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Title: Annals of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, A.D. 1598-A.D. 1867

Author: William Dunn Macray

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANNALS OF
THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY, OXFORD, A.D. 1598-A.D. 1867 ***

Transcriber's Notes

Variant spellings (and some apparent
typographical errors) have generally been
retained, especially in quoted documents.
Where changes to the text have been made
these are listed at the end of the book. See also
the Addenda et Corrigenda. Minor punctuation
and format changes have been made without
special comment.
Uncommon characters are listed below. If these
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English text:

Ā, ē, m̄ , r̅ s, ū (macron over A, e, m, rs and
u)
ƀ, b̶b, þ̵ (bar through the upright of b, bb
and "thorn")
Tironian ampersand is represented with "
[&]"
Old English r symbol is represented with
{r}

Additional symbols and diacritics in the text are
rendered as follows:

ā, c̄ , ē, m̄ , ō (macron over a, c, e, m and o)
Ɔ (used for apostrophic C used in in
Roman dates)
ḿ (acute accent over m)
ũ (tilde over u)
ŭ (breve over u)

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ANNALS
OF THE

BODLEIAN LIBRARY,
OXFORD,
A.D. 1598-A.D. 1867;
With a Preliminary Notice of the earlier Library founded
in the Fourteenth Century.

BY THE REV. WILLIAM DUNN MACRAY,
M.A.
CHAPLAIN OF ST. MARY MAGDALENE AND ST. MARY WINTON COLLEGES;

EDITOR OF "CHRONICON ABBATIÆ EVESHAMENSIS," &c.

RIVINGTONS
London, Oxford, and Cambridge
1868

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

'Bowers of Paradise!' Thus it was that an enthusiastic Hebrew student,
writing of the Bodleian but a few years ago, apostrophized the little cells
and curtained cages wherein readers sit, while hedged in and canopied with
all the wisdom and learning of bygone generations, which here bloom their
blossoms and yield up their fruits. And, as if answering in actual living type
to the parable which the Eastern metaphor suggests, these cells from year to
year have been and (though of late more infrequently) still are, the resort of
grand and grave old bees, majestic in size and deportment, of sonorous
sound, and covered with the dust, as it were, of ages. Just as a solemn
rookery befits an ancestral mansion, so these Bees of the Bodleian form a
fitting accompaniment to the place of their choice. And while the Metaphor
well describes the character of that place whither men resort for refreshment
amidst the work of the world and for the recruiting of mental strength for
the doing of such work, so the Type well describes those who from the
bowers gather sweetness and wealth, first for their own enriching and next
for the enriching of others. Long then in these bowers may there be found
busy hives of men; above all, those that gather thence, abundantly, such
Wisdom as is præ melle ori.
Bodleian Library,
May 30, 1868.

CONTENTS.
PAGE.
Annals 1
Appendix A. Account of a 'Tartar Lambskin' Cloak 307
" B. Vellum-printed Books, added since 1830 310
" C. List of MSS. from Monastic and other Libraries 313
MSS. and Miscellaneous Curiosities exhibited in the
" D. 319
Library and Picture Gallery
" E. Numismatic Collection 339
" F. Past and Present Officers of the Library 341
" G. Rules of the Library 344

Lithograph of Shakespeare-autograph, to face page 301

ANNALS
OF THE
BODLEIAN LIBRARY.
In the north-east corner of St. Mary's Church, a church full of nooks little
known to ordinary visitors, is a dark vaulted chamber (dark, because its
windows have been built up), whose doors, when opened, only now reveal
the abiding-place of the University fire-engines. Here of old sat the
Chancellor of the University, surrounded by the Doctors and Masters of the
Great Congregation, in a fashion which was formerly depicted in the great
west window of St. Mary's Church, and is still represented on the
University seal, and which, in the early part of the last century, was adopted
by Dr. Richard Rawlinson as his book-plate, being engraved from the
impression attached to his own diploma in Civil Law. Above this chamber
there is another, lighted by four windows, containing forty-five feet in
length and twenty in breadth, and now assigned as the lecture-room of the
Professor of Law. Here was begun about 1367, and finally established and
furnished in 1409, the first actual University Library, called after Bishop
Thomas Cobham, of Worcester, who about 1320 (seven years before his
death) had commenced preparations for the building of the room and the
making provision for its contents[1]. Wood tells us that before this time there
were indeed some books kept in chests in St. Mary's Church, which were to
be lent out under pledges, as well as some chained to desks, which were
only to be read in situ; but this University chest soon gave way to the
formal Library, as, at a later period, another University chest was lost in
funded investments and a banker's balance[2]. Another precursor of the
general Library was found in the collection bequeathed to Durham College
(on the site of which now stands Trinity College) in 1345 by one of its
founders, the earnest lover and preserver of books, Philip of Bury; he of that
charming book, that 'tractatus vere pulcherrimus,' the Philobiblion. He,—
who apostrophizes books as the masters who teach without flogging or
fleecing, without punishment or payment; as ears of corn, full of grain, to
be rubbed only by apostolic hands; as golden pots of manna; as Noah's ark

and Jacob's ladder, and Joshua's stones of testimony and Gideon's lamps
and David's scrip, and who says that in the noblest monasteries of England
he found precious volumes defiled and injured by mice and worms, and
abandoned to moths,—gave strict injunctions for the care of the large
collection, gathered from all quarters, with which he enriched his
College[3]. It was to be free for purposes of study to all scholars, who might
have the loan of any work of which there was a duplicate, provided they left
a pledge exceeding it in value, but for purposes of transcription no volume
was to go beyond the walls of the house. A register was to be kept, and a
yearly visitation was to be held[4]. Some of these books, on the dissolution
of the College by Henry VIII, are said to have been transferred to Duke
Humphrey's Library, and some to Balliol College.
The Librarian of Cobham's Library was also entitled Chaplain to the
University, and as such was ordered, in 1412, to offer masses yearly for
those who were benefactors of the University and Library, and was
endowed with half a mark yearly, as well as with £5 issuing from the assize
of bread and ale, which had been granted to the University by King Henry
IV, who was also a principal contributor to the completion of the Library,
and is therefore to this day duly remembered in the Bidding-Prayer at all the
academic 'Commemorationes Solenniores.' But no trace remains of the
devotional and sacred duties once attaching to the office, and laymen have
been eligible to it from the time of Bodley's re-foundation. The old regal
stipend, however, amounting at last to £6 13s. 4d., continued to be paid to
the Librarian, until in 1856, by the revised code of statutes, various small
payments were consolidated; it is found entered in the annual printed
accounts up to that year.
But not a score of years had passed after Cobham's Library had been
actually completed and opened before the building of a room more worthy
of the University was commenced. In 1426 the University began to erect the
present noble Divinity School for the exercises in that faculty; but as their
own means soon failed they betook themselves to all likely quarters to
procure help. And Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, the patron of all
learning[5], and the fosterer of the New School of theological thought, the
protector of Pecock, responded so liberally to the petition of the University
for aid to the fabric of their Material School, that he is styled (says Wood)

in the Bedell's Book its Founder, while the roof to this day perpetuates his
memory among the shields of arms of benefactors with which its graceful
pendants terminate. His gifts of money for the School were quickly
followed by still larger gifts of books for the Library. Between the years
1439 and 1446 he appears to have forwarded about 600 MSS, which were
for the time deposited in chests in Cobham's Library. The first donation,
consisting of 129 volumes, was forwarded in November, 1439. The letter of
thanks from Convocation is dated the 25th of that month, and on the same
day a letter was sent to the House of Commons, to the 'ryght worshypfull
syres, the Speker, knyghtes, and burges (sic) of the worshepfull parlament,'
informing them that the Duke had magnified the University 'with a
thousand pounds worth and more of preciose bokes,' and therefore
beseeching their 'sage discrecions to considere the gloriose gifts of the
graciose prince ... for the comyn profyte and worshyp of the Reme, to
thanke hym hertyly, and also prey Godde to thanke hym in tyme comyng
wher goode dedys ben rewarded.' Statutes for the regulation of the gift were
made on the same day, prayers appointed, and provision made for the
observance of the Duke's obit[6]. A catalogue of 364 of the MSS. is printed,
from the lists preserved in the University Register, p. 758, vol. ii. of Rev. H.
Anstey's Documents Illustrative of Social and Academic Life at Oxford,
published in the series of Chronicles issued by the Master of the Rolls. The
extent of these gifts rendered the room at St. Mary's quite insufficient for
the purpose to which it was assigned, and the University therefore, in a
letter to the Duke, dated July 14, 1444, informed him of their intention to
erect a more suitable building, of which (as a delicate way, probably, of
bespeaking his aid towards the cost, as well as of testifying their gratitude
for past benefactions) they formally offered him the title of Founder. In the
subjoined note is given an extract from this letter (copied from the Register
of Convocation), which is interesting from its description of the
inconveniences of the old room, and the advantages of the new site[7]. And
this new building, first contemplated in A.D. 1444 and finished about 1480,
forms now the central portion of the great Reading-Room, still retaining its
old advantages of convenience and of seclusion 'a strepitu sæculari.'
The Duke's MSS. were, as became the object of his gift, very varied in
character. With works in Divinity are mingled in the catalogue a large
number in Medicine and Science, together with some in lighter literature,

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

library-mark. This last (which was bought of Sir Simonds D'Ewes), together
with the Cotton MS. of the Canticles, I besought his Lordship to give to the
University for your Library, and I hope his Lordship will do so in a little
time.' Another of the Duke's books, being Capgrave's Commentary on
Genesis, which occurs in the second list of those given to the University, is
now in the library of Oriel College. One volume, containing, among other
philosophical treatises, Plato's Phædo, Timæus, &c., with the Duke's
autograph, 'Cest livre a moy Homfrey duc de Gloucestre' (given to him by
an Abbot of St. Alban's) is in Corpus Christi College, 243. And a copy of
Wickliffe's Bible, in two volumes, which bears Humphrey's arms, is
amongst the Egerton MSS. (617-8), Brit. Mus.
The large increase of treasures which these benefactions brought to the
University probably caused the first institution of a formal Visitation. On
Nov. 29, 1449, we find that Visitors were appointed by Congregation for the
purpose of receiving from the Chaplain an account of the books contained
in the Library[11].
Duke Humphrey was followed in the good work of the Divinity School and
Library by another whose name still retains its place in the formal list of
benefactors, Bishop Thomas Kempe, of London, who, besides contributing
very largely in money towards the completion of the former, sent some
books to the latter in 1487, some seven years after the new room had been
finally completed and opened for use. But Antony Wood (in whose pages
records of other benefactors may be found) tells us that very few years
passed before the Library began to lose some of its newly-acquired
treasures; for Scholars borrowed books upon petty and insufficient pledges,
and so chose to forfeit the latter rather than return the former[12], while
tradition reported that Polydore Virgil, the historian, being at length refused
any further opportunities of abstraction, obtained a special licence from
Henry VIII for the taking out any MS. for his use! From this traditionary
report Sir H. Ellis, in his introduction to a translation of Virgil's history,
printed for the Camden Society in 1844, endeavours to vindicate his
author's reputation, but more by conjecture than evidence. In 1513 a
Chaplain and Librarian was elected, named Adam Kirkebote[13]. The new
Librarian, soon after, supplicated Congregation that on Festival Days he
should not be bound to open the Library before twelve o'clock; a practice

which, commencing at that day, does still unto this (the Library on Holy
Days during Term being now not opened until the conclusion of the
University sermon, at eleven o'clock) witness to the religious spirit which
pervades all the old institutions of Oxford. In 1527, when one Flecher was
Chaplain, it is recorded[14] that 'Magister' Claymond (doubtless the
President of Corpus Christi College, of that name) was permitted by vote of
Congregation to take Pliny's Natural History out of the Library. In 1543
Humphrey Burnford was elected Chaplain on Oct. 31, in the room of —
Whytt, deceased[15]. It was probably during his tenure of office that the
Library was destroyed. For in 1550 the Commissioners deputed by Edward
VI for reformation of the University visited the Libraries in the spirit of
John Knox, destroying, without examination, all MSS. ornamented by
illuminations or rubricated initials as being eminently Popish, and leaving
the rest exposed to any chance of injury and robbery. The traditions which
Wood has recorded as having been learned at the mouths of aged men who
had in their turn received them from those who were contemporaneous with
the Visitation, are abundantly confirmed by the well-known descriptions of
Leland and Bale of what went on in other places, and therefore, although no
direct documentary evidence of the proceedings of the spoilers is known to
exist, we may believe that Wood's account of pillage and waste, of MSS.
burned, and sold to tailors for their measures, to bookbinders for covers,
and the like, until not one remained in situ, is not a whit exaggerated. One
solitary entry there is, however, in the University Register (I. fol. 157a),
which, while it records the completion of the catastrophe, sufficiently
thereby corroborates the story of all that preceded, viz. the entry which tells
that in Convocation on Jan. 25, 1555-6, 'electi sunt hii venerabiles viri,
Vice-cancellarius et Procuratores, Magister Morwent, præses Corporis
Christi, et Magister Wright, ad vendenda subsellia librorum in publica
Academiæ bibliotheca, ipsius Universitatis nomine.' The books of the
'public' library had all disappeared; what need then to retain the shelves and
stalls, when no one thought of replacing their contents, and when the
University could turn an honest penny by their sale? and so the venerabiles
viri made a timber-yard of Duke Humphrey's treasure-house.

But four years after the final despoiling of the Library there was an
undergraduate entered at Magdalen College, who, by the good Providence
which always out of evil brings somewhat to counterpoise and correct, was
to be moved by the sight of the ruin and desolation to restore what his
seniors had destroyed, and to reconstruct the old Plantagenet's Library on
such a basis, and with such means for carrying on its re-edification, that the
glory of the latter house should soon eclipse that of the former. All around
him he doubtless found traces of the recent destruction; his stationer may
have sold him books bound in fragments of those MSS. for which the
University but a century before had consecrated the memory of the donors
in her solemn prayers; the tailor who measured him for his sad-coloured
doublet, may have done it with a strip of parchment brilliant with gold, that
had consequently been condemned as Popish, or covered with strange
symbols of an old heathen Greek's devising, that probably passed for
magical and unlawful incantations. And the soul of the young student must
have burned with shame and indignation at the apathy which had not
merely tolerated this destruction by strangers, but had contentedly assisted
in carrying it out to its thorough completion. Himself a successful student,
he became eager to help others to whom thus the advantages of a library
were denied; and, for a while without fee or reward, undertook a public
Greek lecture in the Hall of Merton College, to which college he had been
elected in 1563[16]. And when, after years thus spent in academic pursuits,
Thomas Bodley betook himself to diplomatic service abroad, he still,
amidst all the distractions of foreign and domestic politics, preserved his
affection for the scenes and the studies of his early familiarity. So, when the
days came wherein statecraft began to weary him and Courts ceased to
charm, his thoughts reverted to the place where, free from these, he might
still, although in a more private capacity, labour for the good of the
commonwealth; he remembered the room once precious to students,
'scientiarum sedes,' as the University had called it of old, but now destitute
alike both of science and of seats. 'And thus,' says he himself, 'I concluded
at the last to set up my staff at the Library-door in Oxon; being thoroughly
persuaded that, in my solitude and surcease from the commonwealth-
affairs, I could not busy myself to better purpose than by reducing that place
(which then in every part lay ruined and waste) to the publick use of
students[17].' So therefore, on Feb. 23, 1597-8, he wrote a letter to the Vice-
Chancellor, offering that whereas 'there hath bin heretofore a publike library

in Oxford, which, you know, is apparant by the roome itself remayning, and
by your statute records, I will take the charge and cost upon me, to reduce it
again to his former use,' first by fitting it up with shelves and seats, next by
procuring benefactions of books, and lastly by endowing it with an annual
rent[18]. This offer being accepted with great gratitude, other letters
followed from him in March, in which he desired that delegates should be
chosen to consider the best mode of fitting up the room, and mentioned an
offer on the part of his own College, Merton, to provide timber for the
purpose. Two years were spent in the carrying out of this work and in the
preliminary arrangements. Amongst these preparations was the putting up
the beautiful roof which to this day is such an object of deserved
admiration. It is divided into square compartments, on each of which are
painted the arms of the University, being the open Bible, with seven
seals[19], between three ducal crowns, on the open pages of which are the
words (so truly fitting for a Christian School) 'Dominus Illuminatio mea[20];'
while on bosses that intervene between each compartment are painted the
arms of Bodley himself, being five martlets with a crescent for difference,
quartered with the arms of Hone (his mother's family), two bars wavy
between three billets; on a chief the three ducal crowns of the University
shield, 'quarum merito gloriam ab Academia derivavit.' (Wake, Rex Platon.
p. 12.) The striking motto 'Quarta perennis erit' was assigned to Bodley at
the same time with this academic augmentation[21]. When, in 1610, the
eastern wing of the Library was erected, a similar roof was added, as was
also done to the Picture Gallery (built between 1613-1619); in the latter
room the roof, having become decayed and out of repair, was unhappily
altogether removed in the year 1831, and a plaster ceiling, divided into
compartments, substituted. A few of the panels of this roof have been
preserved, one bearing the figures of two cats, which used to be an object of
interest to juvenile visitors, and a series bearing the letters which compose
Sir Thomas Bodley's name, together with a portrait of him upon a centre
panel. A high-backed arm-chair, the Librarian's seat of office in the Library,
was formed out of oak from the roof, and an engraving hangs in the Gallery
which represents the room before its change for the worse.
On June 25, 1600, Bodley wrote to the Vice-Chancellor, mentioning that, as
the mechanical work was now brought to a good pass, he had begun to busy
himself in the gathering of books, and had provided a Register for the

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

Lumley[23], and William Gent, who gave a large collection of books, chiefly
medical.
Many volumes were given about this time by Bodley, which had been
collected in Italy by Bill, the London bookseller, who was employed by Sir
Thomas to travel on the Continent as his agent for this purpose.
The famous copy of the French Romance of Alexander (now numbered
Bodl. 264) must have been one of the MSS. given by Bodley himself at the
commencement of his work, as it is found entered in the printed Catalogue
of 1605, but does not occur in the Benefactors' Register. It is decorated with
a large number of beautiful paintings on a chequered background of gold
and colour; but its special interest lies in the illustrations at the foot of about
half the pages, which exhibit the most quaint and grotesque representations
of customs, trades, amusements, dress, &c., of the time. Some of these were
engraved by Strutt; and four specimens, together with one of the larger
miniatures illustrating the text, are given by Dibdin in his Bibl. Decam. vol.
i., where, at pp. 198-201, he discourses, in his own peculiar fashion, on the
merits of the volume. A notice of the book may also be found in Warton's
Hist. of Engl. Poetry, edit. 1840, vol. i. p. 142. At f. 208 is the following
colophon, which is of much interest, as affording evidence that the work of
the painter occupied upwards of five years:—

'Che define li romans du boin roi Alixandre,
Et les veus du pavon, les accomplissemens,
Le Restor du pavon et le pris, qui fu perescript
Le xviiie ior de Decembre, lan M.ccc.xxxviii.
Explicit iste liber, scriptor sit crimine liber,
Xpristus scriptorem custodiat ac det honorem.

(In gold letters.) 'Che liure fu perfais de le enluminure au xviiie
jour dauryl. Per Jehan de grise, Lan de grace, M.ccc.xliij.'
This is followed by a continuation (of later date) of the romance, in
Northern-English verse, on seven leaves[24]; and lastly, by a French
Romance of the 'grant kaan à la graunt cite de Tambaluc.' A scribe's name is
given in the following lines on f. 208, but in a hand apparently not that of
any part of the book:—

'Laus tibi sit Christe, quoniam liber explicit iste.
Nomen scriptoris est Thomas Plenus Amoris[25].'

The earliest owner's name occurring in the volume is that of 'Richart de
Widevelle, seigneur de Rivières,' recorded in an inscription on the cover at
the end, which proceeds to say that 'le dist Seigneur acetast le dist liure lan
de grace mille cccclxvi. le premier jour de lan a Londres.' Rivers' own
autograph follows ('Ryverys'), with some words in French, written in a
perfectly frantic scrawl. Subsequent owners were 'Gyles Strangwayes' and
'Jaspere Ffylolle' (whose signatures are engraved by Dibdin, ubi supra), and
'Thomas Smythe[26].'
[1] When Duke Humphrey's Library was completed, and the books were
removed thither, this upper room took the place of that beneath it as the
Convocation House, 'in which upper room,' says Hearne, 'was brave painted
glass containing the arms of the benefactors, which painted glass continued till
the times of the late rebellion.' (Bliss, Reliquiæ Hearnianæ, ii. 693.)
[2] The original treasure-chest, from which all academic money-grants are still
said to be made, is preserved in the Bursary of Corpus Christi College, in which
college it was kept in accordance with the statutes of the University, tit. xx. § 1.
[3] The Bishop's Bibliomania is thus noticed by a contemporary, W. de Chambre,
in his Continuatio Hist. Dunelm. (Hist. Dunelm. Scriptt. tres; Surtees Society,
1839, p. 130):—'Iste summe delectabatur in multitudine librorum. Plures enim
libros habuit, sicut passim dicebatur, quam omnes Pontifices Angliæ. Et præter
eos quos habuit in diversis maneriis suis, repositos separatim, ubicunque cum
sua familia residebat, tot libri jacebant sparsim in camera qua dormivit, quod
ingredientes vix stare poterant vel incedere nisi librum aliquem pedibus
conculcarent.' The bedroom of the late centenarian President of Magdalene
College, Dr. Routh, was in this respect just like Bishop Bury's; and as the latter
sent his library from Durham to be in some sort a nucleus for an University
Library at Oxford, so the former bequeathed his to Durham that it might assist
the development of the University Library there.
[4] Philobiblion, cap. xix.
[5] His love of literature was evinced by the motto which, according to Leland,
was frequently written by him in his books: 'Moun bien mondain.' (Hearne's MS.
Diary, xxxvi. 199.) Hearne, in his esteem for the memory of this 'religious, good,
and learned Prince,' quaintly says that he used, whenever he saw his handwriting
in the Bodleian Library (where it occurs several times), 'to show a sort of
particular respect' to it. (Preface to Langtoft, p. xx.) Was this 'sort of respect' a
reverential kiss, such as that with which (as Warton in his Companion to the
Guide tells us) he saluted the pavement of sheeps' trotters, supposed by him to be
a Roman tesselated floor?

