of the Library. It was from this MS. that Dr. Laurence, afterwards Archbishop of Cashel, first made the translation which he published in 1821, and then subsequently, in 1838, published the original text. The second copy ('elegantissimum et celeberrimum') was given by Bruce to Louis XVI, and is now in the Imperial Library at Paris. By the purchase of the third, the Bodleian is, therefore, the possessor of two out of the three.

Two unsuccessful attempts had previously been made to dispose of the collection by auction. It was first announced for sale by Mr. Christie, for May 17, 1827, to be disposed of in one lot; and a list was issued, abridged from the catalogue made by Dr. Alex. Murray, the editor of Bruce's Travels. The issue of this proposed sale is recorded by Douce in the following MS. note on his copy of the auction catalogue: 'These MSS. were put in by the owner at £5500, and after an elaborate eulogium on them by Mr. Christie, no bidding or advance took place, and they were of course withdrawn. Had the owner offered them for £500, I should think the same result would have happened.' The second attempt was made in 1842, when the MSS. were offered for sale by Mr. George Robins, on May 30, but it appears that even all the eloquence of that most moving of auctioneers failed to elicit a bid corresponding to the expectation of the seller; and so the collection fortunately[Pg 268] remained intact, to be disposed of to our Library in the year following.

A catalogue of the Ethiopic MSS. of the collection was issued in a small quarto volume (eighty-seven pages), in 1848, as part vii. of the General Catalogue of MSS. It was compiled by a German scholar, well acquainted with this branch of Oriental literature, Dr. A. Dillmann, and contains, besides Bruce's books, three of Pococke's MSS., one of Laud's, one of Clarke's, and three others; in all thirty-five.

Valuable materials for the history of Devon were secured by the purchase (for £90) of the collections made for that purpose by Jeremiah Milles, D.D., Dean of Exeter, and Pres. of the Soc. of Antiquaries. The library of Dean Milles (who died Feb. 13, 1784) was sold by auction by Mr. Leigh Sotheby, in April; and these collections, comprised in eighteen volumes in folio, one in quarto, and one in octavo, formed a principal feature in the sale.

In this year the new Catalogue of the general Library of printed books, exclusive of the Gough and Douce libraries, and the collections of Hebrew books and Dissertations, of which already special catalogues were in print, was completed and published in three folio volumes. It had been commenced in the year 1837, and was prepared by the Rev. Arthur Browne, M.A., Chaplain of Ch. Ch. (now a retired Chaplain of the Royal Navy), whose share comprises the letters P-R, and the commencement of S; the Rev. Henry Cary, M.A. (son of the Translator of Dante, then Incumbent of St. Paul's, Oxford, but now, by returning to his previous profession of the Law, a barrister in Australia), who is responsible for the letters F-K, and part of L; and Rev. Alfred Hackman, M.A., Chaplain and Precentor of Ch. Ch., and now Sub-librarian, who completed the greater part of it, viz. the letters A-E, L (from London)-O, S (from Shakespeare)-Z. The whole[Pg 269] charges of the printing of the Catalogue amounted to £2990 12s.[343]; the previous cost of compilation was about £2000.

Bowyer. Italian Municipal Statutes. See 1838.

Sutherland. Illustrated Books. See 1839.

A.D. 1844.

Sir William Ouseley, the editor of the three volumes entitled Oriental Collections (brother to Sir Gore Ouseley, whom he accompanied when he went as ambassador to Persia in 1810), gathered, during some forty years spent in accumulation, about 750 Oriental MSS., chiefly in Persian, but including also a few in Arabic, Sanscrit, Zend, &c. Of these, in 1831 a catalogue (in 24 pp. quarto) was issued by the owner, who wished to dispose of them collectively, but no purchaser was then found, and they consequently remained in Sir William's possession. After his death, however (in Sept. 1842), they were again proposed for sale en masse, and the Library became a purchaser in this year for the sum of £2000. Many of the volumes are specimens of the best styles of Persian writing and illumination, while others are of great antiquity and rarity. The printed Oriental collection was also increased by various works printed in the East Indies in 1830-1839, which were presented by the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and by some Sanscrit and Mahratta books given by Rev. G. Pigott, Chaplain at Bombay.

A.D. 1845.

This year is rendered noticeable in the later annals of the Library by the fact that not a single MS. was purchased during its course. But a very valuable collection of Arabic, Persian and Sanscrit MSS. formed by Brigadier Gen. Alex. Walker, during his[Pg 270] service in India, was presented by his son, Sir Will. Walker, of Edinburgh[344]. These are kept as a distinct collection, like other donations or purchases of similar extent; the Sanscrit portion is described in the catalogue compiled by Prof. Aufrecht. The collection of printed Hebrew books was increased by the purchase (for £176 14s. 6d.) of 483 volumes from the library of the celebrated lexicographer, Gesenius, of Halle, who died Oct. 23, 1842, and whose library was sold by auction at Halle, in Jan. 1844. Two curious collections of tracts were also bought; the one in English consisting of 300 volumes, ranging from 1688 to 1766, and chiefly treating of the case of the Non-jurors, the Bangorian controversy, and the affairs of the city of London (for £22 10s.); and the other in French, consisting only of four small volumes, but containing a very large number of 'Merveilles,' strange histories of strange wonders, between 1557 and 1637, of great rarity and singularity. These were obtained at the sale of the library of Mr. Benj. Heywood Bright, No. 3796, for £13.

On Dec. 23, the present writer (then a Clerk of Magdalen College) was appointed Assistant, vice Mr. Taunton, after upwards of five years' previous service as a supernumerary, having first entered the Library in June, 1840.

A.D. 1846.

The original MS., or first copy, of Wood's History and Antiquities of Oxford, in English, was purchased for the moderate sum of £8 8s. Already the Library possessed the corrected copy, in the author's autograph, in two large folio volumes, which had formed part of his collection in the Ashmolean Museum, but were[Pg 271] transferred to the Bodleian as early as the year 1769. The volume now obtained had been in the possession of Edw. Roberts, Esq., of Ealing, a letter to whom from Mr. Joseph Parker, of Oxford, is inserted, dated July 4, 1827, in which he mentions the sale of the book to Mr. B. Roberts, and says that it was purchased at a sale at Burford, in 1797 or 1798.

A curious and valuable account-roll of Sir John Williams, Knt., Master of the Jewels to Henry VIII, which specifies all the treasures which were in his custody, was bought for £25[345].

The department of Italian topography, antiquities and art was largely enriched by the purchase from Rev. R. A. Scott (for £234 6s.) of a collection of 1426 volumes made by his brother the late George C. Scott, Esq., during ten years' residence in Italy.

Dissertations. See 1828.

Gower's Cheshire. See 1842.

Thorkelin. See 1828.

A.D. 1847.

A valuable MS. of Star-Chamber Reports, from June 17, 1635, to June 4, 1638, was purchased for £11. Several similar volumes of Reports are among the Rawlinson MSS. Two curious collections of pamphlets were bought; the one consisting of tracts, broadsides and proclamations relating to the Gunpowder Plot, made by H. Glynn, Under-secretary of State (£12 10s.); the other, a series of State special Forms of Prayer, from 1665 to 1840 (£10 10s.)

Works relating to the history of America, in which the[Pg 272] Library is now very rich, begin in this year to form a specially noticeable feature in the catalogue of purchases. Many rare tracts had been of old in the Library, but much of the completeness of the present collection is due to the energy of the well-known American bibliophilist, Henry Stevens, Esq.

A.D. 1848.

A collection of Hebrew MSS., numbering 862 volumes and nearly 1300 separate works, was purchased at Hamburgh for £1030. It had been amassed by Heimann Joseph Michael (born Apr. 12, 1792, deceased June 10, 1846), who had devoted thirty years to the formation of his library. One hundred and ten vellum MSS. are included in it, written for the most part between 1240 and 1450. Michael's printed books amounted to 5471; these were purchased by the British Museum. A short catalogue of the collection, drawn up from the owner's papers, was issued at Hamburgh in 1848, with a preface by Dr. L. Zunz, and an index to the MSS. by Dr. M. Steinschneider. They will ere long be re-catalogued, together with all the other Hebrew MSS. in the Library, by Dr. Neubauer, who has now, in the present year, commenced his important task.

A.D. 1849.

The valuable collection of Oriental MSS. formed by Rev. W. H. Mill, D.D., Regius Professor of Hebrew at Cambridge, during his residence in India as Principal of Bishop's College, Calcutta, was purchased from him for £350. A small remaining portion of his collection, comprising thirty-six volumes, was bought in 1858, after his death, for £35. In all there are 160 volumes, of which 145 are in Sanscrit. These latter are fully described in Prof. Aufrecht's Sanscrit Catalogue.[Pg 273]

The chief purchases of printed books were made at the sale at Berlin, in May, of the library of Professor C. F. G. Jacobs, the editor of the Anthologia Græca (who died March 30, 1847), whence a large number of classical dissertations, many of them authors' presentation copies, were obtained[346], and at the sale of the library of Rev. Hen. Francis Lyte (deceased 1847) which took place in July. A collection of 360 sermons, published by Non-juring divines between 1688 and 1750, is an interesting item in the year's list; another is a copy of Pliny's Historia Naturalis, printed at Rome by Sweynheym and Pannartz in 1473, with a MS. collation of three very early codices made by Ang. Politian in 1490, which was bought for £21, at an extremely curious sale at Messrs. Leigh Sotheby's, in Feb., of books 'selected from the library of an eminent literary character' (M. Libri?).

The two statutable Assistants at this time and for one or two years previously were Mr. J. M. Price, All Souls' College (B.A. 1849, M.A. 1852, now Vicar of Cuddington, Bucks,) and Mr. W. W. Garrett, New College (B.A. 1849). The former of these was succeeded about 1850, by the last undergraduate Assistant, Mr. J. C. Hyatt, Magd. Hall (B.A. 1852, now Perp. Curate of Queenshead, Yorkshire). Since then, in consequence of the difficulty of reconciling attendance on College lectures, &c. with attention to the continually increasing work of the Library, the junior Assistants have been taken from the City instead of from the undergraduate members of the University, as had been generally the case hitherto.

In pursuance of an address from the House of Commons, Sept. 4, 1848, on the motion of Mr. Ewart, various returns relative to public libraries were obtained, which were printed by Parliament in 1849, State Paper, No. 18. The following is the reply from Dr. Bandinel there printed:[Pg 274]—

The estimate of printed volumes here given is believed to be as nearly accurate as it was possible to make it, as considerable pains were taken in forming the calculation. The number of separate printed books and tracts may be reckoned as at least treble the number of volumes. With regard to the reply to the fifth enquiry some explanation is requisite. A register is kept of all the octavo and most of the quarto volumes taken out for[Pg 275] readers, of all the volumes from special and separate collections, and of all the MSS.; but no account is kept of the folios and other books on the ground-floor of the great room, which are accessible to readers themselves, and frequently used by them without the help of the assistants. Consequently, any return of the number of readers entered on the register would not adequately represent the whole number of students who use the Library, although, of course, it would, with a margin for allowance, afford a very fair approximation. No record, however, of separate visits of readers is kept, as distinct from the books required; so that although a reader may be at work for days or weeks together, yet, if he continue to use only the same books, one entry alone will be made of his name.

A.D. 1850.

The Hebrew collection was still further increased in this year by the purchase of sixty-two MSS., of which fifty-seven had been brought from Italy; and in 1851, by the purchase of some printed books collected by Dr. Isaac L. Auerbach, of Berlin, who had recently deceased. Every year about this time[347] saw additions to this branch of the Library, made chiefly through the agency of the late Mr. Asher, the well-known Jewish bookseller of Berlin, and also through the late Hirsch Edelmann, a learned Rabbi, who was for years a frequent reader in the Bodleian, from whence he commenced the publication of a series of extracts (see under the year 1693). Mr. Edelmann died a few years since in Germany. A series of works illustrating the history, civil and ecclesiastical, the geography, &c. of Hungary, Transylvania, Croatia, and other neighbouring provinces of the Austrian Empire,[Pg 276] amounting to 400 volumes, was purchased for £78; and a similar but much larger collection, relating to the history of Poland, numbering no fewer than 1200 volumes, was purchased for £366. Three hundred and twenty volumes of early printed works, some of which were fine specimens of incunabula, were obtained at the sale of the duplicates from the Royal Library at Munich. It was announced at the end of the Annual Catalogue that a special list of these, together with a catalogue of the Hebrew MSS. noticed above, and of the Hungarian and Polish collections, would be printed and circulated in the following year; this, however, was not done.

A series of 600 English sermons, printed between 1600 and 1720, bound separately, was purchased for £59.

