ANNALS OF THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY. (continued 4)

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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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:—

'1, 2, 3 and 4 contain collections relating to the history and antiquities of the city, church and county of Gloucester. 5, 6, a fair copy, seemingly prepared for the press, of the history and antiquities of the said city, church and county, by the Arch-deacon himself, or some friend of his from whom these papers came into his hands.'

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 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 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 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., 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, 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 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 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 Astronomer 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 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 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 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 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 appointment 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:—

'Varias errorum formas deprehendi, titulis nunc charta coopertis, nunc atramento oblitis, nunc cultro pæne abrasis; auctorum porro nominibus paullulum immutatis quo notiora quædam referrent; numeris etiam, quibus singula volumina signata sunt, permutatis, quo quis opus imperfectum pro integro habeat, paginis denique pauculis operi alieno a fronte assutis.'

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:—

'Our Bodleian Library is putting into good order. It has been already one year in hand. Some one, two or three of the Curators work at it daily, and several assistants. The revenue from the tax on the Members of the University is about £460 per annum, which has existed 12 years. This has increased the Library so much that it must be attended to, and a new Catalogue put in hand. They have lately bought all the expensive foreign publications. A young man of this place is about making a Catalogue of all the singular books in this place, in the College libraries as well as the Bodleian.... We have a young man in this place, his name is Curtis, who was an apprentice to me, who has hitherto only dealt in books of curiosities, in which he is greatly skilled, superior in many respects to De Bure, Ames, or his continuator. He has been employed five or six years in the Bodleian Library, and since at Wadham, Queen's and Balliol. He purposes to publish a Catalogue of little or not known books in Oxford, particularly in Merton, Balliol and Oriel[268].'

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, 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 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, 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 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.

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, '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:—

'The preservation of it is perfect, and the beauty of the binding, especially of the interior ornaments, is quite surprising. The first few leaves of the text are highly ornamented, without figures, chiefly in red and blue. The latter leaves are more ornamental; they are even gorgeous, curious and minute. The generality of the leaves have two star-like ornaments in the margin, out of the border. Upon the whole this is an exquisite treasure, in its way[272].'

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:—

'Oxford, Aug. 29, 1806. Borrowed this day, of the Rev. the Bodleian Librarian, the picture given to the Library by Mr. Peters, which I promise to return upon demand.

'JOSEPH WHITE. 'Mem. Not returned, June 24, 1807. 'Nor as yet, Oct., 1808. J. P. (i.e. J. Price). 'And never to be ret^d.' (added at some later period.)

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 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.

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 elephant-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 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.

Missals,Salisbury use,30

Missals,York use,4

Missals,Rouen use,1

Missals,Roman use,3

Missals,'pro sacerdotibus in Anglia, &c. itinerantibus.'1

Breviaries and Portiforia,Salisbury use,18

Breviaries and Portiforia,York use,2

Breviaries and Portiforia,Hereford use,1[280]

Manuals,Salisbury use,10

Manuals,York (MS.) use,1

Processionals,Salisbury use,10

Processionals,York use,1

Hours,Salisbury use,24

Hours,Roman use, (besides several MSS.)1

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 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.

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).

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 commencement 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 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, 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).

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, 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 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 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 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]:—

'They have recently acquired a very curious and valuable collection of MSS., which formerly belonged to an ex-Jesuit Abbé, who intended (had he lived to have seen the restoration of the order of the Jesuits) to have presented them to the Jesuits' College at Venice. Neither pains nor expense were spared among his brethren, in all parts of the world, to make the collection, on that account, as perfect as possible.'

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 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.

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 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 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, 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 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.

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; 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 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.

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].