[6] Register of Convoc. F., ff. 53b, 54b. The subsequent gifts are entered in the
same Register as follows:—
1. Last day of Feb., 1440. A letter to thank the Duke for 126 volumes
brought by John Kyrkeby. (f. 57b.)
2. Nov. 10, 1441. Letter acknowledging ten books (Treatises of
Augustine, Rabanus, &c.,) received through Will. Say, proctor, and
John Kyrkeby. (ff. 59b-60.)
3. Jan. 25, 1443. Letter of thanks for 139 volumes. (f. 63.)
4. Oct. 1443. Letter for another gift, number of volumes not
specified. (f. 66.)

5. Feb. 25, 1443 (-4?). Catalogue of 135 volumes. (ff. 67-68b.)

6. Feb. 1446. Letter of thanks for another gift, not specified. (f. 75b.)
[7] 'Nemo illos [libros] sine admiratione conspicit, cunctis una voce testantibus,
se nunquam libros tanta claritate conspicuos, tanta gravitate refertos vidisse.... Et
ut per hoc, si quid maximo addi possit, tantæ munificentiæ gloria fiat illustrior,
optamus sacram et celebrem scientiarum sedem reparari, ubi honorificentius et
ad utilitatem studentium multo commodius libri vestri, ab aliis segregati,
collocentur. Jam enim si quis, ut fit, uni libro inhæreat, aliis studere volentibus
ad tres vel quatuor pro vicinitate colligationis præcludit accessum. Itaque locus
huic rei nobis maxime videtur idoneus ubi venerabilis vir, modo Cancellarius
noster, semper reverendus pater amantissimus Magister Thomas Chace,
spectabilem novarum Scolarum fabricam ad cætera suæ virtutis testimonia
insigni mensura ab humo erexit, quam nos cito, quoad exigua suppetebat
facultas, promovimus. Hic locus, propterea quod a strepitu sæculari removetur,
Bibliotecæ admodum videtur conveniens, cujus fundationis titulum, si
Magnanimitati vestræ acceptabilis fuerit, cum omni devotione offerrimus.'
Register F. ff. 71b, 72. We find from an entry on the latter page that on January
13, 1444 (-5), 'liber Platonis in Phedro' (sic) was lent by Convocation to the
Duke.
[8] They were not received by August, 1450, on the 28th of which month a letter
was written from Convocation to Thomas Bokelonde, Esq., and John
Summerset, M.D., on the subject. (Register F. ff. 88b-9.)
[9] It contains inscriptions recording its gift by Whethamstede 'ad usum
scolarium studencium Oxoniæ,' with anathemas upon those who should alienate
it, or destroy, were it but its title: 'Si quis rapiat, raptim titulumve retractet, vel
Judæ laqueum vel furcas sensiat.'
[10] Two treatises on the Canticles, by Gilbert Porret and Musca, were contained
in the Duke's first gift to Oxford. (Anstey, vol. ii. p. 759.)
[11] Wood MS. F. 27. (Bodl. Libr.)

[12] A sale of a collection of (apparently) these forfeited pledges, or else of
books deposited as securities for loans of money, took place in the year 1546. On
Jan. 18, 1545-6, the following decree passed Convocation: 'Decretum est
authoritate Convocationis Magnæ ut cistæ in domo inferiori sub domo
Congregationis, et omnes libri pro pignoribus jacentes, aut etiam alii in eadem
domo inventi, venderentur, secundum arbitrium quinque in eadem Convocatione
eligendorum. Electi itaque sunt et a Vice-Cancellario admissi ibidem, Doctor
Standishe, Mr. Parret, procurator, Mr. Slythers, Mr. Symonds, et Mr. Wattsone.'
Reg. I. 107b.
[13] Wood MS. F. 27.
[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid. fol. 94a.
[16] Bodley appears to have been altogether an accomplished linguist. James, in
the preface to the first Catalogue of 1605, after speaking of his proficiency in the
classical languages, adds, 'Linguas vero exoticas, veluti Italicam, Gallicam,
Hispanicam, Hebræam præcipue, cæterarum omnium parentem, tam perfecte
callet, ut illo neminem fere scientiorem invenies.' And in one of four letters
addressed to him on the interpretation of passages in the Old Testament, which
are printed among the Epistles of J. Drusius, De Quæsitis (1595, p. 40), Drusius
says, 'Vere dicam, Bodlæe, et intelligis optime litteras Hebræas, et amas unice
earum peritos.' The same volume contains also one letter to his brothers,
Laurence, Miles, and Josias, on the Pastor of Hermas.
[17] Reliquiæ Bodleianæ, p. 14.
[18] This letter (with the subsequent correspondence) is printed by Hearne, at the
end of the Chronicle of John of Glastonbury, vol. ii. p. 612, from the Reg. of
Convoc. Ma. f. 31a.
[19] Most probably intended to refer to the Apocalyptic book (Rev. v. 1.), and to
signify the unsealing of Divine Revelation, the fountain of all wisdom, by our
Blessed Lord. Sir J. Wake prefers to take the seven seals as representing the
seven liberal arts.
[20] The motto appears to have varied. It is sometimes given in titles of books
printed at Oxford about the time of James I, as 'Sapientiæ et Felicitatis;' and in an
heraldic MS. of the seventeenth century as 'XX. Exod. Decem ... Omnipotens
mandata. Verbum Dei manet in eternum. Amen.' (Rawl. B. xl. f. 81.) Others
[have] this, 'Veritas liberabit, Bonitas regnabit;' and others this, 'In principio erat
Verbum,' &c. (Hearne, in Rawl. MS. C. 876, f. 51.)
[21] Wake notices it as a singular coincidence that the Library was first opened
on the day of the 'Quatuor coronati Martyres,' Nov. 8, whom, by mistake, he calls
'Tres.'
[22] See Reliquiæ Bodleianæ, p. 158.
[23] One of the books given by Lord Lumley has the autograph of Cranmer,
'Thomas Cantuarien.,' on the title-page. The book, appositely enough, bears the

title of Sicbardi Antidotum contra diversas omnium fere sæculorum bæreses, fol.
Bas. 1528.
[24] Printed by Rev. J. Stevenson at the end of the Romance of Alexander, edited
by him for the Roxburghe Club in 1849, from Ashmole MS. 44.
[25] Plenus-Amoris, or Fullalove, seems to have been the name of a family of
scribes. But the expression seems often also to have been used for the mere sake
of rhyme. In the colophon of a translation of Alan Chartier in Rawl. A. 338, are
these lines:—

'Nomen scriptoris,
Dei gracia, Plenus Amoris:
Careat meroris
Deus det sibi omnibus horis.'

Peter Plenus-Amoris was the scribe of Fairfax 6; Thomas, of Univ. Coll. MS.
142; William, of All Souls' 51; Geoffrey, of Sloane 513 (Brit. Mus.) In the
following instances the name appears to be used only rhythmically:—
'Nomen scriptoris est Jhon Wilde plenus amoris.'—(Rawlinson B.
214.)
'Nomen scriptoris Jon. semper plenus amoris,
Esteby cognomen, cui semper det Deus homen' (sic).—(Bodl. 643.)
[26] Probably this book is the 'large liure en fraunceis tresbien esluminez de le
Rymance de Alexandre,' once in the library of Tho. of Woodstock, Duke of
Glouc. See Mr. Coxe's pref. to Gower's Vox Clam. (Roxb. Club, 1850,) p. 50.

A.D. 1601.

It is from this date that our notes on the history of the Library can begin to
assume an annalistic form. A gift of £20 from Herbert Westphaling, Bishop
of Hereford, was expended in the purchase of books with great success; no
fewer than thirty were obtained, and amongst them were, 'Evangelia
quatuor Saxonica, lingua et charactere vetustiss.,' being the MS. from which
John Foxe had taken the text of the Saxon Gospels in the edition published
at the expense of Archbishop Parker in 1571, and which was subsequently
re-edited by Junius. It is now numbered, Bodl. MS. 441. An early edition
(qu. editio princeps?) of the Gospels in the Russian language (now placed
among the Bodley MSS. 213) appears among some books given by Sir
Henry Savile[27], whose brother-historian and antiquary, William Camden,
is also registered as the donor of a few MSS. and printed books. Thomas
Allen, M.A., of Gloucester Hall, the astrologer, gave twenty MSS[28]; the
rest of his collection came subsequently to the Library, included in that of

Sir Kenelm Digby, to whom Allen had bequeathed it. One of the twenty
now given was an extremely curious volume, chiefly written in the ninth
century (marked Auctarium F. iv. 32), including in its contents an original
drawing (engraved in Hickes' Thesaurus, p. 144) by St. Dunstan of himself
as prostrate at the feet of the throned Christ[29], a grammatical tract by
Eutychius (or Eutex, as the scribe calls him, while professing doubt as to
the right form), with Welsh glosses (noticed by Lhuyd in his Archæol. Brit.
p. 226); the first book of Ovid De Arte amandi, with similar glosses[30]; and
lections in Greek and Latin from the Prophets and Pentateuch, amongst
which is one from Hosea containing, in the Latin version, a line or two
unlike any known early version, (although faithful to the Hebrew), but
found also in a quotation in Gildas[31]. Capt. Josias Bodley[32] gave an
astronomical sphere and other instruments in brass, which now stand in the
south window adjoining the entrance to the Library. But the great
benefactor of the year was the newly-appointed Librarian, Thomas James,
who gave various MSS., chiefly patristic (which, however, Wood says, 'he
had taken out of several College libraries'), and sixty printed volumes. From
the first preparation of the new foundation Bodley had fixed upon James,
then a Fellow of New College, as his Library-Keeper. The volume of letters
published by Hearne (from Bodl. MS. 699) in 1703, under the title of
Reliquiæ Bodleianæ, consists chiefly of those which the Founder addressed
to James while his collection of books was in process of formation, but
unfortunately they have no dates of years, and Hearne printed them simply
as they came into his hands, without any attempt to determine their order of
sequence. We learn from these that James' salary at the outset was £5 13s.
4d. quarterly; but almost at once he threatened to 'strike' unless it were
raised to an annual stipend of £30 or £40, while at the same time he
demanded permission to marry. This latter requisition appeared particularly
grievous to Bodley, who had made celibacy a stringent condition in his
Statutes, and he forthwith expostulated strongly with his Librarian on these
his 'unseasonable and unreasonable motions' (p. 52). The upshot, however,
was that Bodley, very unwillingly, consented to become the 'first breaker' of
his own institution, (which 'hereafter,' he says, 'I purpose to become
inviolable,') and, for the love he bore to James, allowed him to marry[33].
But it was not until the year 1813 that the Statute was altered and the
Librarian released from his obligation of perpetual celibacy, and even then,
by a singular and unmeaning compromise, it was ordered that he, as well as

the Under-Librarians, should be unmarried at the time of election. The
whole restriction was, however, finally removed on the revision of the
Statutes in 1856. But its infringement appears to have been again tolerated,
in one instance, at least, during the last century, viz. in the case of Dr.
Hudson. Hearne[34] enters the following 'memorandum' of uncharitable
hearsay gossip respecting his quondam chief and friend: 'Dr. Hudson was
married when he was elected Librarian. His first wife was one Biesley. That
he hath now is his second. It is said that he was married to this Biesley
when he was Taberder of Queen's. The Dr. hath been of a loose, profligate,
and irreligious life, as I have often heard. The family of the Harrisons he is
married into now is good for just nothing, being as stingy (if it can be) as
himself.'
[27] Savile's benefactions were continued in the years 1609 and 1614, and in
1620 he sent a large number of Greek and Latin MSS.
[28] In the year 1604 he appears again as the donor of some printed books. A
notice of one of his MSS. (now Bodl. 198), which once belonged to Bishop
Grosteste, was by him given to the Friars Minor at Oxford, and by them, about
1433, to Gascoigne, who presented it to Durham College, is to be found in
Warton's Life of Sir T. Pope, 1772, pp. 392-3. The volume contains MS. notes by
both Grosteste and Gascoigne.
[29] Another relic of Dunstan is preserved among the Hatton MSS. No. 30 of
that collection. 'Expositio Augustini in Apocalypsin,' written in Anglo-Saxon
characters, has the following inscription in large letters on the last leaf: 'Dunstan
abbas hunc libellum scribere jussit.'
[30] These glosses, together with an 'Alphabetum Nemnivi' in Runic characters,
(of which a facsimile is given in Hickes' Thesaurus, p. 168), and some Welsh and
Latin notes on weights and measures, are printed, with copious notes, by Zeuss
in his Grammatica Celtica, 8vo. Leipz. 1853, vol. ii. pp. 1076-96. The MS. is
described also in Wanley's Catalogue, p. 63, and the latest account of it, together
with a facsimile from the tract by Eutychius, is to be found in Villemarqué's
Notice des principaux MSS. des anciens Bretons, 8vo. Par. 1856. And the
Alphabet of Nemnivus, together with another, and somewhat later, Runic
Alphabet (of the 'winged' form), found in Bodl. MS. 572, is printed at pp. 10-12
of the Ancient Welsh Grammar of Edeyrn, edited for the Welsh MSS. Soc. in
1856 by Rev. John Williams, ab Ithel.
[31] This reading was pointed out to the author by Rev. A. W. Haddan, B.D.
[32] Afterwards Sir Josias, a younger brother of Sir Thomas, and Governor of
Duncannon in Ireland, author of a humorous Latin tour in Lecale (a barony in the
county of Down), which, although not unfrequently met with in MS, has never
yet been printed.
[33] Reliquiæ Bodl. p. 162. See also p. 183.

[34] Diary, vol. lviii. p. 157.

A.D. 1602.

The largest pecuniary donor of this year was Blount, Lord Mountjoy
(afterwards Earl of Devon), who forwarded £100 to Sir T. Bodley from
Waterford; which were expended upon books in most classes of literature,
including music. Among various gifts of MSS. were some Russian volumes
from Lancelot Browne, M.D., and (together with Persian, Finnish, &c.)
from Sir Rich. Lee, ambassador in Muscovy. Lord Cobham gave £50 in
money, with the promise of 'divers MSS. out of St. Augustin's library in
Canterbury[35].' 'Biblia Latina pulcherrima,' 2 vols. fol. was given by
George Rives, Warden of New College. This is probably a huge and
magnificent specimen of twelfth-century work, now numbered Auctarium,
E. infra, 1, 2[36]. But the year was specially marked by the donation of 47
MSS. (including some early English volumes) from Walter (afterwards Sir
Walter) Cope; and above all, by the gift, from the Dean and Chapter of
Exeter to their fellow-countryman Bodley, of 81 Latin MSS. from their
Chapter Library. By what right they thus alienated their corporate property
no one probably cared to enquire; but, from the tokens of neglect still
visible upon the books, we may conclude that only by this alienation were
they in all likelihood saved from ultimate destruction: for they nearly all
bear more or less sign of having been exposed to great damp, which in
several instances has well-nigh destroyed the initial and final leaves. Most
of them are beautiful specimens of early penmanship, ranging chiefly from
the eleventh century to the thirteenth; and amongst them is that precious
relic of English Church offices, the Service-book given to Exeter Cathedral
by Bishop Leofric in the reign of Edward Conf., described in the 'Registrum
Benefactorum' simply as 'Missale antiquissimum.' This is happily perfect; in
size a small and thick quarto volume, written on very stout vellum, and
containing 377 leaves. Four other volumes (possibly more) were also gifts
of Leofric to his Church; they are now numbered Auct. D. II. 16 (the four
Gospels), Auct. F. I. 15 (Boethius and Persius), Auct. F. III. 6 (Prudentius),
and Bodley MS. 708 (Gregory's Pastorale.) They each contain an
inscription in Latin and Anglo-Saxon, varying in expression, but all to the
following effect (as in the last-mentioned volume): 'Hunc librum dat
Leofricus episcopus ecclesiæ Sancti Petri Apostoli in Exonia ad sedem

suam episcopalem, pro remedio animæ suæ, ad utilitatem successorum
suorum. Siquis autem illum inde abstulerit, perpetuæ maledictioni
subjaceat. Fiat. Ðas boc gef leofric ƀ. into Scē petres minstre on exancestre
þær his biscopstol is. his æfterfiligendū to nittweorðnisse. [&] gif hig hwa
ut ætbrede hæbbe he ece geniðerunge mid eallū deoflum. Ām̄ .' To the MS.
of the Gospels are prefixed very curious lists in Anglo-Saxon of the lands,
vestments, books, &c., given by Leofric to his Church, and of relics given
by King Athelstan (of which another copy is preserved in the Missal); these
lists are printed in the Monasticon, and the titles of the books are given in
Wanley's Catalogue (p. 80).
The Library being now supplied with upwards of 2000 volumes, it was
solemnly opened on Nov. 8 (the day appointed for the annual visitation,) by
the Vice-Chancellor, with a procession of doctors and delegates. Meeting
them at the door of the room, the Librarian hastily extemporized a short
speech in honour of the occasion, 'in qua,' as the University Register
records, 'tribus ferme versibus amplexus est omnia.'
[35] Reliquiæ Bodl. p. 92.
[36] See ibid. pp. 137 and 219.

A.D. 1603.

Sir Walter Raleigh appears in this year as a donor of £50. He is sometimes
said to have procured for Oxford the library of Hieron. Osorius, which was
carried off from Faro in Portugal (of which place Osorius had been bishop),
when that town was captured by the English fleet under the Earl of Essex in
1598. Raleigh was a captain in the squadron, and probably influenced the
disposal of the books; but no direct mention has been found of his name in
relation to them. Sir William Monson, in the account of the expedition
given in his Naval Tracts, only says that the library 'was brought into
England by us, and many of the books bestowed upon the new erected
library of Oxford.' Eleven MSS. were given by Sir Rob. Cotton, of which
the list in the Register is printed in Sir H. Ellis' Letters of Eminent Literary
Men, issued by the Camden Society in 1843 (p. 103). One of these (Auct.
D. II. 14) is the MS. of the Gospels, traditionally believed to be one of those
two copies of the old Italic version sent by St. Gregory to St. Augustine in
Britain, which were preserved in St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury[37]; of

which the other now exists among Archbp. Parker's MSS. in Corp. Chr.
Coll. Cambr., No. 286. They are both written in quarto, in uncial letters and
double columns. Their date may possibly be somewhat later than that which
is traditionally assigned; but at any rate they are certainly among what the
historian Elmham calls 'primitiæ librorum totius ecclesiæ Anglicanæ.' On
the last fly-leaf of the Bodley MS. is the following list of English Priests'
libraries. 'Þas bocas haueð Salomon pr̅ st. þ̵is þecodspel t{r}aht. [&]
þemarty{r}luia [&] þe (erased) [&] þe æglisce salte{r}e [&] þe c{r}ranc
[&] ðe tropere [&] wulf mer cild þeatteleuaui ('Ad Te levavi.') [&] pistelari
[&] þe (erased) [&] ðe imnere. [&] ðe capitelari. (word erased) [&] þe spel
boc. [&] Siga{r} pr̅ st. þelece boc [&] Blakehad boc. [&] Æilmer ðe grete
Sater. [&] ðe litle t{r}opere fo{r}beande. [&] ðe Donatum. xv bocas Ealfric
Æilwine. Godric. [&] Bealdewuine ab̶b [&] Freoden [&] hu— (torn) [&]
ðuregise.' Several leaves are wanting at the beginning and one at the end;
the book commences at S. Matt. iv. 14, and ends in S. John xxi. 16. It now
numbers 172 leaves, besides the fly-leaf, and contains 29 lines in a column;
the Cambridge MS. has 25 lines.
Two Russian MSS. were given in this year by John Mericke, English
Consul in Russia, and a collection of Italian books by Sir Michael Dormer.
[37] Wanley, p. 172. Elmham's Hist. Mon. S. Aug. 1858, pp. 97, 8.

A.D. 1604.

On June 20, letters patent were granted by James I, styling the library by the
founder's name, and licensing the University to hold lands, &c., in
mortmain for its maintenance, to an amount not exceeding 200 marks per
annum[38].
In the list of donors occur Sir Christopher Heydon, Sir Jerome Horsey
(whose gift includes a MS. of the Gospels in Russian, and rolls containing
forms of letters, &c., in the autograph of the Czar Ivan Basilides), Sir Ralph
Winwood (17 Greek MSS.), Robert Barker the printer, and Sir Henry
Wotton (a MS. of the Koran).
[38] Wood MS. F. 27.

A.D. 1605.