Various specimens of the first beginning of printing in one of the Friendly Islands, Vavau, consisting of the Bible in the Tonga language, and of several elementary books, were presented by Capt. Sir Jas. Everard Home, R.N. as also some elementary books printed at Apea by the natives, under the direction of the Missionaries, for the use of the natives of the Navigators' Islands.

Dukes' Shropshire Collections. See 1841.

A.D. 1851.

At the sale of the books of the poet Gray, by Messrs. Sotheby and Wilkinson, on Aug. 28, his copies of Clarendon and of Burnet's Own Times (vol. i.), with many MSS. notes written by him in the margins, were bought for £49 10s. and £2 18s. respectively[348]. Perfect specimens of facsimiles, which would defy detection, were obtained for the completion of the Library copy of[Pg 277] Coverdale's Bible; being pen-and-ink copies of the title, from Lord Leicester's copy, and of the map of Palestine, from Lord Jersey's copy, executed with admirable skill by the late well-known facsimilist, Mr. J. Harris.

A Supplemental Catalogue of the printed books, comprehending all the accessions which had been made during the years 1835-1847, was published in this year, in one folio volume, under the editorship of the Rev. Alfred Hackman, M.A., by whom the greater part of the earlier Catalogue had been compiled, as mentioned at p. 268.

On March 27, Convocation voted an addition of £50 per annum to the stipends of the Sub-librarians.

Recovery of Pococke MS. 32. See p. 81.

Malone's Correspondence. See p. 232.

A.D. 1852.

In the Report of the University Commission, which was issued in this year, various suggestions were embodied which had been made by several witnesses. Sir Edmund Head renewed his plan of allowing books to be taken out of the Library by readers, and was supported by the opinions of Professors Wall and Jowett; but the proposal was met with the strong counter-testimony of Mr. H. E. Strickland[349], Prof. Vaughan, Dr. W. A. Greenhill (at that time a constant reader in the Library), Prof. Donkin, Mr. E. S. Foulkes, and others. And the Commissioners were[Pg 278] not prepared to report in favour of a plan which would at once lessen what was described as being one of the great advantages of the place, namely, the certainty of finding within its walls every book which it possessed. At the same time, they were disposed to recommend a relaxation in some instances of the strictness of the rule, and concurred in a suggestion made by Dr. Macbride and Mr. Storey Maskelyne, that duplicates should be allowed to circulate. Most, however, of the suggestions for extension of facilities to readers, as well as of the reasons alleged for alteration of system, have now been answered by the opening (through the liberality of the Radcliffe Trustees) of the Radcliffe Library as a noble reading-room for both day and evening. As the hours during which the Library may be used extend now, in consequence of this addition, from nine a.m. to ten p.m., it is at once apparent that the Bodleian presents greater advantages to students than can anywhere else be enjoyed; to which is to be added the readiness and quickness (specially testified to, in 1852, by Dr. Greenhill) with which, under all ordinary circumstances, readers are supplied with the books which they require. The Commissioners in their Report called attention to a suggestion of Sir Henry Bishop, then Professor of Music, for the establishment of a classified musical library, which should comprehend, not merely the music received by the Bodleian from Stationers' Hall, but all superior foreign music as well, of every school and every age. Such collections the Professor said were only to be found at Munich and Vienna.

The Report and Evidence upon the recommendations of the Commissioners, which were issued by the Hebdomadal Board in the following year, did not differ widely in testimony or suggestions from those of the Commission. Dr. Pusey and Mr. Marriott agreed in deprecating the allowing removal of books, speaking (as did several of the witnesses before the Commission) from[Pg 279] actual experience as constant readers in the place; and Dr. Bandinel mentioned, in a paper of observations which he contributed, the fact that he had been told by the Librarian of the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh that between 6,000 and 7,000 volumes appeared to have been lost there from the facilities afforded to borrowers. A comparative tabular statement respecting the arrangements and rules of the libraries at Berlin, Dresden, Florence, Munich, Paris and Vienna, drawn up by Mr. Coxe from the Parliamentary Report on Libraries, which showed very favourably in behalf of the Bodleian, was subjoined by Dr. Bandinel to his evidence.

The great feature of this year was the acquisition of the Italian Library of the Count Alessandro Mortara, consisting of about 1400 volumes, choice in character and condition, for £1000. The Count, who was distinguished for his literary taste and knowledge of the literature of his own country, had, although holding the nominal office of Grand Chamberlain to the Duke of Lucca, taken up his abode in Oxford some ten years previously, on account of his desire to examine the Canonici MSS. and of his friendship with Dr. Wellesley, the late Principal of New Inn Hall. He became a daily reader in the Bodleian, where the interest which he took in the place, together with his polished, yet genuine, courtesy, made him a welcome and popular visitor. It was upon returning to Italy (where he died, June 14, 1855, at Florence), that he disposed of his valuable collection. A catalogue, compiled by himself, with occasional short notes, was issued with the purchase-catalogue for the year. He also drew up a catalogue of the Italian MSS. in the Canonici collection, which was published, in a quarto volume, in 1864. (See under 1817.)

Among miscellaneous purchases were a few volumes which were wanted to make the Library set of De Bry's Voyages[Pg 280] complete, an imperfect copy of the Oxford Liber Festivalis (see 1691), and a large collection of Dr. Priestley's writings (believed to have been made by himself), in thirty-nine vols.

A.D. 1853.

A portion of the collection of Hebrew MSS. formed by Prof. Isaac Sam. Reggio, at Goritz, amounting to about seventy-two volumes, was purchased for £108. Many other MSS. in this class of literature occur yearly in the accounts at this time. But the great acquisition of 1853 was the Breviarium secundum regulam beati Ysidori, dictum Mozarabes, printed on vellum at Toledo, by command of Cardinal Ximenes, in 1502. £200 were given for this book, which is the only vellum copy known, and which is in most immaculate condition. It is of extreme rarity even on paper, as it is believed that only thirty-five copies were printed.

An imperfect copy of Caxton's Chronicle, 1480, was bought for £21; and a large gathering of Norfolk tracts was obtained at the sale of Mr. Dawson Turner's library.

It was in this year that Dr. Constantine Simonides visited the Library in the hope of disposing of some of the products of his Eastern ingenuity, but failed here, as also at the British Museum, although successful in most other quarters. It is much to be lamented that the talent and ability which he undoubtedly possessed in no small degree were devoted to such unworthy purpose as his history discloses. The story of his interview with Mr. Coxe, then Sub-librarian, is well known, and was reproduced in an article in the Cornhill Magazine for Oct. 1867 (p. 499); and as the version there given appears to be substantially correct, it will be sufficient to borrow it from its pages:—

[Pg 281]

An account of this visit was given in the Athenæum for March 1, 1856, and a full narrative, including a letter from Sir F. Madden respecting the dealings with Simonides on the part of the British Museum, is to be found in S. L. Sotheby's Principia Typographica, vol. ii. pp. 133-136f[350].

A.D. 1854.

A very interesting series of eighteen autograph letters from Henry Hyde, the second Earl of Clarendon, was presented to the University by 'our honoured Lord and Chancellor,' the Earl of Derby[351]. They are best described in the following letter to the Vice-Chancellor, which accompanied the gift, and which is now bound in the same volume:—

'Knowsley, Oct. 17, 1854.

'I am, my dear sir,
'Yours sincerely,
'DERBY.'

The portrait in question, which is a beautifully executed drawing, in an oak frame, marked on the back, 'Duke of Monmouth, by Foster,' is now fixed, as desired, in the present morocco binding of the volume.

A collection of early editions of the Prayer-Book (including Whitchurch's May and June editions of 1549 and that of 1552), of the Metrical Psalter, and of Visitation Articles (amongst others, Edward the Sixth's Articles of 1547, and Injunctions of the same year), with a few miscellaneous books, was bought of the Rev. T. Lathbury, M.A., the well-known writer on English Church history, for £300. Various rare English books were purchased at Mr. Pickering's sale, and foreign dissertations, &c. at that of the library of Professor Godfrey Hermann, the Greek editor and commentator (who died Dec. 31, 1848), at Leipsic, in April.

A.D. 1855.

Three Greek Biblical MSS. of great antiquity were obtained from the collection of Prof. Tischendorf, being Nos. 3-5 of the[Pg 283] volumes described in a small quarto catalogue issued (anonymously) by him of Codices Græci, &c. One of these three is of the ninth century, containing the Gospel of St. Luke, with portions of the other Gospels, which was bought for £125; another of the eighth century, containing the whole of St. Luke and St. John, bought for £140; the third, also of the eighth century, containing the greatest part of Genesis, for £108.

Rev. T. R. Brown's Dictionary, &c. printed by himself. See 1838.

A.D. 1856.

A volume containing two autograph letters of Luther was bought for £20, together with a large collection of printed books (formed by — Schneider, of Berlin,) relating to him and the German Reformation, with various editions of his works, for £300. Another volume, with some small additional papers in the Reformer's hand, was subsequently obtained.

The ever-increasing Bible collection received the addition of the very rare ed. princ. of the Bohemian Bible, printed at Prague in 1488, which was obtained for £17 10s., and a still more rare edition of the Pentateuch, with New Test., &c. printed at Wittemberg in 1529, obtained for eighteen guineas. A Roman Missal, printed 'ad longum, absque ulla requisitione,' (i. e. in a kind of 'Prayer-book-as-read' form,) Lyons, 1550, was obtained for £20. It was arranged by Nicholas Roillet, Chanter of the Church of S. Nicetius at Lyons, with the view of avoiding difficulties and delays, 'sacerdotesque expectantibus molestos reddentes, ipsosque erga dictos circumstantes scandalum generantes, qui existimant illos non solum ignaros sed nescientes quid agendum vel faciendam habeant;' and was issued with the papal imprimatur of Paul III. But as Pius V and Clem. VIII subsequently forbade any variation whatsoever from the authorized Roman form, this Missal, like the[Pg 284] Breviary of Card. Quignones, was, with others, suppressed. And hence its rarity.

Fifty guineas were given for a very large collection of Chinese works, numbering altogether about 1100, which had been gathered by Rev. F. Evans, for some time a missionary in China. Some of the Chinese books in the Library have been subsequently examined and catalogued by Professor Summers, of King's College, London.

On May 22, a new body of Library Statutes was confirmed by Convocation, after a complete revision of the previous regulations. The principal changes, besides the omission of various obsolete requirements, were the adding five elected Curators, holding office for ten years, to the old ex officio body of eight; the providing for the removal of books to the extra-mural 'Camera,' or reading-room, about to be added; the fixing the stipend of the Librarian (including all the former fees and small separate payments) at £700, and that of the Sub-librarians at £300, and the assigning to the former a retiring pension after twenty years' service of £200, and after thirty years', of £300, and to the latter, after thirty years', of £150; and the making a few alterations with regard to the times at which the Library should be closed, these times being lessened by about one week in the course of the year.

A report from the eminent architect, Mr. G. G. Scott, on the means which might be adopted for the enlargement of the Library, and for rendering it fire-proof, dated in Dec. 1855, was printed in this year, together with one from Mr. Braidwood on the warming apparatus (see under 1821). Mr. Scott's report contained suggestions for the extension of the Library throughout the whole of the quadrangle and adjoining buildings, including the Ashmolean Museum, and proposed that the Divinity School should be assigned as a reading room, for which the great degree of light afforded by its large windows appeared peculiarly to fit it. The subsequent[Pg 285] assignment, however, of the Radcliffe Library as a reading-room for the Library, removed the immediate necessity for any other extension. In 1858 a paper on the subject, illustrated with a plan of the Library, was printed by the late Dr. Wellesley, who, after considering the various modes then suggested for the enlargement of the Library, recommended the adoption (from the British Museum) of presses running up direct from the ground through all the floors, by which the dangers attendant upon the increase of weight of the wall-pressure would be obviated.

A.D. 1857.

A collection of manuscripts, more interesting as to their history than as to their actual contents[353], was presented by William and Hubert Hamilton, in memory, and in accordance with the wish, of their celebrated father, Sir William Hamilton. It comprises fifty-eight volumes (thirty-nine in folio, sixteen in quarto, and three in octavo) from the library of the Carthusian Monastery of Erfurt, famous as the place of Luther's early abode. A short catalogue of them, by Joh. Broad, was printed at Berlin in 1841, with a prefatory notice, from which we learn that they were preserved at Erfurt until 1805, when the library was broken up and dispersed on the occupation of the city by the French army, who stabled their horses in the place where the books were deposited, and burned many of them for fuel, while others were carried away and secreted with a view to their safety. Some of the latter were bought by the Count de Buelow, on whose death they were purchased from the subsequent possessors by Broad, and finally sold by him to Sir W. Hamilton. 'Nunc in eam terram demigrant,' says the bibliopolist, 'quæ, quodcunque alicujus pretii est aut materialium[Pg 286] aut spiritualium rerum, in suo gremio accumulare a Providentia Divina destinata videtur.' Another collection of MSS., from the same library at Erfurt, was on sale by Mr. J. M. Stark, the well-known bookseller (now of London), at Hull, in 1855, who issued a small catalogue of them in duodecimo.

