Note 114 — ANNALS OF THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY. (continued 2)

A copy also exists of this paper made by Hearne with a view to publication, and, as appears from a short preface by him, from a double motive; firstly, to prevent persons taking offence in his own day at refusals; secondly, to afford warning to persons with 'fanatical consciences,' who seem to have thought there was no harm done in carrying books away secretly, provided they returned them again. Unfortunately 'consciences' such as these still exist, and there is reason for quoting, with a present application, the words with which the warm-hearted Hearne concludes: 'Let these men consider seriously how they will answer this before God, and withall assure themselves that if they be found out, they will, besides the punishment like to come upon them hereafter (without an earnest, hearty repentance) be expos'd to all that infamy and disgrace which the Statute enjoyns to be inflicted upon such notorious offenders.' (Misc. MSS. papers relating to the Library.)

The first actual theft of a book occurred in 1624. At the Visitation on Nov. 9, the Curators drew up a formal document, publishing and denouncing the deed, and exhorting the unknown doer to a timely repentance. A copy of it is preserved in volume 23 of Bryan Twyne's Collections, in the University Archives (p. 683), and runs as follows:—

'Cum in hac visitatione nostra anniversaria Bibliothecæ Bodleianæ, post diligentem et religiosam status ejus pro officii nostri ratione examinationem factam, compertum sit volumen unum (Jod. Nahumus. Conc. in Evangelia Dominicalia. Han. 1604. N. 1. 3[121]) in classe Theologica, catenâ abscissum et sacrilegâ nebulonis alicujus manu surreptum esse; Cumque ex fideli Bibliothecarii relatione (pensatis loci atque temporis circumstantis) constet, non nisi a jurato aliquo facinus hoc detestabile perpetratum esse;—

'Nos Curatores, quorum fidei et inspectioni Bibliothecæ cura speciali nomine a Nobilissimo Fundatore concredita est, insolentis facti indignitate moti et perculsi, quamvis liber parabilis, exigui et pretii et usus sit, ne tamen lenti plus quam par est, et frigidi in causa tanti momenti videamur, post maturam deliberationem, programmate affixo, facinus publicandum duximus;—

'Impense rogantes omnes et singulos cujuscunque ordinis et loci genuinos Academia alumnos, ut sicubi librum offendant, sive in privatis musæis, sive in bibliopolarum officinis, restituendum curent, unaque operam nobiscum conferant, ut, si fieri possit, hoc propudium hominis, Bibliothecarum pestis et tenebrio sacrilegus, e latibulis suis in lucem extrahatur; denique, odium et indignationem suam contribuant, saltem ut publicæ infamiæ tuba miser experrectus, misericordiam divinam tempestive imploret, conspecta vel Bibliothecæ porta posthæc attonitus resiliat, nec tanti putet libri contemptibilis acquisitionem ut animam pro qua mortuus est Christus ineptissime periclitari sinat.

JO. PRIDEAUX, Vice-Canc. et S. Theol. Professor Regius.

THO. CLAYTON, Medic. Professor Regius.

DANIEL EASTCOT, Procurator Sen.

RICARDUS HILL, Procurator Jun.

EDOARDUS MEETKERKIUS, Ling. Hebr. Professor Regius.

JOHANNES SOUTH, Græcæ Linguæ Prælector Regius.'

More serious abstractions, however, than such as these, have lately (i.e. within the last twenty or thirty years) been practised. It has recently been discovered that two extremely rare tracts by Thomas Churchyard, his Epitaph of Sir P. Sidney, and Feast full of sad Cheere, have been cut out of the volume of tracts in which they were bound up. May it be hoped that Book-lovers, as well as lovers of honesty, will remember this, should unknown copies suddenly come to light? Another book, mentioned by Warton as being in Tanner's collection, The Children of the Chapel Stript and Whipt, is also not forthcoming; but no trace of its actual existence at any time within the walls of the Library has, as yet, been found. As in the course of making a new General Catalogue of the whole library, every separate volume and tract is now conspicuously stamped with the name of its locale, it is hoped that depredations of this character will be entirely checked.

Two instances, however, in which 'consciences' have been sufficiently awakened to make restitution of stolen goods, have occurred within the last twenty years. In 185- (exact year forgotten), on a day on which a Convocation had been held on some exciting subject, which had consequently brought up country voters from all parts, the present writer happened to notice that a small book had been laid in a shelf of folios near the Library door. Taking it up, he found it to be a rare volume of tracts by J. Preston and T. Goodwin, printed at Amsterdam, and bearing a Library reference. On proceeding to restore it to its place, that place was found to be occupied by another book; this, of course, led to further examination, and it was then discovered that the former volume had been missing for so many years, that at last, all hope of its recovery being abandoned, its place had been filled up. The old register-books of readers were then ransacked, and at length an entry was found of the delivery of this book to a reader, who was still living at the time of this Convocation, on Feb. 14, 1807. A quarto volume was also found about the same time thrust in amongst other quartos in a shelf near the door, but the particulars of this case have been forgotten.

A third case of recovery, but of a different kind, occurred in 1851. In the year 1789 the Library was visited by Hen. E. G. Paulus, of Jena, afterwards the too-well-known author of the Leben Jesu, who copied from Pococke MS. 32 (a small octavo volume) an Arabic translation of Isaiah made, in Hebrew characters, by R. Saadiah, which he published in the following year, transposed into Arabic characters. Thenceforward the MS. was lost from the Library, although no direct evidence of the manner of its disappearance appears to have been obtained. But after the death of Paulus in the year 1850, a bookseller at Breslau, to whom the volume had in some way been offered, entered into communication with the Librarian, Dr. Bandinel, and the result was that the missing MS. was at length restored, clothed in an entirely different German binding, and with all trace of its original ownership removed, to its right place. The abstraction of this MS. 'by an Oriental professor,' and its recovery, are mentioned, without further particulars, by Dr. Pusey, in his Evidence printed in the University Report upon the Recommendations of the University Commissioners, 1853. p. 171.