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

In this year appeared the first Catalogue of the Library, compiled by
Thomas James. It is a quarto volume, published by Joseph Barnes at
Oxford, consisting of 425 pages, with an Appendix of 230 more; the
Preface is dated June 27. The book is dedicated to Henry, Prince of
Wales[43]. It includes both printed books and MSS. arranged alphabetically
under the four classes of Theology, Medicine, Law, and Arts, with lists of
expositors of Holy Scripture, commentators on Aristotle, Hippocrates, and
Galen, and in Civil and Canon Law. The legal and medical lists were added
at Bodley's special desire[44]. A continuation of this classified index,
embracing writers on Arts and Sciences, Geography and History, is to be
found in Rawlinson MS. Miscell. 730. It was drawn up by James, after his
quitting the Library, for the use of young students in the faculty of Arts, in
order to show his continued interest in them and in the place of his old
occupation. In the preface he thus describes the arrangement of his book:
'Exhibeo, primo, libros distributos secundum facultates suas; secundo,
dissectos in minutissimas portiones vel sectiones, idque alphabetice; tertio,
habetis cognitos et exploratos auctores singulos qui de singulis subjectis vel
generatim vel speciatim scripserunt libros, tractatus, epistolas; postremo, ne
quid desit, habetis editiones certas, et maxime ex parte ex pluribus selectas
et meliores, cito parabiles, digitos ad pluteos et pluteorum sectiones
intendendo.' This volume came into Rawlinson's possession from Hearne,
who notes in it: 'This MS. came out of the study of Dr. Anthony Hall, of
Queen's College, Oxford, who married the widow of Dr. John Hudson, to
whom this book once belong'd.'
[39] This would-be witticism is made the subject of a quatrain in the Justa
Funebria Bodlei, p. 108.
[40] Reliquiæ Bodl. pp. 205, 339.
[41] His arms also occur in several places in a Greek MS. now numbered Auct.
E. I. 15. And there is one volume among Selden's books (8o. A. 24, Art. Seld.)
which appears to possess considerable interest as having come from the library
of the many-wived king. It is a fine copy of Æsop, with the Batrachomyomachia,
&c., printed by Froben in 1518, which may be conjectured, from the binding, to
have been a gift from Henry to Anne Boleyn. The cover is of embossed calf; on
one side is the Tudor rose supported by angels, with the sun, moon, and four
stars above, encircled by the lines:—

'Hec rosa virtutis de celo missa sereno,
Eternum florens regia sceptra feret.'

Below are the initials A. H., conjoined with a knot. On the other side is a
representation of the Annunciation, with the same initials repeated.
[42] The account of the king's visit is given in Sir J. Wake's Rex Platonicus, pp.
116-123.
[43] At the suggestion of Bodley, who thought that more reward was to be gained
from the prince than from the king. (Reliquiæ Bodl. 206.)
[44] Reliquiæ Bodl. pp. 195, 256.

A.D. 1606.

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

A.D. 1610.

The books having some time since begun to crowd the room provided for
them, so that James, in his Preface to the Catalogue of 1605, said there
already seemed to be more need of a Library for the books than books for
the Library, the Founder commenced in this year an extension of his
building. On July 16 the first stone was laid of the eastern wing, and of the
Proscholium, or vestibule of the Divinity School, beneath; which were
completed by 1612, as in that year several donations were placed in the new
room[45]. An inscription in gold letters, in the front of this building,
commemorates Bodley's work; having become barely legible, it has
recently been restored to its pristine lustre by the care of the present
Librarian. The noble east window contains some very curious and
interesting relics in stained glass which were presented to the Library (with
numerous other fragments, which adorn some of the other windows in the
Library and partly fill two of those in the Picture Gallery[46]), in 1797, by
Alderman William Fletcher of Oxford, a zealous local antiquary and
Churchman of the good old school. The three principal fragments represent:
1. Henry II, stripped naked, and suffering flagellation with birch rods, at the
hands of two monks, before the shrine of Thomas à Becket. 2. The marriage
(as supposed) of Henry VI with Margaret of Anjou, representing, says Dr.

Rock[47], that portion of the ceremony which took place at the Church door;
formerly in a window of Rollright Church, Oxfordshire. There is no
evidence, however, to connect this representation with Henry VI, and it has
been conjectured to describe his marriage chiefly from its corresponding in
some very small degree to a representation of that event, formerly at
Strawberry Hill, and described and engraved in Walpole's Anecdotes of
Painting, i. 36. It is probably of an earlier date. 3. The doing homage by
William, King of Scotland, with his abbots and barons, to Henry II in York
Minster in 1171. Of the first of these, two coloured engravings, and of the
second, one, are found in a copy of Gutch's Wood, which came to the
Library from the same donor, Alderman Fletcher, in 1818, illustrated with
very numerous and curious engravings and drawings, as well as enriched
with some MS. notes, and bound in seven large quarto volumes[48].
The large coats of arms appear to have been inserted in 1716, as in the
accounts for that year we find, 'For paynted armes in the Library window,
£5.' But one coat of arms was put up in the year 1771, (q. v.)
It was in this year that the Library began to be enlarged with the gift of
copies of all works published by the members of the Stationers' Company,
in pursuance of an agreement made with them by Bodley, which became the
precursor of the obligations of the Copyright Acts. On Dec. 12 the
Company made a grant of one perfect copy of every book printed by them,
on condition that they should have liberty to borrow the books thus given, if
needed for reprinting, and also to examine, collate, and copy the books
which were given by others. An order of the Star-Chamber was made July
11, 1637, in confirmation of this grant[49]. The proposal of such an
agreement emanated from the Librarian James; but in the effecting it
Bodley says that he met with 'many rubs and delays[50].' Ayliffe say[51] that
the agreement was very well observed until about 1640. He should rather
have said 'about 1630,' for in that year, in a paper of notes made by the
Librarian for the use of Archbishop Laud, as Chancellor of the University
(in which the mention of a gift of books by Fetherston, a London
bookseller, fixes the date), complaint is made that the Company were very
negligent in sending their books, and it is suggested that a message from the
Chancellor might quickly remedy that neglect[52]. In 1642, Verneuil, the
Sub-Libraria[53], complained in the Preface to his Nomenclator, &c., of the

neglect which had then begun; mentioning the names of several
benefactors, he adds: 'These have beene more courteous than the Stationers
of London, who by indenture are bound to give the Library a copy of every
booke they print.' In the Visitation Order-Book, under the year 1695, is the
following 'memorandum' by Hyde, then Head Librarian: 'That in November,
1695, a copy of the indenture between Sir Thomas Bodley and the
Company of Stationers, as also a copy of their By-Law to inforce their
particular members to complyance, was sent up to the Master of the
Company to be communicated and publicly read to the Company once
every year, as is in the indenture expressed. The originall was also some
years agon carryed up and shewed to the Master and Wardens, because
some of them used to raile at the unjustness of the Act of Parliament in
forcing them to give a copy of each book to the Bodleian Library; and
therefore we shewed them that we had also another antecedent right to a
copy of each book printed by any member in their Company. The Indenture
mentions only the giving of books new printed, but the By-law mentions
books both new-printed and also reprinted with additions[54]. We have been
told that Sir Thomas Bodley gave to the Company 50 pounds worth of plate
when they entred into this Indenture. But its not mentioned in our counter-
part. Every book is to be delivered to the junior Warden within 10 dayes
after its off from the press, and we are to appoint somebody to demand
them of him. The obligation is upon every printer to give books; it were to
be wished it had been upon every proprietor; for the proprietor must give
them to us.'
[45] It is probably to aid given for the erection of this structure that the following
passage refers: 'To the building Bodley's Library at Oxford a considerable sum
was contributed by the Bishop of London, being his share of the moneys paid
into court for commutation of penance.' Archd. Hale's Notes to the Register of
Worcester (Camden Soc. 1855), p. cxxviii. Aid was also given by the Crown, for
on May 3, 1611, an order was issued by the Lord Treasurer to the officers of the
woods at Stow, Shotover, &c., near Oxford, to deliver to Sir T. Bodley, for
enlarging the Library, the timber which was to have been employed for making
the Thames navigable to Oxford, a work which did not proceed. (Calendar of
State Papers, Dom. Series, 1611-18, p. 28.)
[46] See also under 1818.
[47] Church of our Fathers, i. 421.
[48] Mr. Fletcher died in 1826, at the age of eighty-seven, and was buried (in a
stone coffin traditionally said to be that of Fair Rosamond) in the church of the
village where he was born, Yarnton, near Oxford. His tomb is remarkable as

exhibiting, before Architectural and Ecclesiological societies had been thought
of, an anticipation of better days in monumental design than had yet appeared; a
brass, upon a high altar-tomb, represents him clad in his aldermanic gown, with
his hands clasped in prayer. A bust of him is in the Picture Gallery.
[49] Rushworth, iii. 315.
[50] Reliquiæ Bodl. p. 350.
[51] Univ. of Oxford, i. 460.
[52] Calendar of State Papers, 1635-6, p. 65.
[53] See sub anno 1647.
[54] See sub anno 1612.

A.D. 1611.

The permanent endowment of the Library was commenced by the Founder
in this year, by the purchase, from Lord Norreys, of the manor of Hendons
by Maidenhead, worth annually £91 10s.; to which he added 'certain
tenements in London,' producing an annual rent of £40. From the former,
now called Hindhay farm, in the parishes of Bray and Cookham, Berks, the
Library receives an annual rent, at the present time, of about £220; the
latter, which consisted of houses situated in Distaff Lane, were sold in 1853,
and the produce invested in £3455 10s. 3 per cent. Consols.
The first book which came from the Stationers' Company, in pursuance of
the Indenture made in Dec. 1610, was an anonymous catechetical work
printed in this year by Felix Kingston for Thomas Man, entitled, 'Christian
Religion substantially, methodicallie, plainlie, and profitablie treatised.' It is
now numbered 4o R. 34 Th., and a note in Bodley's own handwriting
records its presentation.
Twenty Arabic, Persian, and other MSS, were presented by — Pindar,
Consul at Aleppo of the Company of English Merchants, whom Bodley
three years previously had requested to procure such books[55].
Among other minor matters which called forth the care of Bodley, was the
providing a bell for the purpose of giving notice when the Library was
about to be closed. After it had been placed in the Library some accident
appears to have happened to it, since we read in one of his letters to

James[56], 'As touching the bell, I would have it cast again, and if my
friends think it good, made somewhat better.' In 1655 a bell-rope was
bought at the price of 1s. 4d. Of late years, however, the Founder's bell had
altogether disappeared, and the fact of its very existence was unknown,
while a small hand-bell, suggestive of a muffin-man, and, more recently, a
hand-bell taken from a Chinese temple at Tien-tsin, and presented by Col.
Rigaud, supplied its place. But in July, 1866, in the course of moving some
boxes and rubbish buried under some stairs, a mouldy bell of considerable
size was dragged to light, which proved to be the missing bell of the
Founder. It was immediately put by the Librarian into the hands of Messrs.
White, of Appleton, Berks, who fitted it with a frame and wheel; and now,
restored to a conspicuous place in the great room, it daily thunders forth an
unmistakeable signal for departure. Around it, in gold letters, runs the
inscription:—'Sir Thomas Bodley gave this bell, 1611.' The bell-founder's
initials, W. S., are accompanied by the device of a crown between three
bells.
Another relic of Bodley's furniture is a massy iron chest, fastened with three
locks, two of which are enormous padlocks, for the preservation of the
moneys of the Library, of which the keys used to be in the custody of the
Vice-Chancellor and Proctors. This is now exhibited in the Picture Gallery,
on account of the extreme beauty of the ironwork of the locks, which covers
in its intricate ramifications the whole of the inside of the lid. On the
outside are painted the arms of the University (with the older motto
'Sapientiæ et Fælicitatis') and of Bodley.
[55] Hearne's Job. Glaston. ii. 637.
[56] Reliquiæ Bodl. p. 314.

A.D. 1612.

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

The agreement that was entered into by the Stationers' Company in 1610
having probably been found in some degree inoperative from the absence of
any penalty upon non-fulfilment, the Company at the commencement of
this year passed the following ordinance, which made it obligatory on every
one of their members to forward their books to the Library. It is here printed
(for the first time) from the original, preserved in the University Archives,
marked A. 27[57].
'Vicesimo octavo Januarii 1611 nono regni regis Jacobi, at
Stacõners Hall, in Ave Mary Lane in London. Present, the
Masters, Wardens, and Assistants of the Company of Stacõners.
'Forasmuch as this Companye out of their zeale to the
advancement of learninge, and at the request of the right
worshipfull Sir Thomas Bodley, Knight, founder of the presente
publique library of the University of Oxford, beinge readye to
manifeste their willinge desires to a worck of so great pietye and
benifitt to the generall state of the Realme, did by their
Indenture under their common seale dated the twelveth daye of
December in the eight yeare of his Maj.ts raigne of England,
Fraunce and Ireland, and the foure and fortith yere of his raigne
of Scotland, for them and their successors, graunte and confirme
vnto the Chauncellor, Maisters, and Schollers of the Universitie
of Oxford, and to their successors for ever, That of all bookes
after that from tyme to tyme to be printed in the said Company
of Stacõners, beinge newe books and coppies never printed
before, or thoughe formerly printed yet newly augmented or
enlarged, there should be freelie given one perfect Booke of
every such booke (in quyers) of the first ympression thereof,
towardes the furnishinge and increase of the said Library; Nowe
therefore, to the intent the said graunte maie take due effect in
the orderlie performance and execucõn thereof, and that so good
and godlie a worck and purpose maie not bee disappointed or
defeated by any meanes, It is ordayned by this Company, that all
and every printer and printers that from tyme to tyme hereafter
shall either for hym- or themselves, or for any other, printe or
cause to be printed any newe booke or coppie never printed
before, or although formerly printed yet newly augmented or

enlarged, shall within ten daies next after the finishinge of the
first ympression thereof and the puttinge of the same to sale,
bringe and deliver to the yonger warden of the said Company of
Stacõners for the tyme beinge one perfect booke thereof to be
delivered over by the same Warden to the recited use to the
handes of such person or persons as shalbe appoincted by the
said Chauncellour, Maisters and Schollers for the tyme beinge to
receive the same; And it is alsoe ordayned that every printer that
at any tyme or tymes hereafter shall make default in
performance hereof, shall for every such default forfeite and
paie to the use of this Company treble the value of every booke
that he shall leave undelivered contrarie to this ordenance; Out
of the which forfeiture, upon the levyinge and payment thereof,
there shalbe provided for the use of the said Librarye that booke
for the not delivery whereof the said forfeiture shalbe had and
paid. And to the intent all printers and others of this Company
whome it shall concerne maie take notice of this ordenance, and
that any of them shall not pretend ignorance thereof, It is
ordeyned that once in every yere at some generall assemblie and
meetinge of the said Company upon some of their usuall quarter
daies, or some other tyme in the yere at their discretion, this
presente ordinance shalbe publiquely read in their Hall, as other
their ordenances are accustomed to be read there
'John Haryson
'John Norton, Mr.
'Richard Field
'Humphrey Lownes } Wardens
'Edward White
'Humfry Hooper
'Simon Waterson
'William Leake
'Robert Barker
'Thomas Mane
'Thomas Dawson
'John Standishe
'Thomas Adames

'John Haryson[58]
'Ri. Collins, Clerk of the Companie.

'Havinge lately byn entreated, as well by the said Sir Thomas
Bodley, Knight, as by the Maister, Wardens, and Assistants of
the foresaid Company of Stacõners, to take some spetiall notice
of this their publique acte and graunte, and (in regard of our
beinge of his Maiestyes highe Comission in ecclesiasticall
causes) to testifie under our handes with what allowance and
good likinge we have thought it meete to be received, Wee doe
not onlie as of merrit comend it to posteritie for a singuler token
of the fervent zeale of that Company to the furtherance of good
learninge and for an exemplarie guift and graunt to the Schollers
and Studients of the Universitye of Oxford, But withall we doe
promise by subscribinge unto it, that if at any tyme hereafter
occasion shall require that we should help to maynteyne the due
and perpetuall execucõn of the same, Wee will be readie to
performe it, as farre as either of our selves thoroughe our present
authoritie or by any whatsoeuer our further endeavours it maie
be fitlye procured.

'G. Cant.
'Jo. London
'Jo. Benet
'Tho. Ridley
'Tho. Edwardes
'G. Newmane
'John Spenser
'Richard Moket
'R. Cov. & Lich.
'Jhon Boys
'Char. Fotherbye
'Martin Fotherby
'John Layfeilds
'Jo. Roffens
'George Montaigne (sic)
'Robt. Abbott

'Henr. Hickman
'John Dix
'Willm. FFerrand.'
[57] For the use of this document the author is indebted to the Keeper of the
Archives, Rev. J. Griffiths, M.A.
[58] Probably the son of the John Haryson who signs above.

A.D. 1613.

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

London,' that event, doubtless, necessitating the rebuilding of the houses in
Distaff Lane.
Bodley was charged by some of his contemporaries, and apparently with
some justice, with sacrificing in his will the claims of relatives and friends
too much to the interests of the Library. One Mr. John Chamberlain, a
friend of Bodley, whose gossiping letters to Sir Dudley Carleton, Alice
Carleton, and others, are preserved in the State Paper Office, does not spare
his accusations on this head. In a letter dated Feb. 4, 1613, he says that
Bodley has left legacies to great people, £7000 to the Library, and £200 to
Merton College, but little to his brothers, his old servants, his friends, or the
children of his wife, by whom he had all his wealth[62]. In another, dated
June 23, 1613, he remarks that the executors cannot excuse Bodley of
unthankfulness to many of his relatives and friends, he being 'so drunk with
the applause and vanitie of his librarie that he made no conscience to rob
Peter to pay Paul[63].' Some inferential corroboration of this is afforded by
the following curious paper preserved among Rawlinson's gatherings (now
in a vol. numbered Rawl. MS. Miscell., 1203), being no other than a
petition for relief addressed by the grand-nephew and grand-niece of
Bodley in the year 1712 (as appears from the Library accounts) to the
Heads of Houses and Curators of the Library, who appear both officially
and individually to have been very parsimonious in their response:—
'To the Worshipful Mr. Vice-Chancellor and to all heads and
governors of Colleges and Halls within the famous University of
Oxon.
'The humble petition of William Snoshill of East Lockinge in the
county of Berks, labourer, and of Jane the wife of Thomas
Hatton of Childrey in the county aforesaid, labourer, sister of the
said William Snoshill,
'Humbly sheweth,
'That your Petitioners being the grand-children of the sister of
Sir Thomas Bodley, the munificent founder of the Bodleian
Library in your University, being now reduc'd to a poor and low
estate, do with all humility make bold to represent their distrest
condition to your consideration, hoping that out of your tender

pity and commiseration, and that regard you have for the pious
memory of so great a benefactor to your University, to whom
your poor Petitioners are so nearly allied, you will be pleas'd to
consider them as real objects of your charity and compassion,
and thereby you will lay an eternal obligation on them of
praying for your present and future happiness.
'William Snoshill
'Jane Hatton.
'We, whose names are subscribed to this Petition, are well
satisfied of the truth thereof.

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

'(Mem.) The Curators gave the Petitioners the sum of four
pounds out of Sir Thomas Bodley's chest. Dr. Altham, Hebrew
professor, and Dr. Hudson, Library-keeper, gave, each of them,
ten shillings.'
An alphabetical catalogue was prepared in this year by James, but was not
printed. The MS, in two small hand-books, remains in the Library. It was
ordered by the Curators, at the Visitation on Nov. 13, that 6s. 8d. be paid
quarterly to the Bedel of the Stationers' Company as a gratuity for his
trouble. MSS. were received from Edw. James, B.D., who had been a
contributor already in the year 1601.
[59] Calendar of State Papers, 1611-18, p. 137.
[60] A full account of Bennet's defalcations is given by B. Twyne, from the
University Registers, in vol. vi. (pp. 120-4) of his Collectanea, now in the Univ.
Archives. See also Parliam. Hist. vol. v. p. 462.
[61] These accounts, as now preserved, unfortunately only commence at the year
1653, and there is a hiatus from 1661 to 1676, both inclusive.
[62] Calendar of State Papers, 1611-18, p. 169.
[63] Ibid. p. 187.

A.D. 1614.