A valuable collection of Italian and Spanish MSS., amounting to about forty-six volumes, came to the Library by the bequest of Rev. Joseph Mendham, M.A., of Sutton Coldfield, who died Nov. 1, 1856. The most important part of these is a series of twenty-eight volumes relating to the Council of Trent, which were purchased at the sale of the Earl of Guildford's library in 1830 by Thorpe, the bookseller, for £35, and re-sold by him to Mr. Mendham in 1832 for fifty guineas. It was chiefly from the materials afforded by these that Mr. Mendham drew up his Memoirs of the Council of Trent, published in 1834. They are described in Thorpe's Catalogue of MSS. on sale in 1831, and in the preface to Mr. Mendham's book.

On June 18, the Rev. Robert Payne Smith, M.A., of Pembroke College, was appointed an Assistant Sub-librarian for the Oriental department, in consequence of the increasing infirmities of the aged senior Sub-librarian, Mr. Reay.

A.D. 1858.

On Oct. 30, an offer made by the Trustees of the Ashmolean Museum for the transfer of the printed books, coins, and MSS. there contained to the Bodleian, in order to facilitate the devotion of a part of the building to the purposes of an Examination School, was accepted by the Curators; but a similar offer with regard to the antiquities was declined. The latter consequently remain in their old repository, but the collections in Natural History were transferred to the New Museum. It was not, however, until 1860, that the books were actually received into the Library, where they now[Pg 287] fill one small room. Altogether they amount to upwards of 3700 volumes, forming five different series. First are those of Elias Ashmole himself, numbering originally 2175, but reduced by losses before the transfer to 2136, of which about 850 are MSS[354]. This collection is extremely rich in heraldic and genealogical matter, together with an abundance of astrology. The printed books are chiefly scientific and historical; these, with the books in the following collections, are now in process of incorporation into the new General Catalogue of the Library. A list of the MSS. is given in Bernard's catalogue, A.D. 1697; but a very elaborate and minute account, forming a thick quarto volume, was drawn up by Mr. W. H. Black, the well-known antiquary, and published in 1845. As this, however, was destitute of an index, it remained comparatively useless until 1866, when a full Index, edited by the writer of this volume, was published under the direction of the Delegates of the University Press.

The next collection is that of Anthony à Wood, containing about 130 MSS. and 970 printed volumes[355], which were bequeathed to the Museum by the owner on his death in Nov. 1695. The former are of extreme value for the history of Oxford and the neighbourhood; among the latter are most curious sets of the pamphlets of the time, with the ballads, fly-sheets, chap-books, almanacks, &c. just such 'unconsidered trifles' as most men suffer to perish in the using, but a few, like Wood, lay by for the amusement and information of future generations. There are also seven volumes of his own correspondence, including letters from Dugdale, Evelyn, &c. Of the MSS. a list is to be found in the old Catalogue of 1697; a fuller and better one, compiled by[Pg 288] William Huddesford, M.A., the Keeper of the Museum, was printed in a thin octavo volume, in 1761, which was reprinted by Sir Thomas Phillips, at Middlehill, Worcestershire, in 1824. There are also bundles of charters and deeds, chiefly monastic, but nearly all more or less mutilated or injured by damp and dirt, so as to be partially useless.

The third collection is that of Dr. Martin Lister, physician to Queen Anne, who died Feb. 2, 1711/2. Besides his books, he was the donor of various other gifts to the Museum, in return for which he was created M.D. of Oxford, in 1683. The books are chiefly medical and scientific, and number in a written catalogue 1451 volumes (including thirty-two MSS.), but thirty-five of these were missing when the transfer from the Museum was made.

The collections of Sir William Dugdale, which form a fourth series, number forty-eight volumes. A list of these is in the old Catalogue of 1697.

In the fifth place there are the MSS. of the well-known antiquary, John Aubrey. These are about twenty in number, of which fifteen are in his own hand, and are described in Britton's Life of him, printed for the Wilts Topographical Society, pp. 88-123. Collections for the history of Wiltshire, entitled Hypomnemata Antiquaria, form one of Aubrey's own works[356], but unfortunately the second volume (marked with the letter B) is missing. It was borrowed from the Museum, in 1703, by William Aubrey, the author's brother, and was never returned. A paper on the subject was inserted by Rev. J. E. Jackson, in 1860, in vol. vii. of the Wiltshire Archæological Magazine, and a reward for information as to the present locale of the missing volume was subsequently publicly offered, but to no purpose, by the same gentleman. A[Pg 289] small MS. of Horæ, which had belonged to Sir Thomas Pope, the founder of Trinity College, is among Aubrey's books. A MS. of Matthew of Westminster, (now e Mus. 149) had been given to the Library by Aubrey, in 1675, through Ant. à Wood.

There are also five or six MSS. which were given to the Museum by William Kingsley before 1700. Some few others, which were given by E. Lhuyd and Dr. W. Borlase, together with a volume of W. Huddesford's correspondence, are now incorporated with the Ashmole MSS., and are described in Mr. Black's catalogue, as well as the latest gift of this kind which was made to the Museum, viz. a little volume of Private Thoughts, by Bishop Wilson, of Sodor and Man, which was presented in 1824 by Lieut. Brett, R.N.

Thirty-nine choice Persian and Arabic MSS., which had formed part of Sir Gore Ouseley's collection, were bought from his son, Sir Fred. Gore Ouseley, Bart., the present Professor of Music, for £500. The rest of the collection came by gift, as will be seen under the following year.

At the sale (in June-Aug.) of the library of Dr. Bliss, a large number of volumes (still kept separate) were purchased, including a volume of original letters of Charles I, Clarendon, &c., and poems by Lord Fairfax (see p. 97); together with many from the series of books of Characters collected by Dr. Bliss, and from his like series, both of books printed in London shortly before the fire of 1666, and of books printed at Oxford. The Library obtained by his bequest his own interleaved copy of the Athenæ, with many MS. additions[357].

[Pg 290]

A copy of the octavo Bible printed by Barker in 1631 (not 1632, as generally said), in which the word 'not' was omitted in the seventh commandment, was bought for £40. For this error (which looks very much like a wicked jest) the printer was fined 1000 marks by the High Commission Court[358], and the edition was rigidly suppressed, all the copies which could be found being condemned to the flames.

Another purchase was a large collection of political tracts in seventy volumes, chiefly relating to foreign affairs, which had been formed by Mr. — Hamilton, of the Diplomatic Service.

A.D. 1859.

Numerous MSS., chiefly classical, patristic, or Italian, were purchased at the sale of M. Libri's collection in London, in March. Amongst them was a Sacramentary, of the commencement of the ninth century, which was obtained for £43; and a copy of S. Cyprian's Epistles, also of the ninth century, for £84. Four volumes of the correspondence of Scholars at home and abroad with E. H. Barker, of Thetford, were also added to the Library from the sale of Mr. Dawson Turner's library. They are now numbered Bodl. MSS. 1003-1006. And the munificent gift of a very valuable collection of 422 volumes of Arabic and Persian MSS. was received from J. B. Elliott, Esq., of Calcutta. These chiefly consist of the MSS. which Sir Gore Ouseley (who died Nov. 18, 1844,) obtained during his diplomatic service in the East, commencing his collection when stationed at Lucknow, and[Pg 291] completing it while ambassador in Persia; of which Mr. Elliott had been the purchaser. A small remaining part had previously been bought by the Library, as noted under 1858. In 1860, Mr. Elliott added to his former gift a series of Eastern coins, and various handsome specimens of Eastern weapons; the latter are now exhibited in a case in the Picture Gallery. Five Sanscrit MSS. were received from Fitz-Edward Hall, Esq., of Saugur, who, at the same time, expressed his munificent intention of presenting hereafter the whole of his large collection.

In this year, after considerable enquiry had been made respecting different modes of cataloguing, and Mr. Coxe had reported on the arrangements adopted in the great libraries at home and some of those abroad, it was resolved by the Curators, upon that gentleman's recommendation, that the plan in use in the British Museum should be immediately introduced, for the purpose of commencing a new General Catalogue of all the printed books (excepting the Hebrew, of which a separate catalogue had been made) in the whole Library. By this plan, three or five copies, according as the case may be that of a single or double entry, are written simultaneously on prepared paper, as with a manifold-copier, the transcribers writing out in this way the entries of titles previously examined and corrected by the cataloguers. The separate titles are then mounted, arranged in alphabetical order, and bound in volumes. By this plan two copies of the Catalogue are at once written with the labour of one, while surplus slips are also provided for the formation hereafter of a classified catalogue as well. The use of the Catalogue, however, is thus confined to the Library itself; and the literary world in general must still refer to the printed Catalogues of 1843 and 1851. A commencement of the new undertaking was made in this year; but it was not until 1862 that the present staff (as to numbers) of assistants was employed, and the work completely[Pg 292] organized. At present the letters A-E, G-H are catalogued; and the extent to which the whole Catalogue will run may be estimated from the fact that the letters B, C, and G fill sixty, sixty-five, and thirty-four volumes respectively. All the books are seen and examined separately; anonymous authors are, if possible, traced out; many errors in previous catalogues are corrected, and the number of entries is very largely increased.

A.D. 1860.

The resignation of the Librarianship by Dr. Bandinel, after forty-seven years of office in the capacity of Head, and a total of fifty of work in the Library, forms a leading feature in the Bodley Annals of this year. At the age of seventy-nine the natural infirmities of age were felt by himself to be incapacitating him for the duties which he had so long and so regularly discharged, while at the same time the continually increasing pressure of work and enlargement of the Library, made those duties much more onerous than they had been even a quarter of a century before. And so he resolved to withdraw at Michaelmas from the place to which he had been so heartily and entirely devoted, and which under his headship had been doubled in contents. The parting was not without a great struggle; it was the abandoning what had been the cherished occupation of his life, and with the ceasing of that occupation he felt a too-certain foreboding (which he expressed to the writer of these pages) that the life would soon cease as well. A well-merited tribute was paid to him by Convocation in June, in both increasing the amount of his statutable pension, so that he retired on a full stipend, and in specially enrolling him among the Curators of the Library. But he was seldom seen in the old place after his resignation; on two or three occasions only did he again mount the long flight of stairs which had of late tried both his strength[Pg 293] and breath severely; and then, when only seven months had elapsed, on Feb. 6, 1861, he passed away. And little more than a fortnight previously, on January 20, his old colleague, Professor Reay, departed this life, at the age of seventy-eight. He also had retired on his pension at Michaelmas, 1860, and had been succeeded as Oriental Sub-librarian by Rev. R. Payne Smith (Assistant-librarian in the same department since 1857), whose appointment was confirmed by Convocation on Nov. 22. Memoirs of Dr. Bandinel and Mr. Reay are given in the Gentleman's Magazine, (1861, pp. 463-6), which do justice, in the case of the former, to his watchful solicitude for the Library and his thorough acquaintance with it; and in the case of the latter (evidently from intimate personal acquaintance), to his great kindliness of heart, and simplicity and gentleness of character.

The Convocation for the election of Dr. Bandinel's successor was held on November 6, when, with unanimous consent, the Rev. H. O. Coxe, M.A., Sub-librarian since 1837, was appointed to the office.

A most seasonable and valuable enlargement of the Library was effected, by an addition which henceforth marks an æra in our Annals. On June 12, Convocation thankfully accepted an offer from the Radcliffe Trustees (which had been first mooted by Dr. Acland in 1856), of the use, as a Bodleian reading-room, of the noble building hitherto under their control, the existing contents of which had (for the most part) been removed to the New Museum. Dr. Radcliffe's own original intention had been the building an additional wing to the Bodleian rather than the erecting a library of his own; and subsequently the idea had been entertained of devoting his structure to the exclusive reception of manuscripts[359]. Its appropriation, therefore, to the Bodleian[Pg 294] upon the removal of the library of medicine and natural history, was, in some sort, a return to the founder's first design. And the return came most seasonably, when the old walls of the Schools' quadrangle were well-nigh bursting from a plethora of books, and still the cry 'They come' daily caused fresh bewilderment as to whither those that came should go. It was resolved that the new reading-room thus opportunely gained should be appropriated to new books (arranged under a system of classification) and magazines; that it should be called the 'Camera Radcliviana;' and that it should be open from ten A.M. to ten P.M., thus affording the facilities for evening use of the Bodleian which had often been desired for those who were occupied in college work during the day. It was at the close of the year 1861 that the building began to be filled by its new occupants, and on Jan. 27, 1862, (the necessary alterations and preparations having been completed in the short space of the Christmas vacation) it was announced by the Vice-Chancellor to be open as a Reading Room in connection with the Bodleian. A grant of £200 per annum towards the expense of management was made by[Pg 295] Convocation on Nov. 28, 1861, which was increased to £300 in 1865, the remainder of the charge, consisting of the incidental expenses, being defrayed from the general funds of the Library.