Various orders were made by the Curators at the Visitation on Nov. 10,
which are prefixed to the small MS. 'hand-catalogues' made at that time for
the use of those authorities. They resolve that the catalogues of newly-
published works issued at Frankfort in each spring and summer shall be
examined by them within one week after their arrival. They make an
attempt to obtain possession of a gift of the Founder's giving, which had
never yet reached the place of its intended deposit. In 1609 it had been
reported to Convocation that there was about to be sent to the Library by Sir
T. Bodley 'toga ex lana agni Tartarici ζωοφυτον, magni quidam valoris, ei
data (ut in publica Bibliotheca conservetur) ab Richardo Lee, milite, qui
eandem dono recepit ab augustissimo Imperatore Muscoviæ[64].' But the
precious cloak had never yet arrived; the Curators therefore resolve 'quod
literæ scribantur ad exequutores domini Fundatoris pro illo pretioso pallio
ex zoophyto confecto, et legato ad nos per Ric. Leigh, militem, olim
legatum apud Imperatorem Russiæ, et quod in cista ex ligno bene olenti, ad
eam finem comparanda, reponatur in archivis, munita sera affabre facta;
clavis permaneat semper apud Vice-Cancellarium vel ejus deputatum, nec
cuiquam illud inspiciendi vel contrectandi potestas esto, nisi in præsentia
eorundem.' At this Visitation Joseph Barnes, the Oxford printer, appeared
and promised to give a copy of every book which he might print. Complaint
was made that the London Stationers had already begun to fail in the
fulfilment of their agreement.
On Aug. 29 the King visited the Library on his way to Woodstock, and,
asking for Fulke's Annotations on the Rhemish New Test., pointed out the
remarks at Rom. x. 15, on the calling of ministers; 'deprehendit calumnias et
imposturas quorundam pontificiorum de ordine et vocatione
ministrorum[65].' In 1620 the editions of 1601 and 1617 of these
Annotations were both in the Library, as appears from the Catalogue of that
year, but in Hyde's Catalogue, published in 1674, only the edition of 1633 is
found. This is one out of various instances which prove that, by a great
miscalculation of literary value, later editions of a writer's works were
thought to supersede so entirely the earlier, that the latter could be
advantageously parted with. The Library has, however, since become re-
possessed of the earlier editions, that of 1601 having been presented in

1824, and that of 1617 having been bought more recently. But the most
remarkable example of this mistaken alienation of books occurs with
reference to the first folio edition of Shakespeare. In the Supplemental
Catalogue of 1635, the folio of 1623 duly appears; but in the Catalogue of
1674 we find only the third edition, that of 1664, which doubtless had been
thought to be sufficient as well as best; upon its arrival, therefore, from
Stationers' Hall, the precious volume of 1623 was probably regarded as
little more than waste-paper. Nor was it until the year 1821, when Malone's
collection was received, that a copy was again possessed by the Library[66].
[64] 'Reg. Conv. K. f. 43,' MS. note by Dr. P. Bliss. Bodley mentions in a letter to
James his expectation of exhibiting the 'lamb's-wool-gown' to the King. Reliqq.
Bodl. 173. An account of this marvellous garment will be found in the Appendix.
[65] Wood's Hist. vol. ii. p. 319.
[66] The extraordinary fancy prices sometimes given for books, and their
variations, are particularly exemplified in the case of the first folio Shakespeare.
In 1778 Stevens said it was 'usually valued at seven or eight' guineas.
(Shakespeare, second edit. vol. i. p. 239.) At the Roxburghe sale (a sufficiently
bibliomaniacal one) in 1812 a copy was sold for £100; in 1864 Miss Burdett
Coutts gave for Mr. G. Daniel's specially fine copy, £716 2s.; while in July, 1867,
a copy belonging to a Mr. — Smith was sold for £410. In Dec. 1867 another
copy was on sale at Mr. Beet's, the bookseller, to which the owner very discreetly
attached in his catalogue no specific sum.

A.D. 1615.

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

whose name does not appear, to whom probably she presented the book,
occurs in the blank portion of one of the leaves:—
'Geate you such riches as when the shype is broken, may swyme
away wythe the Master. For dyverse chances take away the
goods of fortune; but the goods of the soule whyche bee only the
trewe goods, nother fyer nor water can take away. Yf you take
labour and payne to doo a vertuous thyng, the labour goeth
away, and the vertue remaynethe. Yf through pleasure you do
any vicious thyng, the pleasure goeth away and the vice
remaynethe. Good Madame, for my sake remembre thys.
'Your lovyng mystres,
'Marye Princesse.'
This inscription (which does so much credit to its writer) was first printed
by Hearne at the end of Titi Livii Forojulien. Vita Hen. V. (p. 228) and last,
in Bliss' Reliquiæ Hearn. i. 105. Mr. Coxe has noted (from Alstedii Systema
Mnemonicum, 1610, i. 705) that the latter part is taken directly and literally
from Musonius, while indirectly it comes from an oration by Cato[68].
Probably the first part may be traced to some similar source.
Another autograph inscription by Mary while Princess is found in a small
book (Laud MS. Miscell. i.) of private prayers in Latin and English, which
belonged to Jane Wriothesley, wife of Thomas Earl of Southampton, and
which she seems to have employed as a kind of album. At f. 45a are these
lines, which appear to form a triplet, although not written in metrical form
by the Princess:—

'Good Madame, I do desyer you most hartly to pray,
That in prosperyte and adversyte I may
Have grace to keep the trewe way.

'Your lovyng frend,
to my ... [power?]'
Unfortunately the conclusion, with the signature, has been cut off. A
couplet, signed by Queen Katherine Parr, has an equal, and most regal,
disregard of the restraints of metrical rhythm (f. 8b.):—

'Madam, althowe I have differred writtyng in your booke,
I am no lesse your frend than you do looke.

'Kateryn the Quene KP.'
Other inscriptions are inserted by Margaret Queen of Scotland, Mary
Countess of Lennox and mother of Lord Darnley, and by the Countess of
Southampton's daughters, Elizabeth, Mary, and Anne.
James Button, Esq., of the county of Worcester, gave, on March 28, a
curious relic of the ancient language of Cornwall, being three Miracle-Plays
of the Creation, the Passion, and the Resurrection, in Cornish, contained in
a MS. on vellum, small folio, eighty-three leaves, written in the fifteenth
century; now numbered Bodl. 791. A copy on paper of the Play of the
Creation, written by John Jordan in 1611, is also in the Library, numbered
Bodl. 219, which appears to have come from the library of King James I,
having the royal crown stamped on the parchment cover, with the initials
I.K. A second modern copy has also been recently presented (in 1849) by
Edwin Ley, Esq., of Bosahan, Cornwall, which is accompanied by a
translation by John Keigwyn, made in 1695. The dramas were printed in
two volumes at the University Press, with a translation, notes, and glossary,
by Mr. Edwin Norris, in 1859.
Some MSS. were given about this time by the three sons of Rich. Colf,
D.D., and in 1618 twenty Greek volumes by Cecil, Earl of Exeter.
[67] The gift is omitted in the Benefaction-Register, apparently because it was a
rule not to record donations of single volumes [Reliquiæ Bodl. pp. 91, 283];
consequently several books of the greatest value are omitted.
[68] George Herbert expresses the same idea at the end of his Church Porch:—

'If thou do ill, the joy fades, not the pains;
If well, the pain doth fade, the joy remains.'

A.D. 1620.

At the beginning of May, James resigned the office of Librarian, but not as
Wood says, on account of his promotion to the Subdeanery of Wells, since
that took place in the year 1614. His appointment to the rectory of
Mongeham, Kent (also mentioned by Wood), was in 1617. He continued,

however, to reside in Oxford, and dying there in August, 1629, was buried
in New College Chapel.
On the 9th of the same month of May, John Rouse, M.A., Fellow of Oriel,
was elected James' successor. No account of him is given by Wood,
possibly from dislike of his Puritanical principles, and of his continuing to
hold office during the usurpation. He appears to have discharged his trust in
the Library with faithfulness, and, at least, to have deserved some mention
at the historiographer's hands for the Appendix to the Catalogue which he
issued in the year 1635 (q.v.)[69] He is best known as the friend of Milton,
who, on Rouse's application to him for a copy of his Poems both English
and Latin, published in 1645, in the place of one previously given by
Milton which had been lost, sent the volume, together with a long
autograph Latin Ode, dated Jan. 23, 1646 (-7), and bearing the following
title: 'Ad Joannem Rousium, Oxoniensis Academiæ Bibliothecarium, de
libro poematum amisso quem ille sibi denuo mitti postulabat, ut cum aliis
nostris in Bibliotheca publica reponeret, Ode Joannis Miltonj[70].' The
volume is now numbered 8o. M. 168 Art. A facsimile of a considerable
portion of the Ode (which Cowper translated into English, and which is said
to have been the last of Milton's Latin poetical effusions) is given in plate
xvii. of Sam. Leigh Sotheby's sumptuous volume, entitled Ramblings in the
Elucidation of the Autograph of Milton, 4o. Lond. 1861; and at p. 120 there
is a facsimile in full of Milton's inscription in another volume (4o. F. 56 Th.)
which contains a collection of the political and polemical treatises
published by him in the years 1641-5. This latter inscription, which gives a
list of the contents of the volume, is addressed as follows: 'Doctissimo viro
proboque librorum æstimatori Joanni Rousio, Oxoniensis academiæ
Bibliothecario, gratum hoc sibi fore testanti, Joannes Miltonius opuscula
hæc sua in Bibliothecam antiquissimam atque celeberrimam adsciscenda
libens tradit, tanquam in memoriæ perpetuæ Fanum, emeritamque, uti
sperat, invidiæ calumniæque vacationem; si Veritati, Bonoque simul
Eventui satis litatum sit.' Warton tells the almost incredible story, in his
edition of Milton's Poems, that about the year 1720 these two volumes were
thrown out into a heap of duplicates, from which Nathaniel Crynes, who
afterwards bequeathed his own collection to the Library[71], was permitted
to pick out what he pleased for himself; fortunately, however, he was too
good a royalist and churchman to choose anything that bore the name of

Milton, and so the books, despised and rejected on both sides, by mere
chance remained in the place of their original deposit! Such an incident, if
true, goes far to justify the charges of ignorance and neglect of the Library
which Hearne in his Diary constantly brings against Hudson, the Librarian
at that time, and those whom he employed.
The second edition of the Catalogue was issued by James, shortly after his
resignation of his office, with a Dedication to Prince Charles, and a Preface
dated June 30. It consists of 539 quarto pages, in double columns. It
abandons the classified arrangement of the former Catalogue, and adopts
that (followed ever since) of one alphabet of names. James, in his Preface,
gives as his reason for this course, the frequent difficulty (already
experienced even in so small a collection) of deciding to what class a book
should be assigned, and the inconvenience resulting from division of the
works of the same author. He points out the value of the Library to
foreigners, who can there consult 16,000 volumes for six hours a day,
excepting Sundays and holidays[72]. As instances of the copiousness of its
stores, he mentions that there are to be found above 100 folio and quarto
volumes on Military Art, in Greek, Latin, and other languages; and that
there are 3000 or 4000 books in French, Italian, and Spanish. He notes that
heretical and schismatical books are not to be read without leave of the
Vice-Chancellor and Regius Professor of Divinity; and makes some
remarks on the method of keeping a Common-place-book. He gives as the
reason for his quitting his post, his severe sufferings from stone and
paralysis[73].
On June 4, King James presented the folio edition of his Works as edited by
Bishop Montague. The book (now marked B. 14. 17. Theol.) contains the
following presentation inscription, written and signed by Sir R. Naunton:—
'Jacobus Dei gratia Magnæ Britanniæ, Franciæ et Hiberniæ Rex, fidei
defensor, &c. Postquam decrevisset publici juris facere quæ sibi erat
commentatus, ne videretur vel palam pudere literarum quas privatim
amaverat, vel eorum seu opinioni seu invidiæ cedere qui Regis Majestatem
literis dictitabant imminui, vel Christiani Orbis et in eo Principum judicia
expavescere, quorum maxime intererat vera esse omnia quæ scripsit;
circumspicere etiam cœpit certum aliquod libro suo domicilium, locum, si
fieri possit, semotum a fato, æternitati et paci sacrum. Ecce commodum sua

se obtulit Academia, illa pæne orbi notior quam Cantabrigiæ, ubi exulibus
Musis jam olim melius est quam in patria, ubi a codicibus famæ nuncupatis
tineæ absterrentur legentium manibus, sycophantæ scribentium ingeniis. In
hoc immortali literarum sacrario, inter monumenta clarorum virorum, quos
quantum dilexit studiorum participatione satis indicavit, in bibliotheca
publica, lucubrationes has suas Deo Opt. Max., Cui ab initio devotæ erant,
æternum consecrat, in venerando Almæ Matris sinu, unde contra seculorum
rubiginem fidam illi custodiam promittit, et contra veritatis hostes stabile
patrocinium.'
The book, which was carried to Oxford by a special deputation, consisting
of Patrick Young, the Librarian at St. James's (to whom £20 was given by
the University for his pains), and others, was received by the University
with great ceremony. A Convocation was held in St. Mary's Church, on May
29, at which an oration was delivered by Rich. Gardiner, the Deputy-Orator,
and at which a letter of thanks was approved (which is printed in Wood's
Annals, ii. 336); from thence the Vice-Chancellor, attended by 24 doctors in
their scarlet robes, and a mixed multitude of others, carried it in solemn
procession to the Library, where the keeper, Rouse, 'made a verie prettie
speech,' says Patrick Young, 'and placed it in archivis ... with a great deale
of respect[74].' The King was greatly pleased with the formality and flattery
with which his works were received, and the more so 'because Cambridge
received them without extraordinary respect[75].'
Another gift in this year, presented by Thomas Nevile, K.B., eldest son of
Sir H. Nevile, Knt., is thus described in the Register: 'Elegantissimum
libellum diversa scripturæ genera continentem, manu Esteris Anglicæ,
characteribus exquisitis conscriptum.' This is, doubtless, the MS. of the
Book of Proverbs, dated 1599, in which every chapter, as well as the
dedication to the Earl of Essex, is written in a different style of caligraphy,
which is now exhibited in the glass case nearest the entrance to the Library.
It is an extremely beautiful specimen of the handiwork of Mrs. Esther
Inglis, of whose skill the Library possesses another and smaller specimen
(Bodl. 987), consisting of some French verses by Guy de Faur, Sieur de
Pybrac, written for Dr. Joseph Hall (afterwards the Bishop of Norwich), in
1617. These are described in the account of Mrs. Inglis, in Ballard's
Memoirs of British Ladies. A third specimen of her work is in the Library of

Ch. Ch.: it is a Psalter in French, presented to Queen Elizabeth in 1599,
bound in embroidered crimson velvet, set with pearls[76].
The Douay Bible of 1609 was presented by Sir Rich. Anderson, and a
Persian MS. of the Liturgy of the Greek Church by Sir Thos. Roe. The first
architectural model also was given in this year; but unfortunately it is not
now extant. Its description is as follows: 'Clemens Edmonds, eques auratus,
consilio Regis ab epistolis, donavit egregium παραδειγμα quinque
columnarum, nunc primum inventum, secundum formam rusticam, ex
alabastrite singulari artificio confectum.'

[69] One fact to his credit is indeed mentioned by Wood in the Fasti, under the
year 1648, viz. that he prevented the then Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Reynolds, and the
Proctors from breaking open Bodley's chest in search of money, by assuring
them that there was nothing in it. Hearne (MS. Diary, vol. xii. p. 13) says that
Rouse inserted a portrait of Sir Thos. Bodley, done at his own charge, in the
window of the room which he occupied on the west side of Oriel College.
[70] Cowley followed Milton's example by inserting an Ode, in this case in
English, in a folio copy of his Poems (numbered C. 2. 21. Art.), which he gave
June 26, 1656. It is printed exactly from the original in Reliquiæ Hearn. ii. 921-
3.
[71] See sub anno 1745.
[72] At this time there were only two other public libraries in Europe, both later
in date than the Bodleian, viz. that of Angelo Rocca at Rome, opened in 1604,
and the Ambrosian at Milan, opened in 1609. The fourth public library was that
of Card. Mazarin at Paris, opened in 1643. Evidence of the consequent
appreciation by foreigners of the advantages of the Bodleian Library is given
under the year 1641.
[73] An Appendix to James' Catalogue was printed in 1635, q. v.
[74] Nichols' Progresses of James I, vol. iii. p. 1105. Rouse's speech (with the
letter) is printed in Hearne's Titus Liv. Forojul. p. 198.
[75] Letter from J. Chamberlain to Sir D. Carleton, June 28, 1620: Calendar of
State Papers, 1619-23, p. 157.
[76] An account of Mrs. Esther Inglis, and of all her known existing MSS., is
preparing for publication by David Laing, Esq., LL.D., of Edinburgh.

A.D. 1621.

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

A.D. 1623.

Delegates were appointed by Convocation to consider 'de modulo
frontispicii Bibliothecæ publicæ in parte occidentali versus collegium
Exon[77].'
[77] Reg. Conv. N. ff. 167, 169.

A.D. 1624.

'Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, and then Lord Chancellor of England, would
have borrowed Paulus Benius Eugubinus De dirimend. Controvers. de Grat.
et Lib. Arb., but was deny'd[78].'
The first theft of a book from the Library occurred in this year. An account
of it, with several others, will be found in a note to the year 1654.
[78] Barlow's MS. Arg. against lending books out of the Library; see post, sub
anno 1659.

A.D. 1627.

Andrew James, of Newport, Isle of Wight, is recorded to have given 'duas
capsulas in quibus asservantur scripta vetustissima, exotici et ignoti
characteris, alia stylo, calamo alia, in corticibus exarata, ex orientalis Indiæ
partibus allata[79].' An East India merchant, John Jourdain, gave four Arabic
MSS., and Bacon's Works were presented by Peter Ince, a bookseller at
Chester. It appears from the Register that Joseph Barnes, the Oxford printer
and publisher, died in this year, as he bequeathed a legacy of £5.
[79] At the end of the Barocci collection (numbered 245, 246, in the Catalogue
of 1697) are two Javanese MSS., written on palm-leaves: the one written with a
reed in the sacred or Pali character, preserved in a box; the other written with a
style in the common character, and having the leaves tied together in the usual
manner between two boards. As there does not seem to be any evidence for
supposing that Barocci's collection included any Oriental MSS., it is possible
that these were the writings 'ignotis characteris' given two years previously by
Andr. James.

A.D. 1628.

Twenty-nine MSS., all of which, except three, are Greek, were given by Sir
Thomas Roe, who had previously been ambassador in Turkey, and who
afterwards sat, at the commencement of the Long Parliament, as Burgess
for the University, in company with Selden. One of the three exceptions is
an original copy of the Synodal Epistles of the Council of Basle, with the
leaden seal attached; and another, a valuable Arabic MS. of the Apostolic
Canons, &c., which is noticed at length by Selden in the second book of his
treatise, De Synedriis Hebræorum. Roe proposed that his books should be
permitted to be lent out for purposes of printing, on proper security being

given; a proposition which was accepted by Convocation[80]. Special
licence of borrowing Lord Pembroke's (the Barocci) and Roe's MSS. was
granted by the donors themselves to Dr. Lindsell (afterwards Bishop of
Peterborough and Hereford) and Patrick Young, the keeper of the King's
Library at St. James's. The latter is found, from the Register of Readers, to
have used his privilege as late as Feb. and March, 1647-8, various volumes
of Pembroke's MSS. being then lent to him, together with some marked
'Archbp.', which were doubtless Laud's[81].
The copy of Bacon's Essays (1625) which was presented by the author to
the Duke of Buckingham, was given to the Library by Lewis Roberts, a
merchant of London. It is now exhibited among the curiosities in the first
glass case, as a specimen of binding, being clad in green velvet,
embroidered with gold and silver thread, with the head of the duke worked
in silk. The same donor also presented the copy of Bishop Williams' Funeral
Sermon on James I, which had been given to the same duke by the author.
Several other specimens of embroidered bindings are preserved in the
Library, which are all, it is believed, comprehended in the following list[82]:
—

1. A part of L. Tomson's version of the New Test., printed by Barker, in 16o
(in 1578?), now marked MS. e Musæo, 242. This belonged to Queen
Elizabeth, and is bound in a covering worked by herself, with various
mottos, e.g. 'Celum patria,' 'Scopus vitæ Xpũs,' &c. And on a fly-leaf occurs
this note in her handwriting: 'August[ine?]. I walke manie times into the
pleasant fieldes of the Holye Scriptures, where I plucke up the goodlie
greene herbes of sentences by pruning, eate them by reading, chawe them
by musing, and laie them up at length in the hie seate of memorie by
gathering them together; that so hauing tasted thy sweetenes I may the lesse
perceave the bitternes of this miserable life[83].'
2. Another of Elizabeth's bibliopegic achievements is the cover of her own
translation from the French of The Miroir or Glasse of the synnefull Soule,
executed when only eleven years old. She says that she translated it 'out of
frenche ryme into englishe prose, joyning the sentences together as well as
the capacitie of my symple witte and small lerning coulde extende
themselves;' and prefixes a dedication, dated 'from Assherige, the laste daye
of the yeare of our Lord God, 1544,' in which, 'to our moste noble and

vertuous quene Katherin, Elizabeth her humble daughter wisheth perpetuall
felicitie and everlasting ioye.' The volume consists of 63 small quarto
leaves, and has the queen's initials K. P. embroidered within an ornamental
border of gold and silver thread, on a ground of blue corded silk. It is
numbered Cherry MS. 38.
3. Dialogue de la Vie et de la Mort, trans. from the Italian by J. Louveau,
and printed in imitation of MS., second edit., 12o. Lyon, 1558. Red velvet,
embroidered with gold and silver thread. A French inscription on a fly-leaf
is in a handwriting resembling that of Queen Elizabeth. Bodl. MS., 660.

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

5. Bible, 8o Lond. 1639. Landscape, &c., worked in silk, with embroidery
in gold and silver thread. Arch Bodl. D subt. 75.
6. Prayer-book, New Test., and Metrical Psalms, 1630-1, bound by the nuns
of Little Gidding. Exhibited in the glass case. Bought in 1866 for £10[84].

7. New Testament, printed at Cambridge in 1628, in 16mo. This was the first
edition printed there of any portion of the Authorized Version, and only the
second of any English translation[85]. The binding of the Library copy
(which was bought, in 1859, for five guineas) is covered with silver filigree
work.
Among Dr. Rawlinson's multifarious collections is a volume of curious
early specimens of worked samplers, humorously lettered on the back,
'Works of Learned Ladies.'
[80] 'Reg. Conv. R. 1628. f. 6.' MS. note by Dr. P. Bliss.
[81] See sub anno 1635.

[82] A lady, whose name is not mentioned, but who is graced with the
appellation of 'heroina,' is recorded to have given to the University the Life of
our Blessed Lord depicted in needle-work, 'byssina et aurata textura,' which was
duly presented in Convocation on July 9, 1636. [Reg. Conv. R. 24.] It is not now
preserved in the Library.
[83] This note is printed and the book described in Hearne's Appendix to Titi
Livii Forojul. Vit. Hen. V, and, from thence, in Ballard's Lives; but not very
correctly in either case. Also in Bliss' Reliqq. Hearn. i. 104.
[84] In the life of Rich. Ferrar, junior, in Wordsworth's Eccl. Biogr. (third edit.
vol. iv. p. 232) a note is quoted from a MS. stating that a copy of Ferrar's Whole
Law of God, bound by the nuns of Gidding in green velvet, was given to the
University Library by Archbp. Laud. This is a mistake; the book in question was
given by the Archbishop to the library of his own college, St. John's, where it
still remains.
[85] The first was the Genevan Version, printed in 1591.

A.D. 1629.

The extremely valuable series of Greek MSS., called from its collector the
Barocci Collection, comprising 242 volumes, was presented by Will.
Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and Chancellor of the University. The manner of
its acquisition is recorded in Archbp. Usher's correspondence. In a letter
from Dublin of Jan. 22, 1628-9, Usher says: 'That famous library of
Giacomo Barocci, a gentleman of Venice, consisting of 242 manuscript
volumes, is now brought into England by Mr. Featherstone the stationer[86].'
He recommended that the King should buy it, and add to it the collection of
Arabic MSS. which the Duke of Buckingham had bought of the heirs of
Erpenius[87]. On April 13, 1629, Sir H. Bourgchier writing to Usher, tells
him that the Earl of Pembroke has bought the collection, for the University
of Oxford, at the price of £700, and that it consists of 250 volumes[88]. It
was forwarded to the University with the following letter, which is here
copied from the Convocation Register, R. 24 (f. 9b.):—
'Good Mr. Vice-Chancelor,
'Understanding of an excellent collection of Greke manuscripts
brought from Venice, and thincking that they would bee of more
use to the Church in being kept united in some publick Librarye
then scattered in particular hands; remembring the obligation I
had to my mother the Universitie, first for breeding mee, after

for the honor they did mee in making mee their Chancelor, I was
glad of this occasion to repay some part of that great debt I owe
her. And therefore I sent you downe the collection entire, which
I pray present with my beste love to the Convocation house. And
I shall unfaynedly remaine,
'Your most assured freind,
'PEMBROKE.
'Greenewich, the 25th of May, 1629.'
The Earl was willing that the MSS. should, if necessary, be allowed to be
borrowed. And, in pursuance of this expressed wish, Patrick Young had, in
1648, the use of various MSS. from this collection, as we find from a
memorandum at the end of the Register of Readers in 1648-9. But one MS.
suffered in consequence considerable injury[89]. A further portion of the
collection (consisting of 22 Greek MSS. and 2 Russian), which had been
retained by the Earl, was subsequently purchased by Oliver Cromwell, and
given by him to the Library in 1654. There they still bear the Protector's
name; but, strange to say, no entry of the gift appears in the Benefaction
Book[90]. These are all fully described in the first volume of the general
Catalogue of MSS., published by Rev. H. O. Coxe in 1853. A Catalogue of
the Barocci and Roe MSS., by Dr. Peter Turner, of Merton College,
beautifully written, filling 38 folio leaves, is bound up among Selden's
printed books, marked AA. 1. Med. Seld.
On Aug. 27, the Library was visited for the first time by King Charles and
his Queen, little anticipating under what circumstances that visit would be
repeated. He was received with an oration by the Public Orator, Strode, a
copy of which is preserved in Smith MS. xxvi. 26, and which, in the
exaggerated style of the Court-adulation of the time, began with words that
sound blasphemously in our ears, 'Excellentissime Vice-Deus.' From the
Library the King ascended to the leads of the Schools; and there discussed
the proposed removal of some mean houses in Cat Street, which then
intervened between the Schools and St. Mary's Church. A plan of the
ground and buildings was made at his desire, which was sent up to him at
London.
[86] In the following year Mr. Henry Featherstone, bookseller in London, gave
to the Library a number of Hebrew books.

[87] Parr's Life of Usher, Letters, p. 400.
[88] Ibid. Quoted in Sir H. Ellis' Letters of Eminent Literary Men, Camden Soc.,
1843. p. 130.
[89] See sub anno 1654.
[90] Richard Cromwell proposed at one time to perpetuate his own name in the
Library, together with his father's, by sending a collection of the addresses which
had been made to him, in order to show the temper of the nation, and the
readiness of the greatest persons 'to compliment people on purpose for secular
interest.' Reliquiæ Hearn. i. 263.

A.D. 1631.

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

A.D. 1632.

William Burton, the historian of Leicestershire, gave the original MSS. of
Leland's Itinerary (together with a transcript of some parts) and of his
Collectanea; the former filling seven volumes in quarto[91], and the latter
(including the book De Scriptoribus Britannicis) four in folio. The
Collectanea, after the death of Leland, had been in the possession of Sir
John Cheke, to whom Edward VI entrusted the custody of Leland's papers;
on his going into exile in the reign of Queen Mary, he gave them to
Humphrey Purefoy, Esq., whose son, Thomas Purefoy, presented them to
Burton in the year 1612. The Itinerary was first published by Hearne in
1710, in 9 vols.; the Collectanea in 1715, in 6 vols.; the De Scriptoribus, by
Ant. Hall, in 1709. The MS. of the Itinerary is much stained and injured by
damp; but it is no longer in the perishable condition described by Hearne.
There are, besides, three transcripts of it in the Library; one, of part of the
book (Bodl. 470) is a copy (mentioned above) which was made for Burton,
and sent by him to Rouse, with a letter dated 'Lindley, Leic. 17 July, 1632,'
in which he describes it as being 'written, though not with so fine a letter,
yet with a judicious hand.' He says that another part is 'now (as I heere) in
the hands of Doctor Burton, Archdeacon of Gloucester, which he received

by loane from a freind of mine, but never yet restored; the which, I thinke,
upon request he will impart unto you;' and adds, 'Some more partes there
were of this Itinerary, but through the negligence of him to whom they
were first lent, are embesiled and gone.' He undertakes to send the three
parts of the Collectanea and the book De Scriptt. Angliæ, according to
promise, as soon as he has done using them. Another copy, made by Burton
himself in 1628, was given to Dr. W. Stukeley by Thomas Allen, Esq., lord
of Finchley, in June, 1758, and finally came to the Library with Gough's
collection. It is now numbered Gough, General Topog. 2. It is injured by
damp at the beginning, but has been repaired by Stukeley. The third copy is
a later transcript, also in Gough's collection, and numbered General Topog.
1.
[91] An eighth volume of the Itinerary was given by Charles King, M.A. of Ch.
Ch. some time subsequently, having been lent by Burton and not recovered at the
time of his own gift.

A.D. 1633.

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

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

A.D. 1634.

In this year Sir Kenelm Digby gave a collection of 238 MSS. (including
five rolls) all on vellum, uniformly bound, and stamped with his arms,
which still form a distinct series. They are, for the most part, of the highest
interest and importance, especially with reference to the early history of
science in England. Amongst them are works by Roger Bacon, Grosteste,
Will. Reade, John Eschyndon or Ashton, Roger of Hereford, Richard
Wallingford, Simon Bredon, Thomas of New-market, and many others.
They also comprise much relating to the general history of England, and are
almost entirely the work of English scribes. Many of them had previously
belonged to Thomas Allen, of Gloucester Hall, who himself was a liberal
donor to the Library. [See p. 19.] Two additional MSS., which formerly
belonged to Digby, and which each contain his inscription, 'Hic est liber
publicæ Bibliothecæ academiæ Oxoniensis, K.D.,' were purchased in 1825.
One of these, R. Baconis opuscula, was bought for £51; the other, a Latin
translation, by W. de Morbeck, of Proclus' Commentary on Plato, for £31
10s. They are uniformly bound with the rest of the series, and are numbered
235 and 236 respectively.
The donor stipulated that his MSS. should not be strictly confined to use
within the walls of the Library. Archbishop Laud says, in the letter in
which, as Chancellor, he announced the gift to the University, 'hee will not
subiect these manuscripts to the strictnes of Sir Thomas Bodley's
statutes[92], but will haue libertie given for any man of woorth, that wilbee
at the paines and charge to print any of these bookes, to haue them oute of
the Librarye vpon good caution giuen; but to that purpose and noe other[93].'
But he afterwards left the University at liberty to deal as it pleased with his
MSS. in this particular, as well as in all other questions that might arise
concerning his books. In a letter to Dr. Langbaine, dated Nov. 7, 1654, he

says: 'The absolute disposition of them in all occurrences dependeth wholly
and singly of the University; for she knoweth best what will be most for her
service and advantage, and she is absolute mistress to dispose of them as
she pleaseth[94].' He mentions in the same letter two trunks of Arabic MSS.
which he gave to Archbp. Laud to send to the University or to St. John's
College, but he never heard whether they reached their destination or no.
He promises also to send over some more MSS. from France when he has
returned thither; since, when the troubles of the Rebellion drove him into
exile, he had carried his library with him. Upon the Restoration, however,
and his own return to England, he unfortunately left his books behind; and
after his death they were confiscated by the French King as belonging to an
alien, and subsequently sold. Doubtless the two MSS. acquired in 1825
were among those to which his letter refers.
The first stone of the western end of the Library, with the Convocation
House beneath, was laid on May 13, 1634; it was fitted up with shelves and
ready for use by 1640. Selden's books were placed here in 1659. The
hideous great west window is a monument of the bad taste of the time; it is
much to be hoped that it may some day be replaced by a window more
worthy of its conspicuous position, and affording a less marked contrast
with its opposite neighbour, the noble east window erected by Bodley
himself.
[92] See under 1654-9.
[93] Reg. Conv. R. 24, 102. From MS. note by Dr. Bliss.
[94] [Walker's] Letters by Eminent Persons, from the Bodl. and Ashm., 1813, vol.
i. pp. 2, 3.

A.D. 1635.

In this year Rouse issued an Appendix to the Catalogue published in 1620,
consisting of 208 pages in quarto, in double columns, and containing, as he
says, about 1500 authors. James, on the title-page of his Catalogue in 1620,
speaks of an Appendix accompanying that issue; hence, probably, it is that
the words 'Editio secunda' are placed on the title of the Appendix of 1635.
But, strange to say, no copy of the earlier Appendix can now be found
existing in the Library. At the end of the later one is added [by John
Verneuil, then Sub-Librarian,] an anonymous enlarged edition (which was

also sold separately) of James' Catalogus interpretum S. Script, in Bibl.
Bodl., with an Appendix of authors who had written on the Sentences and
the Summa, on the Sunday-Gospels, on Cases of Conscience, on the Lord's
Prayer, the Apostles' Creed, and the Decalogue. A book giving an account
of all the copies of the Catalogue sold between 1620-47, with the names of
the purchasers, still exists, the latter part being in the handwriting of
Verneuil; but some leaves have been torn out at the year 1635. It appears
from this book that the price of James' Catalogue was 2s. 8d., that of the
Catalogue of Interpreters 6d., of the Appendix 2s., and of the whole series
complete 5s.

A.D. 1635-1640.

The Register for these years presents a connected series of benefactions on
the part of Archbishop Laud.
On May 22, 1635, he sent to the Library the first instalment of his
magnificent gifts of MSS. which consisted of 462 volumes and five rolls.
Among these were 46 Latin MSS., 'e Collegio Herbipolensi [Würtzburg] in
Germania sumpti A.D. 1631, cum Suecorum Regis exercitus per universam
fere Germaniam grassarentur.' Laud directs, in his letter of gift, that none of
the books shall on any account be taken out of the Library, 'nisi solum ut
typis mandentur, et sic publici et juris et utilitatis fiant,' upon sufficient
security, to be approved by the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors; the MS., in
such cases, being immediately after printing restored to its place in the
Library[95]. This permission was acted upon in the year 1647-8, when
Patrick Young, the Librarian of the Royal Library at St. James's, was
allowed to have the use of several volumes[96].
In 1636, 181 MSS. formed the Archbishop's second gift, which were
accompanied by five cabinets of coins in gold, silver, and brass, with a list
arranged chronologically; an Arabic astrolabe, of brass[97]; two idols, one
Egyptian, the other from the West Indies; and the fine bust of King Charles
I, 'singulari artificio ex purissimo ære conflatam,' which is now placed
under the arch opening into the central portion of the Library. This beautiful
work of art is believed by Mr. John Bruce, the learned Vice-President of the
Society of Antiquaries, who is engaged in researches into the life and

productions of Hubert Le Sœur, the artist of the statue at Charing Cross, to
be, (as well as the bust given by Laud to St. John's College,) a specimen of
the skill of that famous craftsman. The existing arrangements of the Library
being found insufficient for such large accessions, the lower end was fitted
up in 1638-9 for the reception of Laud's books, for the cost of which £300
was voted by Convocation[98]. In the following year, 555 more MSS. were
received, together with a magical wand or staff, and some additional coins.
The wand is of dark polished wood, 2 feet 9 inches long, with a
grotesquely-carved figure at the head, apparently of Mexican workmanship:
it is now kept in one of the Sub-Librarians' studies. The last gift from the
munificent Chancellor of the University came in the next year, 1640, and
consisted of no more than 81 MSS.; for troubles were beginning to gather
now around the head of the Archbishop, and the Library at Oxford felt the
blows which were levelled at Lambeth. This was accompanied with the
following touching letter:—
'Viris mihi amicissimis Doctori Potter, Vice-Cancellario,
reliquisque Doctoribus, Procuratoribus, necnon singulis in domo
Convocationis intra almam Universitatem Oxon. congregatis.
'Non datur scribendi otium. Hoc tamen quale quale est arripio
lubens, ut pauca ad vos transmittam, adhuc florentes Academici.
Tempora adsunt plusquam difficillima, nec negotia quæ undique
urgent faciliora sunt. Quin et quo loco res Ecclesiæ sint nemo
non videt. Horum malorum fons non unus est; unus tamen, inter
alios, furor est eorum qui sanam doctrinam non sustinentes
(quod olim observavit S. Hilarius) corruptam desiderant. Inter
eos qui hoc œstro perciti sunt quam difficile sit vivere, mihi plus
satis innotescit, cui (Deo gratias!) idem est vivere et officium
facere.
'Sed mittenda hæc sunt, nec enim quo fata ducunt datur scire.
Nec mitiora redduntur tempora aut tutiora querimoniis. Interim
velim sciatis me omnia vobis fausta et felicia precari, quo tuti
sitis felicesque, dum hic inter sphæras superiores stellæ
cujuslibet magnitudinis vix motum suum tenent, aut præ nubium
crassitie debile lumen emittunt.

'Dum sic fluctuant omnia, statui apud me in tuto (id est, apud
vos spero) MS. quædam, temporum priorum monumenta,
deponere. Pauca sunt, sed prioribus similia, si non æqualia, et
talia quæ, non obstantibus temporum difficultatibus, in usum
vestrum parare non destiti. Sunt vero inter hæc Hebraica sex,
Græca undecim, Arabica tringinta quatuor, Latina viginti et
unum, Italica duo, Anglicana totidem, Persica quinque, quorum
unum, folio digestum ampliori, historiam continet ab orbe
condito ad finem imperii Saracenici, et est proculdubio magni
valoris. Hæc per vos in Bibliothecam Bodleianam (nomen
veneror, nec superstitiose) reponenda, et cæteris olim meis
apponenda, cupio, et sub eisdem legibus quibus priora dedi. Non
opus est multis donum hoc nostrum nimis exile ornare, nec id in
votis meis unquam fuit. Hoc obnixe et quotidie a DEO Opt.
Max. summis votis peto, ut Academia semper floreat, in ea
Religio et Pietas et quicquid doctrinam decorare potest in altum
crescat, ut tempestatibus quæ nunc omnia perflant sedatis, tuto
possitis et vobis et studiis et, præ omnibus, Deo frui. Quæ vota
semper erunt
'fidelissimi et amantissimi Cancellarii vestri,
'W. CANT.[99]
'Dat. ex ædibus meis
'Lambethanis, 6to Nov. 1640.'
The collection, which contains in the whole nearly 1300 MSS., comprises
works in very many languages: Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, Persian,
Turkish, Armenian, Ethiopic, Chinese, Russian, Greek, Latin, French,
German, Italian, Irish, Anglo-Saxon, and English are all represented. It is
impossible, in the limits of this survey, to point out many of the treasures
with which the collection abounds; but that which is pre-eminently styled
'Codex Laudianus' (numbered Laud, Gr. 35) must not, of course, be omitted.
It is a MS. of the Acts of the Apostles, in quarto, consisting of 227 leaves,
and containing the text in both Greek and Latin, in parallel columns. Its date
has been variously fixed by critics, from the sixth to the eighth century; Mr.
Coxe places it towards the end of the seventh century, with whom Dr.
Tischendorf, who examined it in 1865, and for whom some photographs of
portions were executed, is believed to coincide. Some leaves are wanting at

the end, commencing at chap. xxvi. 29. It is the only MS. known to be
extant which contains the peculiar readings (in number 74) cited by Bede in
his Commentary as existing in the copy which he used; it has consequently
been conjectured, with much reason, that this was the very MS. which he
possessed. It was published by Thomas Hearne in 1715, printed in capitals
corresponding line for line with the MS., but not with entire correctness;
only 120 copies were printed, and it is therefore one of the rarest in the
series of his works. A very fairly engraved facsimile of one verse (vii. 2) is
to be found in Horne's Introduction.
Another famous MS. (No. 636) is a copy of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,
which ends at the year 1154, and appears to have been written in, and to
have belonged to, the abbey of Peterborough, from its containing many
additions relating thereto. And a third treasure calling for special mention is
an Irish vellum MS. (No. 610), which contains the Psalter of Cashel,
Cormac's Glossary, Poems attributed to SS. Columb-kill and Patrick, &c.
[100]
The Greek MSS. of the collection are fully described in vol. i. of the
Catal. Codd. Bibl. Bodl., by Mr. H. O. Coxe, published in 1853; the Latin,
Biblical, and Classical, with the Miscellaneous, in Part I of the second
volume, published by the same gentleman in 1858; the Oriental, in the
various Catalogues of Uri, Nicoll, Pusey, Dillmann, and Payne Smith.
One of the Würtzburg books rescued from the Swedish soldiery is a
magnificent Missal printed on vellum by Jeorius Ryser in 1481, with
illuminated initials. On a fly-leaf is the following note: '1481, Johannes
Kewsch, vicarius in ecclesia Herb[ipolensi] hunc librum comparavit
propriis expensis, et pro omnibus, scil. pergameno, impressura,
rubricatione, illinatura, et ligatione, xviii. flor.' Then follows a bequest, in
his own hand, in 1486, of the book to the successive vicars of St.
Bartholomew, which is repeated at the end of the 'Canon Missæ.' In the
latter place four subsequent possessors, from 1565 to 1580, have written
their names, the last of them adding, 'Omnis arbor qui non facit fructum
bonum excidetur et in ignem mittetur.' The Library reference is now Auct. i.
Q. i. 7.
[95] Reg. Conv. R. 24. f. 109b. MS. note by Dr. P. Bliss.
[96] Entry at the end of the Register of Readers, 1638-9.

[97] This was given to Laud by Selden, 'vir omni eruditionis genere
instructissimus,' as Laud styles him in his letter of gift on June 16. Reg. Conv. R.
24. f. 128.

[98] Reg. Conv. R. 24. 156b. 169b. The agreements with one Thomas
Richardson for the work are found there.

[99] Reg. Conv. R. 24b, 182b.
[100] Four volumes of the miscellaneous collection on Irish affairs made by Sir
G. Carew, afterwards Earl of Totness, are also to be found here. A list of their
contents, as of those of the other volumes preserved at Lambeth and in
University College, is printed in Mr. T. Duffus Hardy's Report to the Master of
the Rolls on the Carte and Carew Papers, 8o, Lond. 1864.

A.D. 1637.

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

A.D. 1640.

On Jan. 25, 1639-40, died Robert Burton, of Ch. Ch., 'Democritus junior,'
and bequeathed out of his large library whatever he possessed which was
wanting in the Bodleian. A list of the Latin books thus acquired is given in
the Benefaction Book, followed by this sentence: 'Porro [d. d.]
comœdiarum, tragediarum, et schediasmatum ludicrorum (præsertim
idiomate vernaculo) aliquot centurias, quas propter multitudinem non
adjecimus.' These latter were just the classes of books the admission of
which the Founder had almost prohibited, viz., 'almanacks, plays, and an
infinite number that are daily printed.' Even if 'some little profit might be
reaped (which God knows is very little) out of some of our play-books, the
benefit thereof,' said he, 'will nothing near countervail the harm that the
scandal will bring upon the Library, when it shall be given out that we
stuffed it full of baggage books[101].' In consequence of this well-meant but
mistaken resolution, the Library was bare of just those books which

Burton's collection could afford, and which now form some of its rarest and
most curious divisions. In his own address 'To the Reader' of his Anatomy of
Melancholy he very fully describes the nature of his own gatherings. 'I hear
new news every day; and those ordinary rumours of war, plagues, fires,
inundations, thefts, murders, massacres, meteors, comets, spectrums,
prodigies, apparitions, of towns taken, cities besieged in France, Germany,
Turkey, Persia, Poland, &c. * * * * are daily brought to our ears; new books
every day, pamphlets, currantoes, stories (&c.). Now come tidings of
weddings, maskings, mummeries, entertainments, jubilees, embassies, tilts
and tournaments, trophies, triumphs, revels, sports, plays; then again, as in a
new shifted scene, treasons, cheating tricks, robberies, enormous villainies,
in all kinds, funerals, burials, death of princes, new discoveries,
expeditions; now comical, then tragical matters.' His books are chiefly to be
found in the classes marked 4o Art. (particularly under letter L), Theol., and
Art. BS. Amongst his smaller books is one of the only two known copies of
the edition of Venus and Adonis in 1602. He is specially mentioned also in
the preface to Verneuil's Nomenclator, 1642, as being (together with Mr.
Kilby of Linc. Coll., Mr. Prestwich, of All Souls', and Mr. Francis Wright,
of Merton) a donor of Commentaries and Sermons. Besides his books, he
bequeathed £100, with which an annual payment of £5 was obtained. For
some time, however, this payment was subsequently lost; for in Barlow's
Accounts for 1655, after mentioning the receipt of £40 paid by one Mr.
Thomas Smith, occurs this 'Memorandum:—that the £40 above mentioned
amongst the Recepta is a part of an £100 given to the Library by Mr. Rob.
Burton of Ch. Ch. It was first lent to Mr. Thomas Smith, and he (by bond)
was to pay to the Library £5 per annum. He breaking, or very much decay'd
in his estate, and deade, this £40 was payd in by his executors, £50 more is
to be payd us by University Coll. (it was owinge to Mr. Smith, and his
executors assigned it over to us), and Dr. Langbaine hath in his keepinge a
bond of one Spencer for £10 more.' The latter was paid in 1658, as appears
from an entry, 'Recept. a Dno. Spicer (sic) et Hopkins, ex syngrapha;' but
the former was still unpaid in 1660.
[101] Reliquiæ Bodl. p. 278.