A large additional space for the reception of books was gained by the closing up the open ground-floor (through which was the former entrance to the reading-room), converting the spaces between the outer arches into windows, and lining the walls within with book-shelves, thus affording accommodation, according to the present reckoning, for about 50,000 volumes. The whole building may probably be reckoned as capable of containing altogether about 75,000 volumes[360].

The terms on which the Radcliffe Trustees made their offer, and which were accepted by the University, were these:—1. That the Radcliffe Building should be a reading-room to the Bodleian, or be used for any other purpose of the Bodleian Library. 2. That it should remain the property of the Trustees, being esteemed a loan to the University. 3. That no alteration should be made in the building without consent of the Trustees or a Representative approved by them. 4. That the expense of maintaining the building should be borne by the Trustees.

The transfer of this magnificent room afforded a rare opportunity for developing the usefulness of the Library to which it is now attached, and all who frequent it will acknowledge that that opportunity has been well and worthily improved under the direction of the present Librarian.

On Oct. 25, leave was granted by Convocation for the lending two Laud Manuscripts, 561 and 563, being copies of the[Pg 296] Historia Hierosoylmitana, by Albert of Aix, to the French Government.

At the sale of the library of Dr. Wellesley, Principal of New Inn Hall, a copy of Boccaccio's Corbaccio, 1569, was purchased, on account of its possessing the autograph of Sir Thomas Bodley, to whom it had been given by the editor, J. Corbinelli.

A rare Salisbury Primer, printed at Rouen by Rob. Valentin in 1556, was purchased for £22. Its title affords an amusing specimen of a foreigner's mode of printing English; it runs thus—This prymer of Salisbury vse is se tout along with houtonyser chyng, with many prayers & goodly pyctures. It is intended hereby to be conveyed to the English reader that, without any searching, he will find his prayers and psalms set out in their proper order.

A.D. 1861.

One hundred and four volumes of Tamil MSS. were purchased; as well as four Samaritan MSS. of the Pentateuch, of the twelfth century, which had been brought to England by a native of Samaria.

The Syriac MSS. of the well-known Orientalist, Dr. Bernstein, were purchased by the Delegates of the Press, with a view to assisting in the great work of a Syriac Lexicon, upon which Mr. (now Dr.) Payne Smith was (and still is) engaged.

The printing of the Annual Catalogues of purchases was discontinued, after the issue of the Catalogue for this year. Written registers are now kept in the Library of all the books bought in the course of each year; and only a list of benefactors, with the statement of accounts, is annually printed for circulation in the University and amongst donors.[Pg 297]

A.D. 1862.

A large collection of British Essayists and Periodicals was presented by the late Rev. F. W. Hope, D.C.L., the munificent benefactor to the University Museum, the founder of the Professorship of Zoology, and the donor also of a large collection of engraved portraits and other prints[361]. The collection was one which had been formed by John Thomas Hope, Esq., the donor's father. It contains some 760 specimens of its class of literature, belonging chiefly to the eighteenth century. Special thanks for the gift were returned by Convocation, on Feb. 20. A catalogue, which had been drawn up for Mr. Hope by Mr. Jacob Henry Burn, containing notices in detail of the various publications, was printed at the University Press, in 1865, in an octavo volume.

A Hebrew MS. of the Pentateuch, probably of the thirteenth century, was bought for £32 10s. Some tracts relating to the period of the Great Rebellion were bought at the sale of Dr. Bandinel's extensive Caroline collection.

On March 4, the Curators accepted the gift of a bust of Rev. F. W. Robertson, late incumbent of Trinity Chapel, Brighton, which had been purchased by subscription. It is now placed in the Picture Gallery.

A large number of purchase-duplicates, which had accumulated during the course of many years, were removed from the Library and sold by auction, in London, by Messrs. Sotheby and Wilkinson, in May. Among them were some of great rarity. The sale, which lasted five days, produced £766 2s. 6d.; of which £110 5s. were given for a specimen of the St. Alban's press, the[Pg 298] Rhetorica Nova of Gul. de Saona, printed in 1489. A second and smaller sale, containing many English works of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, took place on April 12, 1865, at which a copy of Chettle's Kind-Harts Dreame (1593), produced £101, and Decker's Guls Horne-Booke, 1609, £81. The proceeds of the whole sale amounted to £750 18s. 6d.

The Rev. Alfred Hackman, M.A., Chaplain and Precentor of Ch. Ch., and P. C. of St. Paul's, Oxford, and an Assistant in the Library of twenty-five years' standing, was approved by Convocation, on April 12, as Mr. Coxe's successor in the Sub-librarianship; after a discussion, which led to the abrogation by Convocation, in February, of a provision in the Statutes forbidding the holding cure of souls in connection with that office or that of Head-librarian without special licence from the Curators.

A.D. 1863.

Among the purchases made in this year were the following: Card. Ximenes' rare treatise entitled Crestia, printed at Valentia in 1483 (£25); Court-Rolls of Tamworth, Solihull, and other neighbouring places, obtained from Mr. Halliwell; and a collection, in three thick folio volumes, of placards, hand-bills, &c., relating to the town of Coventry, formed by Mr. W. Reader, a printer in that place.

Capt. Montagu Montagu, R.N., who died at Bath, on July 3 in this year, bequeathed a collection of about 700 volumes, in various branches of literature, which was received at the Library about the beginning of 1864. There are about ninety editions and versions of the Psalter, with works on Psalmody, including a metrical version by Capt. Montagu himself; a large number of editions of Anacreon, Horace, Juvenal, Phædrus, Petrarch, Boileau, and Fontaine's Fables; a few MSS. of Juvenal, Petrarch,[Pg 299] &c. with a large series of autograph letters, chiefly obtained at Upcott's sale. There are, besides, a number of topographical and biographical works illustrated, more Sutherlandico, with additional engravings, together with many parcels of separate prints arranged for the same purpose. One item of particular interest which accompanied the collection is a small sketch of Napoleon I, in profile, admirably executed by the well-known Italian artist, Giuseppe Longhi. It now hangs, framed and glazed, in the Library, together with a letter from Longhi himself, in French, dated at Milan, June 4, 1828, in which he narrates the occasion on which it was taken. He attended, in 1801, at Lyons, as a member of the 'Consulte Cisàlpine,' for the settling the affairs of the Republic of Italy, under the presidency of the First Consul. It happened that during the delivery of a long harangue, full of tedious flattery, Napoleon sat vis-à-vis with the orator; and Longhi saw that an opportunity for exercising the cunning of his pencil had come. The light, which streamed in through the great window of the Church (!) where they were assembled, brought out the profile very clearly; there was little fear of being cut short by the speaker's suddenly ceasing his declamation, or of being interrupted by movement on the part of the unconscious subject of the operation, for the latter sat immersed in thought upon matters far away, while regarding the speaker with a pensive air; and so, while Napoleon sat pondering, Longhi sat sketching. And everybody, he declares with a pardonable pride, at Lyons and Paris, pronounced the likeness to be excellent. A small bust of Napoleon, now placed in the great window, came to the Library at the same time. A catalogue of Capt. Montagu's books, comprising forty octavo pages, was printed and circulated with the Annual Statement for 1864.[Pg 300]

A.D. 1864.

The chief acquisitions in manuscript books were various Hebrew volumes (for £159), and a series of letters to Malone from Dr. Johnson, Mrs. Siddons, and others; and in printed books, a perfect copy of Cromwell's Great Bible, printed by Grafton in 1539, which was bought of Mr. Fry, the well-known collector, for £100.

A sixth part of the general catalogue of MSS. was issued, containing the Syriac, Carshunic and Mendean MSS., in number 205, which had been drawn up by Rev. R. Payne Smith, M.A., and to which several facsimiles were appended. And the eighth part, containing the Sanscrit MSS., in number 854, appeared under the editorship of Theodore Aufrecht, M.A., now Professor of Sanscrit in the University of Edinburgh. A first fasciculus of this had been issued in 1859.

A.D. 1865.

At the beginning of January, a sale was held in London by Messrs. Sotheby and Wilkinson, of the stock of the late Mr. William Henry Elkins, a bookseller, of 41, Lombard Street. At this sale, the Library was the fortunate purchaser of what appears to be a genuine Shakespeare Autograph. The book is Ovid's Metamorphoses, printed by Aldus, at Venice, in October, 1502, in octavo; and on the title is the signature 'W^m. Sh^r.' in a hand bearing no resemblance whatever to that of the Ireland forgeries, but not unlike that of the signature attached to Shakespeare's will. Opposite to the title, on a leaf pasted down on the original binding of the book, is the note, most certainly a genuine memorandum of the date to which it professedly belongs, of which a faithful facsimile is given with that of the autograph[Pg 301] itself, in the accompanying lithograph[362]. That the note itself is no forgery is admitted by all who have examined it; the volume, therefore, is certainly, by tradition, one which belonged to the poet. The only question is, whether the name may not have been forged in consequence of the existence of this note. To this, which is the opinion of some, it may fairly be replied, that, seeing no contracted form of Shakespeare's signature is known to exist, a forger would hardly have invented one for the occasion, but would have given the name in full; while, on the other hand, if the signature be real, what more natural than that a subsequent owner should record the tradition that the indefinite 'Sh^r.' of this unimportant title-page was no other than the very definite 'Shakspere' himself? The names mentioned in the note are names, as every one knows, connected with the poet's history. Hall was the marriage name of his daughter Susannah, to whom he left his house in Henley Street; and one William Hall, a glover, appears from the Stratford Records printed by Mr. Halliwell, to have had a house in that street in 1660. He, doubtless, was the donor of the volume. Susannah Hall's daughter, Elizabeth, was married to a Thomas Nash, who died in 1647; but though he died without issue, the initials 'T. N.' may well stand for some member of the family who bore the same names. That, therefore, a Hall should possess the book, and subsequently give it to (most probably) a Nash, goes far to establish its genuineness as a Shakespeare relic. In a full account of the volume, supporting its pretensions, which appeared in the Athenæum for Jan. 28, 1865 (p. 126), it was pointed out that the two references to the story of Baucis and Philemon, which are found in Shakespeare's Plays, show that he was not unacquainted with the Metamorphoses. To this may be added a better proof of his knowledge of Ovid's writings in the fact[Pg 302] that two lines from the Amores (I. xv. 35, 36) form the motto to the Venus and Adonis. As the volume is somewhat dirty, and has a well-worn air, it may possibly have been used by Shakespeare during those school-keeping experiences of which Aubrey tells us; possibly, however, the wear and tear may be due to an older owner, who has plentifully interspersed his MS. notes in, apparently, a foreign hand, on many of the pages. Owing to a generally-entertained suspicion throughout the auction-room on the occasion of the sale of the volume, that the autograph must be a forgery, the Library became its possessor for the small sum of £9[363]!

[see text alternative]

A small volume, containing several papers in the handwriting of Luther, was bought for £45. The first edition of Coverdale's New Testament, printed at Antwerp, by Matthew Crom, in 1538, was added to the Biblical collection. Two interesting and important series of newspapers were obtained; the one, a set (not quite perfect) of the London Gazette, from 1669 to 1859, bought for £200[364]; and the other, a collection of London newspapers, from 1672 to 1737, arranged in chronological order in ninety-six volumes, obtained also for £200. This very curious collection had been formed by Mr. John Nichols; its escape from destruction by the disastrous fire at his printing-office in 1808, is mentioned at p. 99 of the Gentleman's Magazine for that year. It is accompanied by a MS. index, drawn up by Mr. Nichols himself. Many unknown contributions by Defoe to the journals of his time, have recently been traced in this series by a gentleman who has made a special study of the Defoe literature, Mr. W. Lee.

[Pg 303]

Considerable assistance in completing the Library sets of the Public and Private Acts of Parliament was afforded, in this year, by the late Mr. W. Salt.

Specimens of the first books printed in the Dyak language, which were issued at Singapore in 1862, were given by Rev. J. Rigaud, B.D., of Magdalene College.

On the appointment of Dr. Jacobson to the See of Chester, Mr. R. Payne Smith became his successor in the office of Regius Professor of Divinity. Professor Max Müller, M.A., was thereupon nominated to take Mr. Smith's place as the Sub-librarian in special charge of the Oriental department, and the nomination was confirmed in Convocation on Nov. 7.