A.D. 1641.

The famous 'Guy Fawkes' Lantern,' which is to this day such an object of
interest in the Picture Gallery to most sight-seers, was presented to the
University by Robert Heywood, M.A., Brasenose College, who had been
Proctor in 1639. It came into his possession from his being the son of a
Justice of the Peace who assisted in searching the cellars of the Parliament
House, and arrested Fawkes with the lantern in his hand. In 1640 this
Justice Heywood was wounded by a Roman Catholic when, while still
holding office as a Justice for Westminster, he was engaged in proposing the
oaths to the recusants of that city[102]. The following inscription is attached
to it, engraved upon a brass plate: 'Lāterna illa ipsa, qua usus est et cum qua
deprehensus Guido Faux in crypta subterranea, ubi domo Parlamenti
difflandæ operam dabat. Ex dono Rob. Heywood, nuper Academiæ
Procuratoris, Apr. 4, 1641.' From being for many years exposed to the
handling of every visitor, it became much broken; but it has now for a long
time been secured from further injury by being enclosed in a glass case.
In May an order was made by the Curators that no strangers should have the
use of any MSS. without finding sureties for the safety of the same, in
consequence of a suspicion that whole pages had been in some cases
abstracted. Hereupon a very earnest, and, in sooth, indignant, remonstrance
was presented to the 'Curatores vigilantissimi' by the strangers then residing
in Oxford 'studiorum causa.' The original document is preserved in Wood
MS. F. 27, and is signed by eleven persons from Prussia and other parts of
Germany, six Danes, and one Englishman (John Wyberd), a medical
student. Some of these visitors are found, by reference to the Register of
Readers, to have been students for a considerable time; the Baron ab
Eulenberg, for instance, having been admitted on Jan. 18, 1638-9, and one
Ven, a Dane, in 1633. The memorialists say that there is not even the very
slightest ground for attributing such an offence to any of them, and that the
Librarian himself candidly confesses that it has never been proved to him
that strangers have ever done anything of the kind; they urge the difficulty
of their finding sponsors for their honesty when they themselves are
strangers and foreigners; they appeal to Bodley's own statutes as providing
sufficiently for the contingency by ordering the Librarian to number the
pages of a MS. before giving it out, and to examine it when returned; they
fortify their arguments by abundant references to the civil law; they upbraid
those who,—'internecino exterorum atque advenarum odio æstuantes (O

celebratam Britanniæ hospitalitatem!),'—have originated the calumny; and,
finally, warn the Curators against giving occasion for suspicion to the
learned men of the whole world that 'doctos Angliæ viros, priscæ
hospitalitatis immemores, majori exterorum quam Athenienses
Megarensium odio flagrare.' The memorial is endorsed: 'De hac re amplius
deliberandum censebant Præfecti ult. Maii, 1641;' and no doubt the
obnoxious order was soon repealed. Half a century later, on Nov. 8, 1693,
the order was in a certain degree renewed: it was then enjoined 'that no one
be permitted to transcribe any manuscript, but such as have a right to study
in the Library.' The revival, however, was not due to any revived fear of
foreigners; the following reason is given in a letter of information on
Library matters from Dr. Hyde to Hudson, his successor, written on the
latter's appointment in 1701:—'Some in the University have been very
troublesome in pressing that their Servitors may transcribe manuscripts for
them, though not sworn to the Library, nor yet capable of being sworn;
wherefore the Curators made an order (as you will find in the Book of
Orders in the Archives) "that none were capable of transcribing, except
those who had the right of studying in the Library," viz. Batchelors[103].' But
no doubt this order also soon became dormant, even if it were not definitely
repealed.
[102] Neal's History of the Puritans, i. 688.
[103] Walker's Letters of Eminent Men, 1813, vol. i. p. 175.

A.D. 1642.

'The Kinge, Jul. 11, 1642, had £500 out of Sir Th. Bodlyes Chest, as
appeares by Dr. Chaworthes acquittance in the same box.' (Barlow's Library
Accounts for 1657. MS.) This loan was, of course, never repaid. It is
regularly carried on in the Annual Accounts up to the year 1782.
Nov. 30. 'At night the Library doore was allmost broken open. Suspitio de
incendio, &c.' (Brian Twyne's Musterings of the Univ., in Hearne's Chron.
Dunst. p. 757.)
It must have been about the close of this year or beginning of the next,
while the king was in winter quarters at Oxford, that the visit was paid to
the Library, which is the subject of the following well-known anecdote. It is

here quoted from the earliest authority in which it is found, viz. Welwood's
Memoirs, Lond. 1700. pp. 105-107:—
'The King being at Oxford during the Civil Wars, went one day to see the
Publick Library, where he was show'd among other Books, a Virgil nobly
printed and exquisitely bound. The Lord Falkland, to divert the King, would
have his Majesty make a trial of his fortune by the Sortes Virgilianæ, which
everybody knows was an usual kind of augury some ages past. Whereupon
the King opening the book, the period which happen'd to come up was that
part of Dido's imprecation against Æneas, which Mr. Dryden translates
thus:—

"Yet let a race untam'd, and haughty foes,
His peaceful entrance with dire arts oppose,
Oppress'd with numbers in th' unequal field,
His men discourag'd, and himself expell'd,
Let him for succour sue from place to place,
Torn from his subjects, and his son's embrace.
First let him see his friends in battel slain,
And their untimely fate lament in vain:
And when at length the cruel war shall cease,
On hard conditions may he buy his peace.
Nor let him then enjoy supreme command,
But fall untimely by some hostile hand,
And lye unburi'd in the common sand."

(Æneid, iv. 88.)
It is said K. Charles seem'd concerned at this accident, and that the Lord
Falkland observing it, would likewise try his own fortune in the same
manner; hoping he might fall upon some passage that could have no
relation to his case, and thereby divert the King's thoughts from any
impression the other might have upon him. But the place that Falkland
stumbled upon was yet more suited to his destiny than the other had been to
the King's, being the following expressions of Evander upon the untimely
death of his son Pallas, as they are translated by the same hand:—

"O Pallas, thou hast fail'd thy plighted word,

To fight with reason, not to tempt the sword.
I warned thee, but in vain, for well I knew
What perils youthful ardor would pursue;
That boiling blood would carry thee too far,
Young as thou wert in dangers, raw to war.
Oh! curst essay of arms, disastrous doom,
Prelude of bloody fields and fights to come."
(Æneid, xi. 220.)'
There is no copy of Virgil now in the Library amongst those which it
possessed previously to 1642, which is 'exquisitely bound' as well as 'nobly
printed;' it is not therefore possible to fix on the particular volume which the
King consulted.

A.D. 1645.

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

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

A.D. 1646.

'When Oxford was surrendered (24o Junii, 1646) the first thing Generall
Fairfax did was to set a good guard of soldiers to preserve the Bodleian
Library. 'Tis said there was more hurt donne by the Cavaliers (during their
garrison) by way of embezzilling and cutting off chaines of bookes then
there was since. He was a lover of learning, and had he not taken this
special care, that noble library had been utterly destroyed, for there were
ignorant senators enough who would have been contented to have had it so.
This I doe assure you from an ocular witnesse, E. W. esq[105].'
[105] Aubrey's Lives; in Letters by Eminent Persons, ii. 346.

A.D. 1647.

John Verneuil, M.A., Sub-librarian, died about the end of September. He
was a native of Bordeaux, and came into England as a Protestant refugee
shortly before 1608. In that year he entered at Magdalene College, and was
incorporated M.A. from his own University of Montauban in 1625. Besides
his share in the Appendix to the Catalogue noticed under the year 1635, the
following small book of a similar kind in English was issued by him: A
Nomenclator of such Tracts and Sermons as have beene printed, or
translated into English upon any place or booke of Holy Scripture; now to
be had in the most famous and publique Library of Sir Thomas Bodley in
Oxford. This is the title of the second and enlarged edition, which appeared

in 1642 in a small duodecimo volume, printed at Oxford, by Henry Hall.
The first edition (which was not entirely confined to books in the Library)
was printed under the author's initials by William Turner in 1637. Some
books communicated by friends are here cited, which would, says Verneuil,
have been accessible in the Bodleian, 'had the Company of Stationers beene
as mindfull of their covenant as my selfe have beene zealous for the good of
this our Library.' In an interesting undated letter from Sir Richard Napier,
Knt. (while apparently an undergraduate of Wadham College, before 1630)
to his uncle the Rev. Richard Napier, which is preserved in Ashmole MS.
1730, fol. 168, is the following curious passage relating to the facilities for
studying in the Library, which were afforded to him by Verneuil:—
'I have made a faire way to goe into the Library privately when I please, and
there to sitt from 6 of the clocke in the morneing to 5 at night. I have a
private place in the Library to lay those bookes and to write out what I list,
without being seene by any, or any comeing to me. I have made the second
Keeper of the Library [i.e. Verneuil] my friend and servant, who promised
me his key at all tymes to goe in privately, when as otherwise it is not
opened above 4 houres a day, and some days not att all, as on Hollidays,
and their eves in the afternoone, yett then by his meanes I shall [have] free
accesse and recesse at all tymes. He hath pleasured me so farr as to lett me
write in his counting house, or his little private study in the great publick
library, where I may very privately write, and locke up all safely when I
depart thence; he will write for me when I have not the leisure, or will
transcribe any thinge I shall desire him, and if it be French translate it, for
that is his mother tonge.'
Probably the practice here mentioned of admitting readers by favour into
the Library at unstatutable times grew in the course of years to a
considerable height, or was found (as might naturally be expected)
productive of mischievous consequences, for on Nov. 8, 1722, it was
'ordered by the Curators that no person under any pretence whatsoever be
permitted to study in the said Library at any other time than what is
prescribed and limited by the Bodleian Statutes.'
Verneuil was succeeded in his office in the Library by Francis Yonge, M.A.,
of Oriel College.

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

A.D. 1648.

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

'Conscendo orbis illud decus
Bodleio fundatore:
Sed intus erat nullum pecus,
Excepto janitore.

Neglectos vidi libros multos,
Quod mimime mirandum:
Nam inter bardos tot et stultos
There's few could understand 'em.'

A.D. 1649.

'The Jews proffer £600,000 for Paul's, and Oxford Library, and may have
them for £200,000 more[106].' They wished to obtain the first for a
synagogue, and to do a little commercial business with the second. It is said
in Monteith's History of the Troubles (translated by Ogilvie, 1735, p. 473)

that the sum they offered was £500,000, but that the Council of War refused
to take less than £800,000: probably they afterwards increased this their
original bid to £600,000.
Philip, Earl of Pembroke, the Puritan Chancellor of the University, gave a
splendidly bound copy of the Paris Polyglott, printed in 1645 in 10 vols.
[106] London News-letter of April 2; printed in Carte's Collection of Letters, vol.
i. p. 275.

A.D. 1652.

John Rous, the Librarian, died in the beginning of April, probably on April
3, as, the Statutes requiring the election of Librarian to take place within
three days of a vacancy, it was on the 6th of that month that Thomas
Barlow, M.A., Fellow of Queen's College, was unanimously elected to be
Rous's successor. At the same time certain orders were read in Convocation
which the Curators had made, for the formation by the Librarian of a
Catalogue of the coins and other rarities, providing also that they should be
regularly visited and verified by the Curators every November[107].
A legacy of £20 from Rous to the Library is entered in the Benefaction
Register, under the year 1661, probably because it may not have been
actually received until that year.
[107] Reg. 'T. 158-9.' MS. Note by Dr. P. Bliss.

A.D. 1653.

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

A.D. 1654.

'April last, 1654, my Lord Protector sent his letter to Mr. Vice-Chancellor to
borrow a MS. (Joh. de Muris) for the Portugal Ambassador. A copy of the
Statute was sent (but not the book), which when his Highness had read, he

was satisfy'd, and commended the prudence of the Founder, who had made
the place so sacred[108].'
Cromwell's gift of MSS. See under 1629.
[108] Barlow's Argument against Lending Books out.

A.D. 1654-1659.

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

are left to Oxford[112]. And in the Annual Accounts, under the year 1655, we
find the following entries:—

Pro vectura codicum MSS. a Londino Oxoniam £0 9s.
D. Langbaine pro expensis cum Londinum petiit, libros a Seldeno
50
legatos repetiturus
D. Ed. Pococke eodem tempore in rem eandem Londinum misso. 70

It is clear, therefore, that a portion of Selden's collection came to the
Library by his bequest immediately after his death. And the reason why the
whole was not bequeathed is certainly not correctly stated by Burnet, nor
even by Wood, who says that he had been informed that it was because the
borrowing of certain MSS. had been refused. For the Convocation Register
shows that a grace was passed in Convocation, on Aug. 29, 1654, which
sanctioned the giving leave to Selden to have MSS. from the collections of
Barocci, Roe, and Digby (these donors having either expressed an opinion,
or distinctly stipulated, that the rigour of the Library Statutes should
sometimes be relaxed), provided he did not have more than three at a time,
and that he gave bond in £100 (not £1000) for the return of each of them
within a year[113]. Had these conditions been really the cause of Selden's
taking offence, his executors would hardly have stipulated, as they actually
did, in their own conditions of gift, that no book from his collection should
hereafter be lent to any person upon any condition whatsoever. But there is
certainly some obscurity hanging over the matter, which probably may be
dispersed by further investigation. The writer of the sketch of the history of
the Bodleian prefixed to Bernard's Cat. MSS., after quoting Wood's account,
only says, when barely more than forty years had elapsed, that he will not
venture to speak rashly about the case of the lending of books; as if it were
already forgotten how the facts stood. On the proposal to lend being first
mooted, Barlow, the Librarian, drew up a paper on the general question, in
which he opposed it both on the grounds of Statute and expediency; the
original MS. of which still exists in the Library. Selden was at first
mentioned in this paper by name, with distinct reference to his application;
but the name was subsequently crossed out wherever it thus occurred, and
the subject treated without any personal reference[114]. In this paper the
Librarian objects to the proposal, firstly, on the ground of precedent, since,
though the University had power, with the joint consent of the Chancellor,

Heads of Houses, and Convocation, to lend books, yet it had never thought
fit to do so, except with regard to Lord Pembroke's MSS.; secondly, on the
ground that if the rule were once broken, it would be impossible to refuse
any person, without incurring great odium, while the gratifying all
applicants would disperse into private hands the books intended for the
public. He then proceeds as follows:—
'3. Suppose 3 bookes at a time be sent to any private man, 'tis true he is
furnish'd, but 'tis manifestly to the prejudice of the Publick, the University
wanting those books while he has them; so that if any forreigner coming
hither from abroad desire to see them, or any at home desire to use them,
both are disappointed, to the diminution of the honour of the University, in
the one, and the benefit it might have by those books, in the other. And
therefore it seems more agreeable to reason and the public good (and the
declared will and precept of our prudent and pious Founder[115]) not to lend
any books out of the Library; for by not lending, private persons only want
the use of those books which are another's, whereas by lending, the
University wants the use of those books which are her own. Sure no prudent
man can think it fit to gratify particular persons with the publick detriment.
'4. The Library is a magazine which the pious Founder hath fix'd in a
publick place for a publick use; and though his charity to private persons is
such that he will hinder none (who is justly qualify'd and worthy) to come
to it, yet his charity to the publick is such that he would not have it
ambulatory, to goe to any private person. And sure 'tis more rational that
Mahomet should go to the mountaine, than that the mountaine should come
to Mahomet.
'5. Lending of books makes them lyable to many casualties, as, I. absolute
losse, either 1. in via, by the carrier's negligence, or violence offer'd him, or,
2. in termino, they may be lost by the person that borrows them; for
(presuming the person noble, and carefull for their preservation, yet) his
house may be burn'd, or (by robbers) broken open (as Mr. Selden's
unhappily was not long since): or, (in case they scape these casualties) they
may be spoyl'd in the carriage, as by sad experience we find, for above 60
or 100 leaves of a Greek MS.[116] lent out of Archiva Pembrochiana to Mr.
Pat. Younge were irrecoverably defaced. Now what has happen'd heretofore
may happen hereafter; and therefore to keep them sacredly (and without any

lending) in the Library (according to our good Founder's will and statute)
will be the best way for their preservation.'
Barlow adds finally, in the sixth and seventh places, that if all lending were
declared unlawful, it would greatly encourage others to give more to the
Library when they saw how religiously their gifts would be preserved, and
that if no exceptions were made (except, as allowed by Archbp. Laud, for
the purpose of printing), no applications would be made, and no one would
take it ill if he were denied.
Another reason for Selden's withholding his library in its entirety has,
however, been assigned, besides those mentioned above, and this, too, by
closely contemporary writers. In July, 1649, the new intruded officers and
fellows of Magdalene College found in the Muniment-room in the cloister-
tower of the College, a large sum of money in the old coinage called Spur-
royals[117], or Ryals, amounting to £1400, the equivalent of which had been
left by the Founder as a reserve fund for law expenses, for re-erecting or
repairing buildings destroyed by fire, &c., or for other extraordinary
charges. This gold had been laid up and counted in Q. Elizabeth's time and
had remained untouched since then; consequently, although some of the old
members of the College were aware of its existence, to the new-comers it
seemed a welcome and unexpected discovery, especially as the College was
at the time heavily in debt. They immediately proceeded to divide it among
all the members on the Foundation proportionately, not excluding the
choristers, (who were at that time undergraduates), the Puritan President,
Wilkinson, being alone opposed to such an illegal proceeding, and being
with difficulty prevailed upon to accept £100 as his share, which, however,
upon his death-bed he charged his executors to repay. The spur-royals were
exchanged at the rate of 18s. 6d. to 20s. each, and each fellow had 33 of
them. But when the fact of this embezzlement of corporate funds became
known, the College was called to account by Parliament, and, although they
attempted to defend themselves, they individually deemed it wise to refund
the greater, or a considerable, part of what had been abstracted.[118] Fuller,
whose Church History was published in the year following Selden's death,
after telling this scandalous story, proceeds thus (book ix. p. 234):—'Sure I
am, a great antiquarie lately deceased (rich as well in his state as learning)
at the hearing hereof quitted all his intention of benefaction to Oxford or
any place else, on suspition it would be diverted to other uses, on the same

token that he merrily said, I think the best way for a man to perpetuate his
memory is to procure the Pope to canonize him for a saint, for then he shall
be sure to be remembred in their Calender; whereas otherwise I see all
Protestant charity subject to the covetousness of posterity to devour it, and
bury the donor thereof in oblivion.' And the name of this 'great antiquarie'
was supplied in 1659 by the Puritan writer Henry Hickman, who, as a
Demy of Magdalene College, had shared in the spoils. He, in the Appendix
to his Justification of the Fathers and Schoolmen, gives (in answer to a
passage in Heylin's Examen Historicum) a full account of the dividing of
the gold, adding, 'which, as is said, did hinder Mr. John Selden from
bestowing his library on the University.' And Wood (Hist. and Antiq. by
Gutch, ii. 942) says that he had been told that this misappropriation was one
reason of Selden's distaste at Oxford. From all this it is clear that Burnet's
narrative gives a very inaccurate account of the matter.
It was in the year 1659 that the great mass of Selden's collection was
forwarded by his executors. In the accounts for 1660 appear payments to
Barlow of £20 'for his paines in procuring Mr. Selden's books,' and of £51
for his expenses thereon. The bringing the books from London cost about
£34, and the providing chains for them £25 10s.[119] Unfortunately, during
the interval, many books had been lost which had been borrowed in
London, and were never returned. (Life, in Works, I. lii.) And a part, which
somehow was not sent to Oxford, afterwards altogether perished, 'for the
fire of the Temple destroyed in one of their chambers eight chests full of the
registers of abbeys, and other manuscripts relating to the history of
England; tho' most of his law-books are still safe in Lincoln's Inn[120].'
Some medical books were bequeathed to the College of Physicians. Some
of the original deeds relating to the gift were bought for the Library in 1837
for £1 1s.
About 8000 volumes were, in all, added to the Library by this gift, most of
which bear Selden's well-known motto: 'περι παντος την ελευθεριαν.'
Amongst them are some which belonged to Ben Jonson, Dr. Donne, and Sir
Robert Cotton. The number of miscellaneous foreign works, in several
European languages, is noticeable, many of which had been published but a
short time before Selden's death. In curious contrast to the character of the
greater part of his collection (rich in classics and science, theology and