A.D. 1866.

There is not much to notice under this year, save that the Vulgaria quedam abs Terencio in Anglicam linguam traducta, printed at Oxford before 1483, was obtained, in a volume containing also two tracts printed by J. de Westphalia, at the sale of the library of Mr. Thomas Thomson, of Edinburgh, for £36. Although complete in itself, it appears to have formed a part of a larger work, as the signatures run from n. to q., in eights.

A.D. 1867.

The closing year of these memorials is distinguished by the acquisition of a volume described by Archdeacon Cotton, in his Typographical Gazetteer, as being 'of the very highest rarity.' It is a fine copy of the Breviarium Illerdense, printed at Lerida, in Spain, in 1479, by Henry Botel. Besides being remarkable from its rarity, there is special interest attaching to the volume from the fact that it was printed at the sole expense of the bell-ringer of the cathedral! The colophon states that 'Antonius Palares, campanarum ejusdem ecclesiæ pulsator, propriis[Pg 304] expensis fieri fecit.' The volume was bought from Mr. Boone for £36.

A somewhat imperfect copy of the rare Bible printed at Edinburgh by Arbuthnot and Bassandyne in 1579, being the first edition printed in Scotland, was another purchase of the year; as were also two thick volumes of recent transcripts of the Stuart correspondence, preserved in the Imperial Library at Paris.

Within the last few years considerable attention has been paid by the Librarian to the formation of a series of editions of the English Bible. The number now collected is very large, and approaches very nearly to a complete gathering of every edition before 1800, which has any claim to regard either from date, imprint, variety of size, correctness, or incorrectness. Early Quaker tracts have also been largely collected, together with editions of Cotton Mather's works and those of John Bunyan.

A portrait of the Prince of Wales, in academic dress, painted by Sir J. Watson Gordon, was presented towards the close of the year to the University by the Prince, in memory of his academic days, and now hangs conspicuously at the entrance of the Picture Gallery, to which it forms the latest addition.

Prof. Max Müller having resigned his Sub-librarianship on account of health, the Rev. J. W. Nutt, M.A., Fellow of All Souls' College, was approved by Convocation, on June 25, as his successor in the charge of the Oriental department.

The number of printed volumes at present in the Library may be estimated at nearly 350,000. It was returned to Parliament, in 1848, as about 220,000; and with a view to this return a calculation as nearly accurate as possible was then made. An estimate has now been made of the additions received since that date; and from this it appears that some 79,500 volumes have been placed in the old Library and 45,000 in the Camera Radcliviana, making a total for[Pg 305] the whole collection of about 345,000 volumes. Within the same period about 5000 additional manuscripts have been obtained, making a total of nearly 25,000. The number was returned in 1848 as being about 21,000, but this appears to have been somewhat in excess of the fact. The proportion was singularly overestimated in 1819, for Clarke, in his Repertorium Bibliographicum published in that year (p. 68), states that the Library contains upwards of 160,000 volumes, of which 30,000 are manuscripts! The annual rate of ordinary increase of printed books at present, apart, of course, from the accession of any entire collection or special purchase, may be reckoned at about 3000 volumes, exclusive of magazines, of which two-thirds come from Stationers' Hall under the provisions of the Copyright Act.

Floreat Bibliotheca.

[Pg 307]

APPENDIX A.

Account of the Muscovite Cloak mentioned at p. 40. Extracted from vol. vi. of B. Twyne's Collections (among the University Archives), f. 97.

It appears from this account that the box of scented wood ordered by the Curators in 1614 had never been provided, and that the cloak was already beginning to be neglected. Doubtless suspicion had been early excited as to the truth of the traveller's story which had accompanied the gift, and which could scarcely have obtained real credence later than the days of Marco Polo or Sir John Mandeville. In the Ashmolean Museum a painting is preserved which represents the Agnus Scythicus in its fabled state; a full-grown lamb poised on the top of a vegetable stalk, with its legs dependent in the air[365]. But the key to the mystery is attached in the label on the frame: 'Polypodium Barometz. Linn.' It is, in truth, only a large fern found in Tartary, of which the rhizoma is covered with the woolly fungus-like growth, found in greater or less degree on many species of ferns. If the plant be dug up and inverted, the roots being uppermost and the fronds pendent, a strong imagination might find some resemblance in the former to a wool-clad body, and in the latter to limbs, while some of the young fronds with their spiral convolutions might be compared to the horns of a ram, such as are duly represented in the painting mentioned above. A specimen of the plant may be seen in the greenhouses of the Botanic Garden, Oxford, where it is still known by the name which the fable imposed, Agnus Scythicus. So great is the woolly growth found upon one species of tree-fern in New Zealand, that (as the writer was informed by Mr. Baxter, the Keeper of the Botanic Garden) tons of it are yearly imported into this country for the purpose of stuffing cushions. A finer and silkier substance is found on a fern indigenous in Mexico.

[Pg 310]

APPENDIX B.

List of Books printed on Vellum, which have been added to the Library since the year 1830[366].

1460. Clementis VIII Constitutiones, cum glossa Jo. Andreæ. Ed. Pr. fol. Mogunt., Petr. Schoiffer de gernssheim. Bought in 1838 for 45l.

1468. Justiniani Institutiones. Ed. Pr. fol. Mogunt. per Petr. Schoyffer de Gernssheym. Bought in 1834 for 52l. 10s.

1476. Historia Naturale da Plinio, trad, per Chr. Landino. fol. Ven. Nic. Janson. The borders at the commencement of each book, with the principal initial letters, are exquisitely painted and illustrated with the portrait and arms of Ferdinand II of Sicily, to whom the work was dedicated, as well as those of — Strozzi, for whom this copy was probably executed. Bequeathed by Mr. Douce. Exhibited in the glass case at the end of the Library.

1480. Breviarium Eduense, 4to. by order of Card. John Rolin, Bishop of Autun, 'Symon de Vetericastro eius Secretarius, parisius hoc breviarium cum pluribus similibus imprimi fecit.' Bought in 1838 for 2l. 4s.

1481. Missale Parisiense. Ed. Pr. fol. Par., Jo. de Prato et Desid. huym. Bought in 1842 for 10l. 10s.

1482. Ordo Psalterii cum hymnis et canticis suis. Small 4to. Ven. per Nicolaum Girardenguz. From the Canonici collection.

1484. Officium diurnum secundum morem monachorum congregationis Sancte Justine, ord. S. Benedicti. 8vo. Ven. per Bern. de Benaliis (&c.). Bought in 1843 for 1l. 14s.

1493. Pars hyemalis breviarii fratrum Observantialium, ord. S. Benedicti, per Germaniam. 8vo. impensis Georii Stōchs ex Sulczbach, civis Nurembergensis. Bought in 1841 for 14s.

S. A. A small duodecimo book of prayers, in German, without any title; with woodcuts. Printed with the types of Hans Schönsperger, of Augsburg. Bequeathed by Mr. Douce.

1500, Aug. 14. Heures a lusage de [Tours; the name left blank]. 8vo. Paris, pour Anthoine Verard. With illuminations. Bought in 1844 for 6l.[Pg 311]

1502. Breviarium secundum regulam beati Hysidori. Fol. Toleti, jussu Card. Fr. Ximenes, per Petr. Hagembach. Bought in 1853 for 200l. See p. 280.

1505. Breviarium secundum usum Herford. 8vo. Rothom., per Inghilbertum Haghe. Bequeathed by Gough.

1514. Le Chevalier de la tour et le guidon des guerres; par Geoffroy de la Tour-Landry. Fol. Par., pour Guill. Eustace. Bequeathed by Mr. Douce.

1522. Libri quattuor magnorum Prophetarum; his adduntur Threni, &c. 12mo. Par., Petrus Vidoveus. Given by Rawlinson.

1529. S. Joannes Chrysostomus in omnes Epistolas S. Pauli; Gr. 3 vols. fol. Ven. Bought in 1843 for 45l.

1629. Rituale monasticum secundum consuetudinem congregationis Vallisumbrosæ. Fol. Florent. Bought in 1843 for 7l. 17s. 6d.

1642. Bibliotheca Eliotæ. Eliotis Librarie. Londini, anno Verbi incarnati M.D.XLII. A fragment, consisting of title, Proheme to Henry VIII in English, address to the reader in Latin, and table of errata; in all, five leaves.

1859. Rotulus Clonensis, ex orig. in Registro Eccl. Cath. Clonensis, editus cura Ric. Caulfield. The first book printed at Cork on vellum, and the only one so printed. Given by Dr. Caulfield in 1865.

1861. The Souldier's Pocket Bible; an exact reprint of the original edition of 1643, with a prefatory note by George Livermore. 12mo. Cambridge [U.S.], printed for private distribution. This copy was given by Mr. Livermore to Archd. Cotton, and by him to the Library. It was reprinted from a copy in the possession of the editor; only one other is known to exist.

1866. ספר תגן Sepher Taghin: Liber Coronularum, ex unico bibl. Paris. cod. MS. a B. Goldberg descriptum, nunc primum edidit, adjectis ad calcem libri aliquot exceptis ex alio codice ejusdem bibl. inedito, J. J. L. Barges, S. Theol. facult. Paris. doctor. 8vo. Lut. Par.

1867. מעשה נמים Edited by Dr. B. Goldberg, from Pococke MS. 238. 8vo. Paris. The only vellum copy printed. Bought for 3l.

N. D. Geological Map of the Environs of Oxford; by C. P. Stacpoole. Bought in 1850 for 1l. 3s.

The following vellum-printed Horæ were all bequeathed by Mr. Douce:—

1498. Les heures a lusaige de Rome. 4to. Par., pour Simon Vostre.

[Pg 312]

—— —— 4to. Par., per Gillet Hardouyn.

1498. Hore secundum usum Sarum. 8vo. Par., per Phil. Pigouchet.

1499. Officium B. M. V. in usum Romane ecclesie. 8vo. Lugd. Bon. de boninis.

1501. Hore Virg. Mar. secundum usum Romanum. 8vo. Par., Thielman Kerver.

[1501.] Les heures a lusaige de Rome. 8vo. Par., Simon Vostre.

1502. —— By the same printer.

1504. —— 8vo. Par., Anth. Chappiel.

1505. Officium B. M. V. in usum Rom. eccl. 8vo. Ven., Lucantonius de Giunta.

1508. Hore secundum usum Romanum. 8vo. Par., Thielman Kerver.

—— —— 8vo. Par., Guill. Anabat.

1511. —— 8vo. Par., Theilman Kerver.

[1512.] Les heures a lusaige de Rome. 8vo. Par., per Joh. de Brie.

[1512.] Heures a lusaige de Sens. 4to. Par., Jehan de brye.

1514. Orationes et hore in usum Romanum. 4to. (Aug. Vind.) per Jo. Schönsperger.

—— Another edition by the same printer in the same year, but without name or date.

1517. Horæ ad usum Romanum. 8vo. Par., Thielman Kerver.

1522. Horæ secundum usum Romanum. 4to. Par., Thielman Kerver.

[1522.] Les heures a lusaige de Rome. 8vo. Par., par Germ. Hardouyn.

1526. Horæ secundum usum Romanum. 8vo. Par., Thielman Kerver.

1527. Hore in laudem B. V. Marie, secundum consuetudinem ecclesie Parisiensis. 8vo. Par., per Sim. du bois.

[1528.] Horæ, secundum usum Romanum, cum multis suffragiis et orationibus de novo additis. 8vo. Par., Germ. Hardouyn.

1529. Horæ in laudem, B. Mar., secundum usum Romanum. 8vo. Par., apud Gotofr. Torinum.

S. A. Hore B. Marie. 8vo. M. E. Jehannot.

S. A. Hore secundum usum Romanum. 8vo. Par., G. Hardouyn.

—— Another edition by the same printer.

S. A. Les heures a lusaige de Rome. 4to. Par., per Guill. Godar.

S. A. Hore secundum usum Sarum. 4to. Rich. Pynson.

S. A. Les heures a lusaige Dangiers. 8vo. [Par.] Simon Vostre.

S. A. Heures a l'usaige de Soissons. 8vo. [Par.] Simon Vostre.

S. A. Heures de nostre dame en Francoys et en Latin. 4to. Par., Anth. Verard.

S. A. Heures. 8vo. Par., Anth. Verard.

[Pg 313]

APPENDIX C.

List of MSS. formerly in the possession of Cathedrals, Monasteries, Colleges, and Churches in England, Scotland, and Ireland[367].

• Aberdeen Cathedral. Ashmole, 1474.
• Abingdon. Digby, 39, 146, 227 (fine Missal, with Calendar).
• —— John Crystall, Monk of. Rawlinson, C. 940.
• Alban's, St. Auct. F. II. 13;
• Bodl. 569;
• Laud Lat. 67;
• Laud Misc. 279, 358, 363, 370, 409;
• Rawlinson, C. 31;
• Rawlinson, Auct. 99 (obtained through Brother Hugh Legat, and given by Abbot John Stoke).
• —— Sub-prior. Bodl. 467.
• —— Sub-sacrist. Ashmole, 1796.
• Alvingham, Linc. Laud Misc. 642.
• Athdare, Kildare. Rawlinson, C. 320.
• Barking. Laud Lat. 19.
• Beauvale, or Bellavalle, Notts. Douce, 114.
• Bedford. The Minorites. Laud, 176 (given by John Grene, D.D. in 1471).
• Belvoir, Linc. E Mus. 249.
• Bilsington, Kent. Bodl. 127 (given by John, Vicar of Newchurch).
• Bordesley, Warwickshire. Bodl. 168.
• Boxgrave, Sussex. Rawlinson, A. 411.
• Bradsole, near Dover, Priory of St. Radegund. Rawlinson, B. 336.
• Bridlington. Auct. D. infra, II. 7;
• Bodl. 357.
• Byland, or Bellaland, Yorkshire. Bodl. 842 (bought from a carpenter);
• Laud Misc. 149.
• Canterbury, Ch. Ch. Bodl. 214, 379;
• Laud Misc. 165;
• Tanner, 18, 223;
• Rawlinson, C. 168 (Missal, given by Archbp. Warham).
• —— W. Bonyngton, a monk, 1483. Rawlinson, B. 188.
• —— Another monk. Bodl. 648.
• —— St. Augustine's. Bodl. 299, 381, 391, 464, 600;
• E Mus. 223;
• Laud Lat. 65;
• Laud Misc. 225, 296;
• Wood Donat. 13;
• Ashmole, 1431;
• Barlow, 32;
• Hatton, 94;
• Maresch. 33;
• [Pg 314]Rawlinson, C. 7, 117, 159.
• Carlisle Cathedral. Bodl. 728.
• —— (a House at). Laud Misc. 582.
• Chichester Cathedral(?). Bodl. 142. ('de dono Seffri. Episc.')
• Cirencester, St. Mary's Abbey. Barlow, 48.
• Cokersand, Lanc. Rawlinson, C. 317.
• Coventry Cathedral. Digby, 33 (given by Rich. Luff, monk).
• —— St. Mary's Priory. Auct. F. III. 9.
• Cropthorn, Worc. Rector in 1279. Rawlinson, B. N. Auct. 169.
• Croyland. Rawlinson, C. 531.
• Dore, Hereford. Laud, 138;
• E Mus. 82.
• Dover Priory. Bodl. 920 (Catalogue of the Library).
• —— Hosp. of St. Bartholomew. Rawlinson, B. 335.
• Dublin, Cathedral of Ch. Ch. or Holy Trinity. Rawlinson, B. N. Auct. 185 (a magnificent Psalter, written by direction of Prior Stephen de Derby; see p. 179).
• —— Abbey of St. Thomas. Rawlinson, B. 500.
• —— Hosp. of St. John Bapt. Rawlinson, B. 498.
• —— St. Mary's Abbey, near Dublin. Rawlinson, B. 495, C. 60;
• Rawlinson, Misc. 1137.
• —— Church of St. John Evang. Misc. Liturg. 337.
• Dulci Corde, or Sweet-Heart, Galloway. Fairfax, 5, (belonged to 'Dervorgoyl de Bayll'[iol], the foundress of this house, and of Balliol College. Bought by Fairfax at Edinburgh in 1652).
• Dumfermline (?). Fairfax, 8.
• Dunbrothy, Wexford. Rawlinson, B. 494.
• Durham Cathedral (St. Cuthbert). Laud Lat. 12;
• Laud Misc. 368, 489;
• Rawlinson, C. 4.
• —— Thomas Dune, a monk. Douce, 129.
• Edmund's, Bury St. Bodl. 216, 240, 297, 715, 737, 860;
• E Mus. 6, 7, 8, 9, 26, 27, 31, 32, 33, 36, 112;
• Laud Misc. 742;
• Rawlinson, C. 697 (all between the 11th and 13th century);
• Misc. Liturg. 310 (Martyrologium; given by Rich. Fuller, Chaplain, and Rich. Aleyne, Kerver, in 1472. Bequeathed by Rawlinson).
• Ely. Laud, 112.
• Evesham. Auct. D. I. 15;
• Laud Lat. 31;
• Barlow 7 (Officia Eccles.);
• Rawlinson, B. N. Auct. 16.
• Exeter Cathedral. Auct. D. II. 16, F. III. 6;
• Bodl. 579, 708 (these given by Leofric);
• Auct. D. I. 7 and 12 (given by Hugh, Archd. of Taunton), 9 (given by Adam de St. Bridget, Chanter), 13, 18;
• D. II. 8;
• D. infra, II. 9(?);
• D. III. 10, 11 (?);
• Auct. F. I. 15;
• [Pg 315]Bodl. 92, 137, 147, 148, 149, 150, 162 (given by Richard Brounst, Vicar Choral), 206, 272, 273, 279, 286, 287, 289, 311, 314, 315, 333, 335, 377, 380, 393,
• 463 (given by the Executors of Bp. Lacy), 482, 691, 707, 708, 717, 718, 720, 725, 732, 738, 744 (given by the Executors of Dr. John Snetesham), 748, 749, 786, 810, 829 (given by the Executors of Bp. Lacy), 830, 865.
• Wood Donat. 15 (given by Executors of John Snetesham, D.D., Canon and Chancellor, 1448).
• Exeter. Hosp. of St. John Bapt. Laud, 156.
• Finchale, Durham. Laud Misc. 546.
• Ford, Devon. Laud Misc. 606.
• Fountains' Abbey. Ashmole, 1398, 1437;
• Laud Misc. 310, 619.
• Gainford, Durham. Thomas Heddon, Vicar. Rawlinson, A. 363.
• Garendon, Leic. Ashmole, 1516.
• Gisburne, Yorkshire. Laud Lat. 5.
• Glastonbury. Laud Lat. 4;
• Laud Misc. 128 (belonged to Thomas Wason, Abbot).
• Hanworth (Middlesex?); Richard, Rector. Rawlinson, B. N. Auct. 165.
• Hatfield Peverel, Essex. Rawlinson, B. 189 (given by John Bebseth), Prior.
• Hereford Cathedral. Rawlinson, C. 67.
• —— Vicars Choral. Rawlinson, C. 427.
• —— The Minorites. Hatton, 102.
• Hexham ('Hextildesham'). Bodl. 236.
• Hickling, Norfolk. Tanner, 194, 425.
• Holme Cultram, Cumb. (S. Mar. de Holmo);
• Hatton, 101.
• Jorevall, Yorkshire. Bodl. 514.
• Kenilworth, or Kelyngworth, Warw. Auct. F. III. 13 (bequeathed by John Alward, Rector of Stoke Bruerne).
• Kilmainham, Dublin. Hosp. of St. John Bapt. Rawlinson, B. 501.
• Kingswood, Wilts. E Mus. 62.
• Kirkstall. Laud Lat. 69;
• Laud Misc. 216;
• E Mus. 195.
• Langley, Norfolk. Bodl. 242 (Registrum).
• Leedes, Kent. Bodl. 406.
• Leicester, St. Mary of the Meadows. Laud Misc. 623, 625.
• Lesnes, or Lyesnes, or Westwood, Kent. Bodl. 656;
• Douce, 287.
• Lichfield Cathedral. Ashmole, 1518.
• London, St. Paul's Cathedral. Digby 89 ('Liber Magistri Thomæ Lysiaux, decani Sancti Pauli').
• —— The Carmelites. Laud Lat. 87.
• —— 'Domus Salutationis Matris Dei, ord. Carthus.;' i.e. The Charter-House. Douce, 262.
• [Pg 316]—— Hosp. of St. Mary of Elsyng, now Sion College. E Mus. 113.
• Louth Park, Linc. Fairfax, 17.
• (Ludlow Parish Church. Printed Book, D. 2. 13. Art. Seld.[368])
• Maxstoke, Warwickshire. Bodl. 182.
• Merton, Surrey. Digby, 147;
• Ashmole, 1522.
• —— John Ramsey, Canon of. Seld. supra, 39.
• Missenden, Bucks. Auct. D. I. 10;
• Bodl. 729.
• Mottenden, or Motynden, Kent. Bodl. 643 (bought by Brother Richard de Lansyng in 1467 for 26s. 8d.)
• Muchelney, Somerset. Rich. Coscumbe, Prior. Ashmole, 189. ii.
• New Place, Sherwood. Laud Lat. 34;
• Laud Misc. 428.
• Norwich Cathedral (Holy Trinity). Bodl. 151, 787;
• Fairfax, 20;
• Douce, 366, (see infra, p. 329.)
• Nutley, or Notley Abbey, Bucks. Douce, 383, iii.
• Oseney, Oxford. Bodl. 655;
• Digby, 23 (bequeathed by Henry de Langley);
• Rawlinson, C. 939 (Officia Eccles.).
• Osyth, St., Essex. Laud Misc. 329.
• Oxford, Balliol College. Bodl. 252.
• —— Exeter College. Bodl. 42;
• Digby, 57[369].
• —— (Hertford College. Printed Tracts on the Bangorian Controversies, 8vo. I. 237, BS.)
• —— Lincoln College. Bodl. 198 ('ex dono doctoris Thome Gascoigne').
• —— Merton College. E Mus. 19 (given by William, Bishop of Chichester);
• Bodl. 50 (bequeathed by Thomas English), 689 and 757 (given by Henry Sever, Warden, in 1468), 700 and 751 (given by Richard Fitz-James, Bishop of Chichester);
• Digby, 155 (given by John Burbache), 216;
• Ashm. 835. (Printed Book S. 9. 14. Th[370].).
• —— St. Edmund Hall. Rawlinson, C. 900 (given by Hen. VIII).
• —— St. Mary's College. Bodl. 637.
• —— Staple Hall. Ashmole, 748.
• —— The Minorites. Digby, 90 (given in 1388, by John de Teukesbury, with the assent of Thos. de Kyngusbury, 'Minister Angliæ').
• [Pg 317]—— (name cut off), Bodl. 215.
• Paignton Parish, Devon. Rawlinson, C. 314 (Canons of Bishop Quivil).
• Pershore. Bodl. 209;
• Barlow, 3;
• Rawlinson, C. 81.
• Pesholme (? Will. Marschalle, Chaplain of). Bodl. 857.
• Peterborough Cathedral. Barlow, 22; (see infra, p. 328.)
• Pipewell, Northampt. Rawlinson, A. 388.
• Pleshey, Essex, Trinity College. Bodl. 316.
• Pontefract, Holy Trinity Hospital. Barlow, 49.
• Ramsey. Bodl. 883.
• —— Welles, a monk of. Bodl. 857.
• Reading, St. Mary's Abbey. Auct. Digby, B. N. 11;
• Digby, 148, 200;
• Bodl. 125[371], 197, 200 (given by W. de Box), 241, 257, 550, 570, 713, 730 (?) 772, 781, 848;
• Laud Misc. 79, 91, 725;
• Auct. D. I. 19;
• D. II. 12;
• D. III. 12, 15;
• Auct. F. III. 8;
• infra, I. 2;
• Rawlinson, A. 375.
• Robertsbridge, Yorkshire. Bodl. MS. 132 (written by Will. de Wodecherche, 'laicus quondam conversus Pontis Roberti[372]').
• Roche, or de Rupe, Yorkshire. Rawlinson, C. 329.
• Rochester Cathedral. Laud Misc. 40.
• Rossevalle, Kildare. Rawlinson, C. 32 (Ordo servitii).
• Salisbury Cathedral. Digby, 173 (given by Peter Fadir, Vicar Choral[373]);
• Bodl. 407, 516, 756, 765, 768, 835;
• Rawlinson, C. 400 (Pontificale, given by Bishop Martivall).
• Selby. Fairfax, 12.
• Sempringham. Douce, 136(?)
• Shene, Surrey, Carthusian Priory. Bodl. 797;
• Rawlinson, C. 57 (8vo. H. 36 Th. BS., a book printed in 1608, belonged apparently to some foreign branch of this house: 'Domus Shene Anglorum').
• Sherston, Wilts, The Church (in 1577). Bodl. 733.
• [Pg 318]Shrewsbury, St. Chad. Rawlinson Misc. 1131. (Martyrol. and Obit.)
• Sion, or Syon, Middlesex. Bodl. 630.
• Southwark, St. Mary Overy. Ashmole, 1285.
• —— John de Lecchelade, a Canon. Rawlinson, B. 177.
• Stafford, St. Mary. Auct. F. V. 17;
• Hatton, 74.
• —— The Minorites. Auct. F. V. 18.
• Stafford, St. Thomas, near. Auct. F. III. 10.
• Staindrop, Durham, The College. Rawlinson, A. 363 (given by Thos. Heddon, Vicar of Gainford, in 1515).
• Tattershall, Linc. Bodl. 419.
• Thorney, Cambr. Bodl. 680;
• Laud Misc. 364;
• Tanner, 10.
• Titchfield, Hants. Digby, 154.
• Towcester, Northampt., H. Malyng, Provost. Bodl. 731.
• Trentham, Staff. Laud Misc. 453.
• Tynemouth. Laud Misc. 657.
• Valle Crucis, De, Denbigh. E Mus. 3.
• Waltham. Laud Lat. 109;
• Laud Misc. 515;
• Rawlinson, B. N. Auct. 62 (given by Peter, Archdeacon of London);
• Rawlinson, C. 330.
• Wardon, Bedfordshire. Laud Misc. 447.
• Warter, Yorkshire. Fairfax, 9.
• Waverley, Surrey. Bodl. 527.
• Westminster Abbey. Rawlinson, C. 425 (Pontificale).
• Winchcombe, or Winchelcumbe, Glouc. Douce, 368.
• Winchester Cathedral ('Domus S. Swythini'). Bodl. 767.
• Windsor. Bodl. 208, 822.
• Witham, or Wytham, Somerset. Bodl. 801 ('Ex dono Joh. Blacman').
• Worcester Cathedral. Auct. F. infra, I. 3;
• Digby, 150(?);
• Bodl. 861 (removed in 1590), 868;
• Junius, 121.
• —— 'Fratres Prædicatores.' Rawlinson, C. 780.
• York Minster(?) Rawlinson, C. 775.
• —— Succentor(?) Douce, 225.
• —— St. Mary's Abbey. Rawlinson, B. N. Auct. 11;
• Arch. A. Rot. 21; (see p. 329.)
• —— Hosp. of St. Leonard. Rawlinson, B. 455.