history, law and Hebrew literature) there occurs one volume (marked 4o C.
32. Art. Seld.) which is priceless in the eyes of the lovers of old English
black-letter tracts. It contains twenty-six tracts (most bearing the name of a
previous possessor, one Thomas Newton) which are among the rarest of
early popular tales and romances. As mere specimens of the collection may
be mentioned, Richard Cuer de Lyon, Syr Bevis of Hampton (unique edit.?),
Syr Degore, Syr Tryamoure (only two copies known), Syr Eglamoure
(unique?), Dan Hew of Leicestre (unique?), Battayle of Egyngecourt
(unique?), Mylner of Abyngton (unique?), Wyl Bucke, &c. Among the MSS.
is one of Harding's Chronicle (Arch. Seld. B. 10) which appears to have
belonged to Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, from his arms being
painted at the end, and which some have supposed was also a presentation
copy to Edward IV. A curious map accompanies the description of Scotland
(here given in prose, not, as in the printed editions, in verse), in which, next
to Sutherland and Caithness, the author, who would have won Dr. Johnson's
respect as being 'a good hater,' places 'Styx, the infernal flode,' and 'The
palais of Pluto, King of hel, neighbore to Scottz.' This map was engraved
for the first time in Gough's British Topography, vol. ii. pl. viii.; the
description of it occupies pp. 579-583 in that volume. Another interesting
volume is a copy of the Latin Articles of 1562, printed by Reginald Wolfe in
1563, with the autograph signatures of the members of the Lower House of
Convocation (Arch. Seld. A. 76). Fifty-four Greek MSS. are described in
Mr. Coxe's Catalogue, vol. i. cols. 583-648.
[109] As Aubrey (Lives, with Letters by Eminent Persons, ii. 532) has preserved
a story that Selden on his death-bed refused, through Hobbes' persuasion, to see
a clergyman (Mr Johnson) who was coming 'to assoile him,' it is worth while to
print the following notice of his death from Rawlinson MS. B. clviii. fol. 75, a
volume containing a collection of biographical anecdotes, &c., written in a rather
clumsy copyist's hand, about the beginning of the last century: 'Mr. Selden upon
his death-bed disclaimed all Hobbisme and the like wicked and Atheisticall
opinions, commanded that neither Mr. Hobbs nor Capt. Rossingham should be
admitted to him, confessed his sins, and desired absolution, which was given him
by Archbp. Usher; but amongst other things he much deplored the loss of his
time in studying of things more curious than usefull, and wished that he [had]
rather executed the office of a justice of peace than spent his time in that which
the world calls learning.'
[110] See also Aubrey's Lives, ut supra, ii. 536.
[111] Nichols (Lit. Anecd. i. 333) gives another and very different story, for
which he produces no authority. He says that Selden had actually sent his library

to Oxford during his lifetime, but hearing that they had lent out a book without
sufficient caution, he sent for it back again.
[112] Twells' Life of Pococke, in Pococke's Theol. Works, 1740, vol. i. p. 43.
[113] Reg. Conv. T. p. 251. It is added, as an additional reason for the
concession, 'porro spes sit virum in rem nostram academicam optime affectum,
hanc ei extra ordinem gratiam factam abunde olim compensaturum.'
[114] 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.
[115] Bodley frequently in his letters expresses his positive determination not to
allow books to be removed from the Library by any means. He mentions the
having connived at first at Sir H. Savile's having a book for a very short space of
time, because he was like to become a very great benefactor; but declares that
after the making the Statutes neither he nor any one else shall be allowed the
same liberty upon any occasion whatsoever. (Reliquiæ Bodl. pp. 176, 264.) And
in another letter he says, in reference to a particular application, 'The sending of
any book out of the Library may be assented to by no means, neither is it a
matter that the University or Vice-Chancellor are to deal in. It cannot stand with
my publick resolution with the University, and my denial made to the Bishop of
Glocester and the rest of the Interpreters [i.e. the Translators of the Authorized
Version of the Bible] in their assembly in Christ Church, who requested the like
at my hands for one or two books.' (Ibid. p. 207.) In 1636 the University refused
leave to Archbishop Laud to borrow Rob. Hare's MS. Liber Privilegiorum
Universitatis (compiled in 1592), when the Archbishop was prosecuting his
claim to visit the two Universities as Metropolitan. But the refusal was doubtless
rather from jealousy respecting their immunities (as Wood says) than from
regard to the rules of the Library (Huber's English Universities, by F. Newman,
vol. ii. p. 45.) However, the book was at last produced before the Council.
(Wood's Hist. and Antiq., by Gutch, vol. ii. p. 403.)
[116] 'Μυριοβιβλος, num. 131' [Barocci].
[117] These were gold coins, of the value of fifteen shillings, which derived their
name from bearing a star on the reverse which resembled the rowel of a spur.
[118] A few of these coins are still preserved in an ancient chest in the same
room where they were of old deposited. Here is also carefully preserved a very
large and valuable collection of early charters, including all which belonged to
the Hospital of St. John Bapt. upon the site of which the College was built, and
to several suppressed priories which were annexed to the College, reaching back
to the twelfth century. Of these the author of this volume is engaged in preparing
a MS. catalogue, for the use of the College.
[119] The conditions imposed by the executors (which are printed in Gutch's
Wood, ii. 943, and elsewhere) expressly stipulated that the books should be
chained. As late as the year 1751 notices occur in the Librarian's account-books
of the procuring additional chains for the Library. But the removal of them
appears to have commenced as shortly afterwards as 1757, and in 1761 there was
a payment for unchaining 1448 books at one halfpenny each. Several of the
chains are still preserved loose, as relics.
[120] Ayliffe's Ancient and Present State of the Univ. of Oxford, 1714, vol. i. p.
462. Pointer, in his Oxoniensis Academia, 1749, p. 136, quotes the account of the
Bodleian given by Ayliffe as having been written by Dr. Hudson, under whose
name it is also found in Macky's Journey through England vol. ii. The fire here

mentioned was probably that which occurred about 1679 or 1680, in which the
chambers called the Paper-Buildings were destroyed, where Selden's rooms were
situated. At Lincoln's Inn some MSS. are now amongst Sir M. Hale's.
[121] This was never recovered, but a later edition, in 1609, was procured
instead.

A.D. 1655.

The stipends of the Librarian and Assistants at this time amounted jointly to
£51 6s. 8d. Of this it appears from the account for 1657 that the Librarian
received £33 6s. 8d., the Second Keeper, then H. Stubbe, £10, and [the
janitor] S. Rugleye (?), £8. A volume of curious tracts, published during the
early part of the reign of Charles I, now marked 4o F. 2 Art. B. S., furnishes
the name of a preceding janitor, by bearing the inscription, 'Liber Thomæ
Roch, defuncti, quondam janitoris bibliothecæ.' The janitor originally
appointed by Bodley appears to be mentioned in the following passage in a
letter from him to James: 'There is one Thomas Scott, Under-butler of
Magdalen College, that hath made means unto me for the Porter's place,
whom I propose to elect[122].'
John Evelyn appears in this year, as well as subsequently, as a donor of
books. Nineteen MSS. were given by Peter Whalley, of Northamptonshire.
[122] Reliquæ Bodl. p. 263.

A.D. 1656.

Cowley's Poems. See 1620.

A.D. 1657.

In this year the gifts to the Library, which since 1640 had been but few,
begin once more to increase in number. Five hundred gold and silver coins
were given by Ralph Freke, of Hannington, Wilts, and a cabinet for their
reception, 'auro gemmisque coruscum,' by his brother William. Amongst
various other donations occur a copy of Caxton's Description of Britain,
1480, from Ralph Bathurst, M.D., Trinity College, and four Oriental MSS.
from William Juxon, 'Londinensis olim Episc.' One entry in the Benefaction

Register has been at one time carefully pasted over, and at another brought
again to light; it is the record of a gift from Hugh Peters. 'Hugo Peters,
serenissimo Britanniarum Protectori Olivero a sacris, pro sua in academiam
et rempubl. literariam benevolentia, codices insequentes Bibl. Bodleianæ
dono dedit Maii iiiio, Anno CIƆ. IƆC. LVII;' viz. the great Dutch Bible with
annotations, 'edit. ult. [scil. Hague, 1637] auro sericoque compacta,' and the
Æthiopic Psalter of 1513. A leaf which followed this entry has been
removed from the Register, probably because it contained some further
particulars of Peters' gift, or possibly the record of the MSS. presented by
the Protector himself in 1654[123]. The binding of silk and gold has now
altogether disappeared, and the Bible is clad in a plain calf coat, with no
note of its former condition or of its donor.
Francis Yonge, M.A. of Oriel College, the Sub-librarian, died in this year. In
his place succeeded, through the influence of Dr. Owen, Dean of Ch. Ch.,
Henry Stubbe, M.A., the well-known violent and varying political writer,
then a Student of that House. From the posts, however, of both Librarian
and Student Stubbe was ejected in March, 1659, on account of the
publication of his book entitled, A Light Shining out of Darkness, which
was supposed to attack the Universities and clergy.
[123] See p. 55.

A.D. 1658.

Gerard Langbaine, D.D., the learned Provost of Queen's College, died on
Feb. 10 in this year. Twenty-one vols. of his Adversaria, consisting chiefly
of extracts from Bodleian MSS. and of notes concerning the arrangement of
the books in the Library, were bought for £11. Nine other volumes were
bequeathed by Ant. à Wood in 1695. They are all fully described by Mr.
Coxe in vol. i. [cols. 877-888] of the General Catalogue of the MSS. of the
Library, which appeared in 1853, as well as more briefly in Bernard's
Catalogue. Besides obtaining his own autograph collections by purchase,
the Library became possessed by bequest from him of the very valuable
MS. (e Mus. 86) on the history of Wickliffe and his followers, entitled
Fasciculi Zizaniorum, written by Thomas Walden. This was edited by the
late Dr. Shirley in 1858, as part of the Master of the Rolls' Series of

Chronicles. Dr. Shirley traced the volume to the hands of Bale and Usher,
but was not aware of the way in which it came to the Library.
The effect which civil war and confusion had had upon literature may be
commercially estimated by the fact that a gift of £5 from Joseph Maynard,
B.D., of Exeter College, proved sufficient for the purchase of 28 printed
volumes and 11 MSS., many of which were curious.
A crocodile, from Jamaica, was given by John Desborow, the republican
Major-General, and brother-in-law to the Protector.

A.D. 1659.

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

A.D. 1660.

Thomas Barlow, D.D. (who had been elected Provost of Queen's College in
1658), resigned the Librarianship on Sept. 25, in consequence of his
appointment to the Margaret Professorship of Divinity. Thomas Lockey,
B.D., Student of Ch. Ch., was elected in his place, on Sept. 28, by 102 votes
to 80, over Mr. [John] Good, M.A., Balliol College[124].
A curious story is preserved by Wanley and Dr. Wallis, in memoranda,
dated 1698-1701, on the fly-leaves of a copy of the rare Index Librorum
prohibitorum printed at Madrid in 1612-14 (4o U. 46. Th.), respecting the
visit of a Roman Catholic priest to the Library during the period of Barlow's
headship. In the course of conversation with Barlow, the priest denied that
such a book as this Index had ever been printed at Madrid (there being
various discrepancies between it and the Roman Index), whereupon this
copy was produced, bearing the names of several inquisitors who had from
time to time possessed it. The visitor was extremely surprised, and, being
very desirous of purchasing it, offered any sum for it that might be
demanded, with the intent (as the somewhat suspicious tellers of the tale
suggest) to destroy it; but the Doctor was above corruption. The vigilance
of the Librarians being aroused, the book was removed from an exposed
place where it had formerly been kept, to a less accessible situation in the

gallery, and securely chained. Wallis adds that one fly-leaf, containing some
of the previous owners' names, had since then been torn out[125].
[124] Reg. Convoc. Ta. 27, p. 57.
[125] The memoranda are printed in Mendham's Lit. Policy of the Church of
Rome, second edit., pp. 152-4, and in Bliss' Reliquiæ Hearnianæ, i. 12-14.

A.D. 1662.

A legacy of £50 was paid which had been bequeathed some time previously
by Alex. Ross, now-a-days best known as the Ross of Hudibrastic memory.
It is singular that a copy of the old printed quarto catalogue of the Library
was amongst the books purchased with this gift; which shows that, within
forty years after publication, it had become scarce even in the Library itself.
Five Arabic and eight Chinese MSS. were given by William Thurston, a
London merchant. By a mistaken arrangement of various other small gifts,
Thurston now passes as the donor of forty Arabic, Persian, and Syriac
MSS., instead of five. Several of these, at present all numbered alike as
Thurston MSS., were given in 1684 by Jos. Taylor, LL.D., of St. John's
College, one by Crewe, Bishop of Durham, in 1680, one by Benj. Polsted, a
London African merchant, in 1678, one by Charles Robson, B.D., Queen's
College, about 1630, and one is an Armenian poem of thanks for benefits
received from the University, presented by the author, Jac. de Gregoriis, an
Armenian priest, in 1674. One other volume (a mathematical MS. bought at
Constantinople, by Const. Ravius, in 1641) was at one time, as it appears,
abstracted from the Library, and was restored by means of Dr. Marshall,
who, after the words 'Liber Bibliothecæ Bodleianæ Oxon.' has added the
following note: 'quem ex Ratelbandi cujusdam bibliopolæ officina libraria,
prope novum templum Amstelodami, redimendum pretio persoluto curavit
Tho. Mareschallus, e Collegio Lincolniensi apud Oxonienses.'
The first statutory obligation upon the Stationers' Company to deliver a
copy of each book printed by them to this Library, together with that of
Cambridge and the Royal Library, was imposed by the act of 14 Chas. II. c.
33, for two years, which was renewed from time to time until the passing of
the Copyright Act of 8 Q. Anne.

A.D. 1663.

The University was visited in September by Charles II and his Queen. And
'on Munday, September 28, about four in the afternoon, the University,
being in their Formalities placed from Christ Church east-gate to the south
gate of the publique Schooles, the King and Queen, the Duke and Dutches
of Yorke, with the nobility and gentry attending, went to the Schooles,
where the Chanceller, Vice-Chanceller and Heads of Houses received them,
and invited them up to the Library; and Mr. Crew, the Senior Proctor,
placed neer the globes, addrest himselfe to their Majesties in an oration
upon his knees; which being ended, the King and Queen, with the Royal
Family and nobility, were by our Chanceller, Vice-Chanceller, and the
Heads of Houses, conducted to Selden's Library, and there entertained with
a very sumptuous banquett[126].'
[126] Reg. Convoc. Ta. 27, p. 173.

A.D. 1664.

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

A.D. 1665.

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

A.D. 1666.

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

An East India merchant of London, one John Ken, gave (with other MSS.)
the first Gentoo [i.e. Sanscrit.] book which the Library possessed. It is
noticeable what a real, although somewhat indiscriminating, interest the
London merchants appear to have taken in the Library. Continual mention
occurs not merely of books but of curiosities of all kinds, natural and
artificial, which persons engaged in commerce, chiefly with the East Indies,
sent as for a general repository. Most of these curiosities are now to be
found, it is believed, in the Ashmolean Museum.
At some period between 1660 and 1667, i.e. during Clarendon's
Chancellorship of the University, two volumes of MSS. notes and
observations upon Josephus, by Sam. Petit, the Professor of Greek at
Nismes (who died in 1643), are said by Moreri to have been purchased by
Clarendon, for 150 louis d'or, and given to the University. But in Bernard's
Catalogue the volumes are said to have been bought by the University 'ære
suo.' Dr. T. Smith remarks, in his life of Bernard, that when the latter was
preparing to edit Josephus, he used 'Sam. Petiti largis commentariis, longe
antea in bibliothecæ Bodleianæ gazophylacium ex Gallia transvectis,' but
found that they were filled only with notes from Rabbinical writers. They
are now numbered Auct. F. infra, I. 1, 2. One other MS. was certainly given
by Clarendon, during his Chancellorship. It is a Greek Evangelistarium of
the fourteenth century, formerly the property of a monastery described as
'της παναγιας της αχειροποιητου,' which was given by Parthenius, Patriarch
of Constantinople, to Heneage Finch, Earl of Winchelsea, when in Turkey,
in 1661, as Ambassador from England, and subsequently given by
Clarendon to the University. On the cover is a silver crucifix, of Byzantine
work. It is now numbered Auct. D. infra II. 12.

A.D. 1668.

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

by Abraham Cowley. A good engraving of it is to be found in Lascelles' and
Storer's Oxford, published in 1821[128], and in the Life of Drake, published
in 1828.
[127] The style of moulding on the back seems to point to a somewhat later date.
[128] A description, including a copy of the verses, and illustrated by a woodcut,
is also to be found in vol. xxix. (1837) of the Mirror, p. 8, copied from the
Nautical Magazine.

A.D. 1670.

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

A.D. 1671.

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

A.D. 1673.

Thomas, Lord Fairfax, to whose care the Library had been indebted for
preservation in 1646, bequeathed to it on his decease, in November, 1671,
twenty-eight very valuable MSS., including several early English books
(Chaucer, Gower, Wickliffe's Bible, &c.) and works relating to the history
of England, Scotland (Elphinston[129]), and Ireland (Keating). But besides

these, he gave that invaluable collection of genealogical MSS. known to all
pedigree-hunters by the name of their indefatigable compiler, Roger
Dodsworth, to whom he had allowed an annuity of £40 during his life, in
order to enable him the better to prosecute his researches. This collection
numbers 161 volumes (bound in 86) in folio and quarto[130], and consists of
extracts bearing chiefly on the family and ecclesiastical history of Yorkshire
and the North of England, with an innumerable mass of pedigrees, from all
the authentic records within Dodsworth's reach, including many which were
destroyed when the Tower of St. Mary, at York, was blown up during the
siege of that city in June, 1644. He appears to have commenced this
wonderful series of notes about the year 1618, and not to have ceased
before 1652, dying, in the seventieth year of his age, in August, 1654.
Besides the very full catalogue of his MSS. which is given by Bernard (pp.
187-233), an extremely useful and original synopsis of their contents,
prefaced with an account of Dodsworth's life and labours, and drawn up by
Mr. Joseph Hunter, is to be found in the Report of the Record Commission
for 1837; which was reprinted by Mr. Hunter, in an octavo volume, in 1838,
together with a list of the contents of the Red Book of the Exchequer, and a
Catalogue of the MSS. in Lincoln's Inn. After the MSS. were brought to the
Library, they became in some way exposed to the damp, 'and were in
danger of being spoiled by a wet season.' Fortunately the danger was
perceived by Ant. à Wood, who obtained leave of the Vice-Chancellor to
dry them, which he accomplished by spreading them out in the sun upon the
leads of the Schools' quadrangle. This cost him a month's labour, which, he
says, he underwent with pleasure out of respect to the memory of
Dodsworth, and care to preserve whatever might advantage the
commonwealth of learning. The MSS. to this day give abundant proof, by
their stains and tender condition, that, had it not been for Wood's unselfish
labour, they would probably soon have perished. Some part of the
collection appears to have been sent to the Library as late as 1684, for in the
accounts of that year there is an entry of 4s. 10d. as having been paid for the
'carriage of Dodsworth's MSS.'
An interesting volume, written by the donor of these MSS., Fairfax, and
entitled by him 'The Employment of my Solitude,' being metrical versions
of the Psalms, with other poems, was bought, in 1858, for £36 10s., at the

sale of the library of Dr. Bliss, who had purchased it at the Duke of Sussex's
sale. It is described in Archdeacon Cotton's List of Bibles.
[129] A transcript of Elphinston's Chronicle is to be found among the Jones
MSS.
[130] No. 20 is a volume of Camden's Collections, formerly in the Cotton
Library, Julius B. x., from whence Dodsworth must have borrowed it, and
whither, with an obliviousness too common in book-borrowers, he must have
forgotten to return it. And No. 161 was given to the Library by Mr. Fras. Drake,
the historian of York, in 1736.

A.D. 1674.

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

writing the dedication and preface[132]!' Hearne attributes the real
compilation of the Catalogue to Emmanuel Prichard, or Pritchard, of Hart
Hall, the janitor, who examined every book in the whole library, and wrote
out the Catalogue, in two volumes, with his own hand. Hearne repeats this
assertion frequently; it is found, e.g., in his preface to the Chronicon
Dunstap. p. xii., and in his Autobiography (1772, p. 11), where he adds that
he was well informed of this by Dr. Mill and others. If this be true, the
inditing such a preface, while totally suppressing Prichard's name, does
little credit to Hyde.
Frequent mention of this Emmanuel Prichard is found between 1686 and
1699 as being employed upon the MSS., and as engaged in taking an
account of duplicates and arranging Bishop Barlow's books. In 1687, £20
were paid him for 'writing a Catalogue of MSS.' Probably this was the list
upon which Hearne asserts that the index to the Bodleian MSS., in
Bernard's Catalogue, was founded[133]. Hearne describes him[134] as being 'a
very industrious, usefull man.' Although a member of Hart Hall, he never
took any degree; but wore a civilian's gown. He died in the Hall about 1704,
aged upwards of 70, and was buried in St. Peter's-in-the-East. He left £200
to the Vice-Principal of Hart Hall, which was partly spent in building a
library-room[135].
[131] Of the 'hyemis inclementia' before the present system of warming the
Library was introduced, several of the present staff of officers can speak as
feelingly as Hyde. The writer remembers, in particular, one winter when, in
consequence of the roof being under repair, the thermometer fell some eleven
degrees below freezing point!
[132] MS. Diary, 1714, vol. ii. p. 193.
[133] Reliquiæ Hearn. ii. 591. But see p. 116, infra.

[134] MS. Diary, li. 193.
[135] Hearne's MS. Diary, ciii. 38.

A.D. 1675.