[Many of Laud's MSS. came from a Carthusian Monastery near Mentz, and from the Monastery of Eberbach, in the Duchy of Baden. It is worth mentioning that No. 233 amongst his Miscellaneous MSS. belonged to John Lydgate, and No. 576 to John Foxe. Several others had been previously in the possession of Archbp. Usher, and of Lindsell, Bishop of Peterborough.

No. 76 of Digby's MSS. was bought by Dr. John Dee, at London, May 18, 1556, 'ex bibliotheca Joh. Lelandi.']

[Pg 319]

APPENDIX D.

List of MSS. and Miscellaneous Objects of interest exhibited in the Library.

GLASS CASE NEAR THE ENTRANCE OF THE LIBRARY.

1. A Telugu MS. on palm-leaves, brought from India by Sir Thos. Strange, formerly Chief Justice of Madras, together with a style employed for writings of this kind, and a pocket-knife. Given by Sir T. Strange's daughter, Mrs. Edmund Foulkes, in 1864.

2. Drawings and engravings of Buddhist idols; brought from a Joss-house in a Llama monastery in Pekin, in 1862, and given to the Library by Lieut.-Col. Gibbes Rigaud, of the 60th Rifles.

3. Autograph book of distinguished visitors.

• Her Majesty the Queen, Nov. 8, 1832, with the Duchess of Kent; Dec. 12,
• 1860.
• The Prince Consort, June 15, 1841; June 4, 1856; Jan. 9, 1857 (in company
• with his three eldest children); Dec. 12, 1860.
• Prince of Wales, Jan. 9, 1857; March 27, 1860; June 18, 1863.
• Princess of Wales, June 18, 1863.
• Duke of Wellington, Oct. 20, 1835 (in company with Q. Adelaide); Sept. 14,
• 1839; June 15, 1841; Aug. 20, 1844.
• Gul. Gesenius, Aug. 5, 1820.
• Sir John Franklin, 1829.
• Sir D. Wilkie, June 14, 1834.
• Bishop Selwyn, June 30, 1837.
• Chevalier Bunsen, Jan. 24, 1839; Aug. 20, 1844.
• Princes of Ashantee, June 10, 1840.
• Henry Hallam, Oct. 16, 1840.
• Bishop of Malabar, Mar Athanasius Abdelmesih, June 12, 1841.
• M. Berryer, Nov. 23, 1843.
• W. H. Prescott, June 24, 1850.
• Alfred Tennyson, June 21, 1855.
• A Siamese Prince, June 29, 1858.
• Lord Brougham, June 20, 1860.
• [Pg 320]Lord Palmerston, July 2, 1862.
• Queen Emma of Honolulu, Aug. 14, 1865.
• Chinese Ambassadors, June 7, 1866.

4. New Testament, said to be bound in a piece of a waistcoat of King Charles I. See p. 53.

5. Another, bound by the Sisters of Little Gidding. See p. 53.

6. Xiphilini Epitome Dionis Nicæi; Gr. 4to. Par. printed by Rob. Stephens, 1551. Bound in a handsomely tooled and gilt calf binding, in the Grolier style, with the badge of Dudley, Earl of Leicester, viz. the Bear and Ragged Staff, in the centre. Bequeathed by Selden.

[Pg 321]

7. Bacon's Essays; in a worked binding. See p. 51.

8. Specimen of the early Block-books, or books printed from engraved blocks before the invention of moveable types; being the Apocalypse, represented in a series of rudely-engraved scenes, with short explanatory descriptions.

9. The first book printed from moveable types; being a very fine copy, of the grand Latin Bible, printed by Gutenberg at Mentz about 1455. See p. 202.

10. A copy of the first book printed in the English language, being The Recuyell of the Histories of Troy, printed by Caxton, most probably at Bruges, about 1472.

11. The English Bible, translated by Myles Coverdale from the Vulgate, and printed abroad in 1535.

12. Hieronymus (rectius, Rufinus) de Symbolo Apostolorum; printed at Oxford in 1468. See p. 111.

13. Latin verses in the autograph of Milton. See p. 45.

14. The original MS. of Addison's Letter (in verse) from Italy to Lord Halifax.

15. Letter from Alex. Pope to H. Cromwell, Esq.; dated July 15, 1711.

16. Letter from Archbp. Laud to Sir W. Boswell, the English Resident at the Hague; dated from Lambeth, Nov. 26, 1638.

17. Archbp. Laud's formal Letter of resignation of his office as Chancellor of the University, signed by himself, and dated from the Tower, June 22, 1641. In Latin; on parchment.

[Pg 323]

18. Lord Clarendon's Letter, resigning the same office upon his going into exile; written in a secretary's hand, but signed by himself. Very touching and beautiful. It runs as follows:—

'For Mr. Vicechancellor of Oxford.

'Good Mr. Vicechancellor,

'Good Mr. Vicechancellor,
'Your affectionate servant,
'CLARENDON.

'Calice, this 7/17 Dec. 1667.'

19. A volume of the Papers of W. Bridgeman, Under-secretary of State to James II (bequeathed to the Library by Dr. R. Rawlinson; see p. 173), open at a leaf containing the original declaration written and signed by the Duke of Monmouth, on the day of his execution, of the nullity of his claim to the Crown.

The following is a copy:—

20. A Sanscrit roll, written at the end of the last century, containing[Pg 324] extracts from the Bhagavadgita; with paintings representing the incarnations of Vishnu, &c.

21. A magnificent folio volume, containing a series of illustrations of Scripture History from Genesis to Job; written about the beginning of the fourteenth century.

22. A small oaken platter, bearing the following inscription: 'This Salver is part of that Oak in which his Majesty K. Charles the 2d, Concealed himself from the Rebells, and was given to this University by Mrs. Lætitia Lane.'

23. Specimen of Javanese writing, being a letter from a Javanese Chief to the Resident of Soorabaya. The seal bears the date of 1780.

24. Small specimen of an Arabic MS.

25. A fragment in large Persian characters.

26. A specimen of Malabaric writing, upon a palm-leaf, three feet in length. 'Aug. 9, 1630. Ex dono Jo. Trefusis, generosi Cornubiensis, e Coll. Exon.'

27. A Russian painting upon a shell, representing a female saint called S. Parasceve, ἡ ἁγια Παρασκευη, who is found in the Greek Menology, but whose history is believed by the Bollandists to be a pious fiction.

28. A Hebrew Bible, beautifully written in the fourteenth century; in triple columns, with the Masoretic commentary written in very minute characters, and frequently in fantastic figures, round each page.

29. Horæ. An illuminated MS. of the middle of the fifteenth century, in 4to., probably by a French scribe and artist.

30. Another MS. of the Hours, in folio, of the fifteenth century, beautifully illuminated, with many miniatures varying in the treatment of some of the scenes which they represent from the common type.

[Pg 325]

31. A third fifteenth-century MS. of the Hours, in 8vo.

32. A fourth MS. of the Hours, very early in the fifteenth century, or about the close of the fourteenth.

33. A pair of long white leather gloves, worked with gold thread, which were worn by Queen Elizabeth when she visited the University in 1566[378].

34. A Latin exercise book, in 4to., which appears to have been filled up by Edward VI and his sister Elizabeth, jointly.

35. Mexican Hieroglyphics; painted on a long skin of leather.

36. The Book of Proverbs, written by Mrs. Esther Inglis. See p. 48.

37. Two Runic Primstaves, or wooden Clog-Almanacks: one in the form of a walking stick; the other, an oblong block, with a handle. See pp. 105, 161.

38. Eight small wooden tablets, apparently a pocket-edition of a Clog-Almanack, with very quaint figures.

39. The Book of Enoch, in Æthiopic. See p. 267.

40. A Persian poem, by Jami, on the history of Joseph and Potiphar's wife. Written A.D. 1569, and decorated with some very good paintings and arabesque borders[380].

[Pg 326]

41. A specimen of Telugu writing on palm-leaves; being an almanack for the year 1630.

42. A French panegyrical poem, presented to Queen Elizabeth, in 1586, by Georges de la Motthe, a French refugee; with a prefatory address in prose.

43. The Koran, on a long and narrow roll, very elegantly written in minute characters.

44. A Syriac fragment, on three leaves of paper.

45. A specimen of Chinese printing, on rice-paper.

46. A specimen of the Papyrus-plant, in its natural state.

47. A fine MS. of the Koran, from the library of Tippoo Sahib at Seringapatam.

48. A small Egyptian mummy-figure, of baked clay.

49. A Burmese MS., written in large black characters on thirty-nine gilded palm-leaves.

IN THE OPPOSITE, OR NORTH, WING.

A large glass case containing a series of MSS. executed by English scribes, arranged chronologically, so as to exhibit the progress and development of the arts of caligraphy and illuminating in England.[Pg 327] This case was added by the present Librarian three or four years ago. The following are its contents:—

1. King Alfred's Anglo-Saxon version of the treatise De cura pastorali of Pope Gregory the Great, being the copy sent by the King to Werfrith, Bishop of Worcester.

2. A beautiful Latin Psalter of the tenth century, written in Anglo-Saxon characters, with an interlinear translation, and decorated with grotesque initial letters.

3. The Four Gospels, in Latin, written in Anglo-Saxon characters, about the beginning of the eleventh century.

4. The famous Anglo-Saxon metrical paraphrase of parts of Genesis, Exodus, Daniel, &c. by Cædmon[382]; illustrated, as far as Abraham's journey into Egypt, with a very curious series of drawings.

5. The Psalter, Canticles, &c., in Latin, with a Calendar; written in the first half of the eleventh century.

6. A twelfth-century volume containing, besides various historical works, a Bestiary, or Natural History of Beasts, illustrated with very curious drawings.

[Pg 328]

7. A Bestiary of the beginning of the thirteenth century, enriched with many very curious paintings upon a ground of brilliant gold.

8. Another Bestiary, of slightly later date, illuminated in the same manner.

9. The Apocalypse, illustrated in a series of very curious drawings, lightly coloured. Executed about 1250.

10. A Primer, written about the middle of the fourteenth century.

11. A beautiful Psalter, which belonged to Peterborough Cathedral.

12. A Psalter, with Canticles, Hymns, &c., written in the latter half of the fourteenth century.

13. 'Ye Dreme of Pilgrimage of ye Soule, translated out of French [of G. Guilevile] into Inglissh, with somwhat of addicions of ye translatour, ye zeere of our Lord, 1400.' Illustrated with curious coloured drawings.

14. Commentary on the Passion of our B. Lord ('Scripta super totam[Pg 329] Passionem Christi a quatuor Evangelistis formatam'), by Michael de Massa, of the order of Augustinian Hermits.

15. 'The Mirroure of the Worlde, that some calleth Vice and Vertu;' translated from the Latin of Laurence the Frenchman (Laur. Gallus), and illustrated with some drawings of remarkable grace and spirit, supposed to be by some Flemish artist.

16. Horæ, formerly in the possession of Queen Mary I. See p. 42.

17. Treatise of Roger Bacon, 'de retardacione accidentium senectutis;' with two drawings. Middle of the fifteenth century. Bodl. MS. 211.

18. An English astrological Calendar, in six divisions, folded for the pocket; written in the latter half of the fourteenth century.

19. An Historical Roll, upwards of thirteen feet long, showing the descent of the English Kings, from the expedition of Jason in search of the Golden Fleece to the accession of Edward I (1272). Formerly belonging to the Abbey of St. Mary at York.

20. Map of the Holy Land, on a paper roll, nearly seven feet long; written, apparently, in the first half of the fifteenth century.

21. A Psalter, with the usual Canticles, Litany, &c.; written about the middle of the fourteenth century.

In a separate glass case adjoining the preceding (in which was formerly exhibited a fine specimen of the typography of the Royal Press at Berlin, in a German Bible given by the King of Prussia) is now displayed a fine Bible printed at Glasgow in 1862, in two folio volumes, and illustrated with very beautiful photographs by Frith, which was called the Queen's Bible from its being dedicated by permission to Her Majesty.

In a glass case in the adjoining window is a German Bible, printed in 1541, with texts on the fly-leaves in the handwriting of Luther and Melanchthon, whose signatures, although much defaced by some possessor, are still very legible. See p. 245.

IN A GLASS CASE, WEST END OF THE LIBRARY.

1. Plinii Historia Naturalis; in folio. Printed 1476.

2. Breviary and Psalter according to the use of the Carthusian Order; written about 1480.

3. Horæ B. M. Virg. 12mo. An exquisite MS., of the school of Albert Durer, executed for Bona Sforza. See p. 249.

4. Psalter, on purple vellum, written about the close of the ninth century. From the old library of the kings of France. See p. 249.

5. Boccaccio's Il Filocalo; in folio, of the fifteenth century.

6. Horæ, quarto; fourteenth century. A beautiful book.

7. Horæ, small quarto; end of the fifteenth century. The illuminations possess exquisite softness and delicacy.

8. The Miracles of the B. Virgin, in French. A Douce MS., in folio,[Pg 331] executed about 1460, for Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, and enriched with most beautiful paintings of the tint called 'Camaieu gris'.

9. Horæ, in quarto. A beautiful Douce book, the work of a French scribe in and about the year 1407.

10. Horæ, in duodecimo. Another gem from the Douce collection, executed about the year 1500, for the Emperor Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy his wife.

11. Horæ, in quarto, of the commencement of the sixteenth century; from the Douce collection. An exquisite specimen of Flemish art. It belonged to Mary de Medici.

12. Horæ, in small folio. A most sumptuous volume, executed about 1410. The illuminations are of the school of Van Eyck.

13. Quatuor Evangelia; commencement of the seventh century. See p. 24.

14. Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria to Charles I before their marriage; in French.

15. Latin Translation by Queen Elizabeth, while Princess, of an Italian sermon by Bern. Ochini, De Christo; written entirely by herself, and sent as a New-year's gift to her brother Edward VI[383].

16. A Persian treatise, in prose and verse, on ethics and education, entitled, Beharistan, or, The Season of Spring; by Nurruddin Abdurrahman, surnamed Djami.

17. Evangeliarium, MS. in folio; of the tenth century.

18. Ivory triptych eleven inches high; North Italian work, of the fifteenth century.

19. Evangelia, secundum Matt. et Marc. A fine Douce MS. of the eleventh century, bound in thick boards, overlaid on one side with a brass plate, whereon are engraved the four Evangelists, with angels; in the centre, an ivory carving of our Lord, with the Evangelistic symbols.

20. Metal-Work.

'Aske me not, for ye Gett me not.—'R. P.'

21. Psalterium; close of thirteenth century.

The following objects of interest are dispersed in various parts of the Library:—

AT THE EAST END.

1. A drawing by Holbein, framed and glazed, being a design for a cup.

2. The original drawing, as is supposed, by Raffaele, for his picture of Attila stopped on his approach to Rome by the apparition of SS. Peter and Paul. Framed and glazed.

3. Bust of Sir T. Bodley. See p. 26.

4. Bust of Charles I. See p. 61.

5. Small marble bust of Napoleon.

6. Engraved facsimile of the Rosetta Stone, published by the Antiquarian Society in 1803.

7. Egyptian scroll.

8. Map of England and Scotland, on parchment. Written in the fourteenth century. See p. 212, note.

9. An armillary sphere, in bronze, supported by three lions.

10. Two small bronzes; one representing Narcissus contemplating his face in the stream; the other, Cupids disporting themselves on the backs of Tritons.

11. A plaster cast of young Bacchanals leading the goat.

12. A wood carving, coarsely executed, representing Hercules spinning, and exposed by Omphale to the ridicule of two female visitors.

13. Bronze, in fine alto-relievo, of Curtius leaping into the gulf in the Forum at Rome.

14. Carving, in soap-stone, of the Judgment of Solomon.

15. A geometrical, eleven-sided figure, inclosing an open and hollow iron ball with sixty sides, and surmounting a small pillar representing the five orders of architecture. Around the base of the column are eight other geometrical figures, with vacant spaces for two which have been lost.

16. Model, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem.

[Pg 335]

17. Four specimens of papyrus-rolls from Herculaneum, burnt to a crust.

18. Piece of wood from the south side of the curious timber Church at Greensted in Essex, built A.D. 1013.

19. Specimen of ornamental writing by Mr. Hormuzd Rassam, whose name is so well known in England, first, from his having accompanied Mr. Layard during his Assyrian researches, and next from his, now happily ended, captivity in Abyssinia; consisting of various chapters from the Old and New Testaments, in Chaldee, Arabic, and Turkish, beautifully written in the form of two angels supporting a cross, within a border.

AT THE WEST END.

20. Sir Thomas Bodley's bell. See p. 33.

21. Maps of Oxford and Cambridge, by Ralph Aggas; the former dated 1578, the latter 1592; about three feet by four in size.

22. Four drawings of heads by Raffaele, or Giulio Romano. See p. 251.

IN THE LIBRARIAN'S STUDY.

23. A Roman inscription on a brazen plate:—

FLORAE
TI. PLAVTIVS DROSVS
MAG. II.
V. S. L. M.

[Pg 336]

24. A small plaster cast of the head of Torquato Tasso, from a wax model made by Mr. N. Marchant from a cast taken after Tasso's death, and preserved in the Convent of St. Onofrio at Rome, where his death occurred.

IN THE OPPOSITE SUB-LIBRARIAN'S STUDY.

25. A warrior on horseback, enamelled on copper, and marked 'Ezechias.'

26. A Greek painting on wood of St. George and the Dragon.

27. Another Greek painting on wood, on a gold ground, apparently representing two angels bowing before the Blessed Virgin, &c.

28. Heads of our Blessed Lord, and of King Charles I, painted on copper. See p. 148.

29. A Phœnician inscription, on stone. See p. 162.

The following Portraits hang in the Library:—

1. Sir T. Bodley. By Corn. Jansen.

2. All the Librarians from James to Bowles; with a small engraved sketch of Price, and a photograph of Dr. Bandinel, taken in the year of his resignation of office.

3. Archbishops Usher and Laud; Bishops Crewe and Atterbury; Deans Nowell, Aldrich, and Hickes; Erasmus, Wanley, Lye, Gassendi, Sir Thos. Wyat, two of Chaucer, Gower, Junius (sketch by Vandyke), two of Selden (with his arms painted on panel), Sir K. Digby, Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia; Frederick, Elector Palatine; Mr. Sutherland.

4. Drawing of Thos. Alcock. By Cooper.

'THOMAS ALCOCK, Preceptor.'

5. Pen-and-ink sketch of Ant. à Wood, dated 1677.

6. Pencil drawing of Pope.

7. Drawing of F. Douce.

8. Engraved portrait of Camden.

Eighteen Oxford Almanacs, between the years 1812 and 1833, decorate the middle of the room.[Pg 337]

PICTURE GALLERY.

A Catalogue of the Pictures (which are now exclusively Portraits) was printed some years ago by the Janitor. Since then, the following additions have been made[388]:—

Froben, the printer. By Holbein.

Oliver Plunket, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh; executed in 1681. On panel.

James Edward, the 'old Chevalier,' and his wife Clementina Sobieski. See p. 169.

Sir R. Chambers, Chief Justice of Bengal.

Sir R. H. Inglis, Bart. By Richmond.

Dr. Routh, President of Magdalen College. By Thomson.

Dr. Daniel Wilson, Bishop of Calcutta.

The Earl of Derby. By Grant. See p. 281.

The Prince of Wales. By Gordon. See p. 304.

The following Curiosities and Models are exhibited in the Gallery:—

1. Chair made from the wood of Sir F. Drake's ship. See p. 94.

2. Chair of Henry VIII. See ib.

3. Guy Fawkes' Lantern. See p. 97.

4. A series of casts of various ancient Temples and other buildings. See p. 236.

5. Model, in teak wood, of a subterranean palace and reservoir, in Guzerat; beautifully carved, and exhibiting the whole of the interior construction and arrangement.

6. Cases of Italian medals, medals by Dassier of English sovereigns, &c. See p. 182.

7. Two plaster casts of monuments from Nineveh, now in the British Museum, with cuneiform inscriptions.

8. Model, in papier-maché, of the Martyrs' Memorial, beautifully executed.

9. Plaster model of the Waltham Cross.

10. Casts of the Elgin marbles.[Pg 338]

11. Alabaster model of the Cathedral at Calcutta.

12. A large and fine model in cork, of the Amphitheatre at Verona; by Dubourg.

13. Model of the Royal Yacht in 1697.

14. Glass case, containing:—

15. Portrait, on a large roll, of the late Emperor of China, seated, with a bow and arrow in his hands.

16. Another glass case, containing:—

[Pg 339]

17. Model, in wood, of the Temple at Pæstum.

APPENDIX E.

Numismatic Collection.

The collection of Coins and Medals was commenced by the gift from Archbishop Laud of five cabinets of coins, in 1636[390], to which he subsequently made some additions. These were accompanied by a very full MS. catalogue, which is now preserved among Laud's MSS., No. 554. In 1657 a large addition was made by Mr. Ralph Freke (see p. 88), and numerous small gifts came from many donors in[Pg 340] following years. A catalogue, upon which Francis Wise had been engaged for a long period, was published by him in a folio volume, in 1750, entitled, Nummorum antiquorum scriniis Bodleianis reconditorum catalogus, cum commentario, tabulis æneis et appendice. Wise remarks in his Preface, that no donation, however trifling, was rejected, and that, consequently, there was (as there is still) a very large quantity of Middle and Third brass coins of little or no value. From Rawlinson there came, in 1755, besides coins, a collection of Italian medals (Popes, Medici family, &c.), and numerous matrices of seals, chiefly foreign. Browne Willis contributed the most valuable portion of the whole collection, in his series of gold and silver English coins[391].

Subsequent benefactors have been C. Godwyn, in 1770; Douce, whose collection included those of Calder, Moore, and Keate, and from whom came a series of Tradesmen's Tokens; Dr. Ingram, in 1850, whose bequest included some British specimens; the Queen, who gave, in 1841, a portion of the treasure found at Cuerdale (see p. 264); Mackie, Roberts, Elliott, whose valuable series of Indo-Bactrian coins was presented in 1860 (see p. 291), and Dr. Caulfield of Cork, who presented in 1866 a large collection of the Gun-money struck by James II in Ireland. The Ashmole coins were transferred from the Museum, together with Ashmole's library, in 1861. There is also a cabinet of Napoleon medals.

No catalogue of any portion of the contents of this room (excepting a brief description of the Cuerdale coins) has been issued since the publication of Wise's volume. For some short time past, however, W. S. Vaux, Esq., of the British Museum, has occasionally afforded his valuable services in arrangement and description; and it is hoped that before long the whole of the collection may be reduced to order and properly indexed.

By the statutes of the Library, the Librarian, or one of the Sub-librarians, must always be present when any coins are exhibited; nor may they be shown to more than two persons at a time, unless two officers of the Library, or a Curator, are present. No examination of coins for the purpose of comparison with other specimens is permitted.

[Pg 341]

APPENDIX F.

Past Librarians.

Past Sub-librarians.