In the Register of Benefactions, on a page faintly headed in pencil with this
date, is entered a gift from Christopher, Lord Hatton, 'Homiliarum
Saxonicarum 4 volumina antiqua.' The donor was consequently the second
baron, and first viscount, Hatton, who succeeded his father Christopher (a
firm royalist, and close friend of Clarendon, as well as antiquarian, and
friend of Dodsworth) in 1670, and died in 1706. Possibly this gift may have
been made through the influence of his uncle, Capt. Charles Hatton, who
appears to have been much interested in Anglo-Saxon studies, who himself
gave three MSS. to the Library, and several of whose letters to Dr. Charlett
in 1694-1707 are preserved in vol. xxxiii. of Ballard's MSS. Strange to say,
these volumes of Homilies (written shortly after the Norman Conquest) are
now among the Junian MSS., Nos. 22, 23, 24, 99, and their appearance in
that collection is accounted for by Wanley (Cat. p. 45, where they are fully
described) by a story which, he says, was often told him by Hyde, viz. that,
immediately upon the arrival of the MSS. at the Library, they were lent to
Dr. Marshall, who most probably in turn lent them to Junius; that, Marshall
dying soon after, Junius kept them until his own death, when they returned
to the Library with his own books, by his bequest. Junius himself frequently
refers to them under the description of Codices Hattoniani.
The Library also contains a collection of 112 miscellaneous and valuable
MSS., 'ex Codicibus Hattonianis,' of the presentation of which no record
has been found[136], but which doubtless came about the same time from the
same donor. Some precious Anglo-Saxon volumes form the special feature
of this collection. Amongst them are, King Alfred's translation of Gregory's
Pastoral Care, of which the king designed to send a copy to each Cathedral
Church in the kingdom, this being the copy sent to Worcester (No. 20); the
translation by Werfrith, Bishop of Worcester, of Gregory's Dialogues, with
King Alfred's preface (No. 76); and a version of the Four Gospels, written
about the time of Henry II (No. 65).

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

A.D. 1677.

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

[137] This Society has also just issued Part 1. of Piers Plowman from this MS.,
edited by W. W. Skeat, M.A. (Oct. 1867).

A.D. 1678.

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

Worcester Cathedral; and there are four valuable volumes of Homilies,
which appear, however, to have been part of Lord Hatton's gift to the
Library. (See under 1675[138].) Besides books, Junius left to the University
six founts of Gothic, Saxon, and other types, together with the moulds and
matrices.
Fifty-five MSS. and printed books, chiefly Oriental, were purchased in this
year from the library of Dr. Thomas Greaves, Deputy-professor of Arabic,
who died May 22, 1676. It appears from the list in Bernard's Catalogue that
sixty-five volumes were purchased, but that ten of these were never sent.
With Greaves' own books were obtained also the MSS. of Richard James, of
Corpus Christi College, nephew of Thomas James, the first Librarian,
which had come into the possession of his friend Greaves upon his death in
Dec. 1638. These amount to forty-three volumes, entirely written by James
himself, in a large bold hand; they consist chiefly of Collectanea bearing on
the history of England from various MSS. Chronicles, Registers, and early
writers, particularly with reference to the corruption of the Church and
clergy before the Reformation, and in opposition to Becket. A full list of
their contents, drawn up by Tanner, is given at pp. 248-253 of Bernard's
Catalogue. The price paid for the books bought out of Greaves' library was
£55.
Fifteen shillings were paid, as appears from the accounts for the year, for
the carriage of a whale from Lechlade, which, strange to say, had been
caught in the Severn, and was presented by William Jordan, an apothecary
at Gloucester[139]. Ten shillings were also paid for a 'sea elephant.'
[138] Parts of MSS. 4 and 5, which had been stolen from the Library, were
recovered, in 1720, in the manner recorded in the following entry in the
Benefaction Book: 'Vir doctissimus Joannes Georgius Eckardus, bibliothecæ
Brunsvicensis præfectus, pro singulari sua humanitate, folia quammulta MSS.
Dictionarii Fr. Junii, continentia sc. litteras F. et S., a nequissimo quodam Dano
jam olim surrepta, propriis sumptibus redemit et Bibl. Bodl. ultro restituit.' Some
further portions of Junius' papers (including some which had formerly been in
the Library) are recorded to have been given in 1753 by the Provost and Fellows
of Queen's College.
[139] In the Benefaction Book this gift is assigned to the year 1672.

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

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

A.D. 1681.

In this year John Rushworth, of Lincoln's Inn, the historian of the Long
Parliament, was a member of the Parliament held at Oxford. Probably it
may have been at this time that he presented to the Library one of its most
precious κειμηλια, called, from its donor, 'Codex Rushworthianus.' (Auct.
D. 2. 19.) In 1665, Junius mentions it in the Preface to his Glossarium
Gothicum, as being then still in Rushworth's own hands[140]. It is a MS. of
the Latin Gospels, written by an Irish scribe, Mac-Regol, (who records his
name on the last leaf, 'Macregol dipincxit hoc evangelium,' &c.,) and
glossed with an interlinear Anglo-Saxon version by Owun and by Færmen,
a priest at Harewood. The volume is traditionally reported to have been in
Bede's possession, but since the Irish annals record the death of Mac
Riagoil, a scribe and abbot of Birr in 820, the volume must be about a
century too late. It has been published in full, together with the Lindisfarne
Gospels, by the Surtees Society in 3 vols., under the editorship of Rev. J.
Stevenson and George Waring, Esq., M.A. A description is given in Prof.
Westwood's Palæographia Sacra Pictoria.
Nine shillings were paid for the carriage of a mummy from London,
probably one of those which are now in the Ashmolean Museum. It was
given by Aaron Goodyear, a Turkey merchant, who gave also a model of
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, and various little images,
and in 1684 more than forty coins.
[140] It is strange that no entry of the gift of this priceless volume is found in the
Register of Benefactions, any more than of that of the Vernon MS.

A.D. 1682.

Richard Davis, M.A., of Sandford, Oxon, gave the portrait of Margaret,
Countess of Richmond, a book of Russian laws, and the Runic Calendar or
Clog Almanack, now exhibited in the glass case at the entrance of the
Library. The latter is thus described in the Register: 'Calendarium ligneum,

tam materia quam usu perpetuum, unius ligni quadrati angulis incisum,
more antiquo.'
Dr. John Morris, Regius Professor of Hebrew, who died in 1648,
bequeathed five pounds annually to the University, to be paid to some
Master of Arts of Ch. Ch., chosen by the Dean, for a speech 'in Schola
Linguarum,' in honour of Sir Thomas Bodley, 'and as a panegyric and
encouragement of the Hebrew studies,' on Nov. 8, in the presence of the
Visitors of the Library after the conclusion of the annual visitation. The
bequest was to take effect after the death of his wife, which happened on
Nov. 11, 1681; and on Oct. 6, 1682, Convocation fixed 3 p.m. as the hour
for delivery of the Speech on the Visitation-day.
The Speeches are continued annually, although, probably for want of public
notice, only scantily attended, none but those actually interested in the
Visitation of the Library, together with the speaker's friends, being generally
aware of it. If provision were made for the deposit of the Speeches in the
Library after delivery, they would no doubt form an interesting and accurate
record of its growth, and of many passing events which, for want of such a
record, are soon forgotten. Only one speech appears to be preserved in the
Library: it is that delivered on Nov. 8, 1701, by Edmund Smith, M.A., of
Ch. Ch., and is very beautifully written in imitation of typography. But in
this case nothing is recorded of the history of the preceding year, the speech
being simply a panegyric of the Founder. It has been printed among Smith's
Works, a pamphlet of 103 pages dignified with that name, of which the third
edition appeared at London in 1719[141]. Dr. Rawlinson appears to have
endeavoured to compile a list of the Speakers; for Bishop Tanner, in a letter
to him dated Oct. 11, 1735, from Ch. Ch., says he will enquire them out, if
he can, but that they are not entered upon the Chapter books, since they are
not appointed by the Chapter, but privately by the Dean or Hebrew
Professor, and paid by the Vice-Chancellor, in whose accounts alone their
names are probably entered[142].
The names of the Speakers up to the year 1690 are given in Wood's Athenæ
(ii. 127) as follows. They were all M.A., and Students of Ch. Ch.:—

1682 Thomas Sparke
1683 Zach. Isham

1684 Chas. Hickman
1685 Thos. Newey
1686 Thos. Burton
1687 Will. Bedford
1688 Rich. Blakeway
1689 Roger Altham, jun.
1690 Edward Wake
****
1701 Edm. Smith

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

1706 Rich. Newton
1707 Thos. Terry
1708 Will. Periam
1709 Rich. Sadlington
1710 Richard Frewin
1711 — Aldred[143]
1712 Gilb. Lake
1713 Hen. Cremer
1714 Chas. Brent
1715 John White
1716 Edw. Ivie
1717 Hen. Gregory
1718 Thos. Fenton
1719 George Wiggan
1720 Thos. Foulkes
1721 Will. Le Hunt
1722 Hen. Shirman
1723 Matthew Lee
1724 Christopher Haslam
1725 Will. Davis
1726 Edw. Blakeway
1727 David Gregory
1728 [Rob.?] Manaton
1729 [Hen.?] Jones

1730 John Fanshaw
1731 Oliver Battely
1732 Dan. Burton
1733 Fifield Allen
1734 Pierce Manaton, M.D.
[141] A long account of Smith is given in Johnson's Lives of the Poets.
[142] Letters of Eminent Persons, &c., ii. 111.
[143] Doubtless an error for Chas. Aldrich

A.D. 1683.

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

A.D. 1684.

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

A.D. 1685.

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

A.D. 1686.

Fell, Bishop of Oxford, who died July 10, bequeathed a few MSS. They
consist of an early and curious collection of Vitæ Sanctorum in four folio
volumes, of a transcript (in nine folio volumes) of a Glossarium
Septentrionale by Francis Junius, Dionysius Syrus in Latin by Dudley
Loftus, and two Greek MSS., Damascius and Euthymius Zigabenus,
described at the end (col. 907) of Mr. Coxe's Catalogue of the Greek MSS.
One other MS. has somehow been incorporated in this collection (now
numbered 21-23) which does not belong to it. It is a Clavis Linguæ Sanctæ,
or explanation of all the Hebrew, and some Chaldee, roots, found in the Old
Testament, by Nicholas Trott, in three folio volumes, written with great care
and neatness. This, of which the first part had been printed at Oxford in
1719, was sent to the Library in 1746, as appears from the following letter,
preserved (without address) in a parcel of papers relating to the Library,
now in the Librarian's study:—
'My Lord,
'My wife's grandfather Judge Trott, cheif justice of South
Carolina, desired on his death bed that his forty years' labour
relating to the Hebrew root might be sent as a present to the
Publick Library at Oxford. I proposed to have carried it, but my
time has allways been taken up at a disagreable series of Court
Martials, and now I am again going to the West Indies. That I
must beg your Lordship will order or give it a conveyance to the
University, and I am, with great respect, my Lord,
'Your Lordship's most humble servant,
'THOS.
FRANKLAND.
'23 Nov., 1746.
It appears, however, from the accounts, &c., that the MS. was not actually
delivered until 1748 or 1749, when it was received through Dr. Hunt.
A few of Bishop Fell's MSS. came subsequently to the Library among those
of Rev. Henry Jones[144], who succeeded Fell in his rectory of Sunningwell,
Berks, in the church of which parish the Bishop's wife was buried.

At the Visitation on Nov. 8, it was ordered that notice be given that 'Nullus
in posterum quemlibet librum aut volumen extra Bibliothecam asportet,'
and that monition be sent to every College and Hall for the return of any
books taken out within three days. Several books appear to have been
reported in previous years as missing; hence, doubtless, the issue of this
order.
[144] Hearne's pref. to John Ross, p. 1.

A.D. 1687.

On the occasion of the visit of King James II to Oxford, chiefly, but
unsuccessfully, made for the purpose of overawing the fellows of Magdalen
College, who had refused to elect as president his nominee, Anth. Farmer,
he was invited by the University to partake of a breakfast or collation in the
Library. For this purpose he came hither on the morning of Sept. 5, between
nine and ten, where, at the south part of the Selden end, a banquet was
prepared which cost the University £160, consisting of 111 dishes of meat,
sweetmeats, and fruit. The King sat here for about three quarters of an hour,
and held some conversation with Hyde about a Chinese, 'a little blinking
fellow,' who had recently visited the place, and about the religion of China;
but asked no one to join him at the table. Upon rising to depart, a scene of
strange indecorum, as it would now appear, ensued; the 'rabble' (as they are
described) of courtiers and academics rushed upon the mass of untouched
dainties, and began a disorderly scramble, in which they 'flung the wet
sweetmeats on the ladies linnen and petticoats, and stained them.' The King
watched the scramble for two or three minutes, and then departed,
commending to the Vice-Chancellor and doctors his chaplain, W. Hall, who
had preached before him the day previous, and delivering a most fatherly
homily on the sin of pride, the virtue of charity, and the duty of doing as
they would be done to. Good, gossipping, Ant. à Wood gives in his
Autobiography a full account of all that passed, from which are taken the
quotations made above[145].
[145] See also Miss Seward's Anecdotes, Supplement, 1797, p. 72.

A.D. 1688.

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

A.D. 1690.

Thirty pounds were paid in this year to Antony à Wood for twenty-five
MSS. out of his library[146]. These are volumes of great value, including
Chartularies of the Abbeys of Glastonbury and Malmesbury, and of the
Preceptory of Sandford, Oxon, copies of Papal bulls relating to England, a
register of lands in Leicestershire temp. Hen. VI, &c.
The rest of Wood's MSS., and printed books, came to the Library, together
with the other collections preserved in the Ashmolean Museum, in 1860.
It is said that Wood in this year estimated the number of MSS. in the
Library at 10,141. This must have been the number of separate books, not
volumes, as in 1697 the latter appear from Bernard's Catalogue to have been
about 6700.
[146] In Bernard's Catalogue the purchase is said to have been made in 1692, but
this is an error, as it is entered in the accounts of 1690.

A.D. 1691.

On Oct. 8, died Dr. Thomas Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln, who, retaining his
attachment for the place over which he had presided from 1652 to 1660,
bequeathed to it seventy-eight MSS. (now bound in fifty-four volumes), and
all the printed books in his collection which the Library did not possess, the
remainder going to Queen's College. They appear to have been received in
the years 1693-4, as large payments for the carriage are found in the
accounts then. His MSS. are described in the old Catalogue of 1697. The
printed books, which are particularly rich in tracts of the time of Charles I
and the Usurpation, are still kept distinct, being called Linc.; ending, in the
8o series, at about the middle of the shelves marked with the letter C in that
division. They are placed in the gallery on the left hand of the great central
room[147]. His legacy included a copy of the famous Exposicio Sancti

Jeronimi in Simbolo Apostolorum, which was printed at Oxford in 1468,
and completed, as the colophon states, on Dec. 17. This volume was given
to Barlow, as he notes at the beginning, by Bishop Juxon, July 31, 1657. It
is exhibited in the glass case near the entrance. The Library possesses also
seven other productions of the early Oxford press. They are as follow:—
1. Ægidius Romanus de Peccato Originali, dated March 14,
1479. This was one of Rob. Burton's books. Qu. unique?
2. Textus Ethicorum Aristotelis, per Leonardum Arretinum
translatus, 1479. One of Selden's books.
3. Expositio Alexandri [de Ales] super tertium librum [Arist.]
De Anima. 'Impressum per me Theodericum rood de Colonia in
alma universitate Oxon.' Oct. 11, 1481.
4. Joh. Latteburii Exposicio Trenorum Jheremie, July 31, 1482.
No place, but printed with the same type as the last.
5. Liber Festivalis, in English, printed by Rood and Hunt, 1486.
Two copies, but both very imperfect. The more imperfect one of
the two formerly belonged to Herbert, and was bought for £6 6s.
in 1832; two additional leaves have been inserted by Mr. Coxe,
which were found among Hearne's scraps, having been given to
him as fragments of a Caxton by Bagford. The other copy was
bought in 1852, at Utterson's sale, for £6 10s.
6. Opus Wilhelmi Lyndewoode super Constitutiones
Provinciales. No place or date, but identified by the type.
7. Vulgaria quedam abs Terentio in Anglicam linguam traducta.
Without place or date, but also identified by the type. The
following note, which corroborates the identification, is written
in red ink on a fly-leaf in the volume (which includes several
other tracts): '1483. Frater Johannes Grene emit hunc librum
Oxon. de elemosinis amicorum suorum[148].'
A list of sixty-six books, which Hunt, the Oxford printer and bookseller,
had in his hands for sale in 1483, is preserved in his own writing on a fly-
leaf in a copy of a French translation of Livy, Paris, 1486, which was

bought for the Library from Mr. C. J. Stewart, in Dec. 1860, for £12. The
list is headed thus: 'Inventorium librorum quos ego Thomas Hunt,
stacionarius universitatis Oxoniensis, recepi de Magistro Petro Actore et
Johannis (sic) de Aquisgrano ad vendendum, cum precio cujuslibet libri, et
promito (sic) fideliter restituere libros aut pecunias secundum precium
inferius scriptum, prout patebit in sequentibus, Anno Domini Mo. CCCCo.
octuagesimo tercio.'
[147] In most of them is inscribed the motto, αιεν αριστευειν.
[148] This last book is described by Dr. Cotton in the second series of his
Typographical Gazetteer, published in 1866, from a copy in the University
Library at Cambridge. Besides the other Oxford books enumerated by that
learned bibliographer, several fragments of another, a Compendium totius
Grammaticæ (conjectured to have been written by John Anwykyll, Waynflete's
first Grammar Master at Magdalene College) have been discovered. They have
been identified by Mr. H. Bradshaw, the Librarian of the University of
Cambridge, whose extensive acquaintance with early typography is well known.
That gentleman found, at Cambridge, two leaves in the University Library in
1859, two more in Corpus Christi in 1861, and two in St. John's in 1866. Four
other leaves were discovered by the present writer in 1867, bound up as fly-
leaves in a volume in the library of Viscount Dillon, at Ditchley, Oxfordshire.
Mr. Bradshaw supposes the book to have been printed about 1483-6.

A.D. 1692.

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

A.D. 1693.

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

subjects; and are, for the most part, placed in the shelves marked 8o Z. Jur.
[Arabic version of Isaiah, see p. 81.]
Another large Oriental collection was added in this year by the purchase,
from Dr. Robert Huntington, for the sum of £700, of about 600 MSS. These
he had procured while holding the post of chaplain to the English merchants
at Aleppo[149]. The collection is one of very great value and rarity. No. 1 is a
fine and ponderous Syriac volume, containing the works of Gregory
Abulpharage. No. 2 is a very fine folio Arabic MS., written in the year of
the Hegira 777 (= A.D. 1375), and dedicated to the Sultan Almalek Alashraf
Shalian ben Hosain; in it, as Uri says in his Catalogue, 'variæ Ægypti
regiones recensentur, agrorum cujusque regionis mensura definitur, et annui
redditus exponuntur.' Dibdin[150] describes it in his own exaggerated style,
as follows:—'One of the grandest books— ... a sort of Domesday
compilation—which can possibly be seen.... The scription is in double
columns, with the margins emblazoned only in stars. The title, on the
reverse of the first leaf, is highly illuminated, in a fine style; not crowded
with ornaments, but grand from its simplicity. At the end, we observe that it
is (rightly) called Munus Pretiosum, and that the author was Sherfiddin
Iahia ben Almocar ben Algiaian. The inspection of such a volume, on the
coldest possible morning, even when the thermometer stands at zero, is
sufficient to warm the most torpid system.' No. 80 is a copy of Maimonides'
Yad Hachazaka, revised by the author, with his autograph signature at the
bottom of fol. 165, and a MS. note by him on fol. 1. Of these an engraved
facsimile is given in Treasures of Oxford, containing Poetical Compositions
by the ancient Jewish Authors in Spain, and compiled from MSS. in the
Bodl. Libr. by H. Edelman and Leop. Dukes; edited and rendered into
English by M. H. Bresslau: part i. 8o. Lond. 1851. A second part of this
work was to have contained prose selections from MSS. in the Huntington,
Pococke, Michael, and Oppenheim collections, but no more was published.
Among Huntington's books there are also three, of no great antiquity, in the
Mendean character, of which Dr. T. Smith narrates in his life of Bernard
(1704, p. 21) that two were said to have been given by God to Adam, and
the third to the angels, 330,000 years before Adam. And one volume (No.
598) is in the Ouigour language, a Tartar dialect, of which very few
specimens are known to exist. A gentleman M. Vaḿbery, the traveller in
Tartary, who is engaged in forming a Chrestomathy of this dialect, came in

the last year to England for the purpose of examining this volume, as one of
the few on which his work could be based. Three MSS. exist at Paris; but
that in the Bodleian is said to be the most beautiful of all as a specimen of
writing, as well as the most ancient. It is a version of the Bakhtiar Nameh.
A description of it, with an engraved facsimile, is given in Davids' Turkish
Grammar, 4o. Lond. 1832, pref. p. xxxi.
An exchange of some duplicates was made with the Library of Queen's
College, and in 1695 the duplicates of Bishop Barlow's Collection were
transferred, in accordance with his will, to the same Library.
[149] He had previously given thirty-five MSS. in the years 1678, 1680, and
1683. He died on Sept. 2, 1701, only twelve days after his consecration as
Bishop of Raphoe.
[150] Bibliogr. Decam. iii. 472.

A.D. 1694.

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

A.D. 1695.

Books were bought from Mr. Bobart, and at the auction of the library of Sir
Charles Scarborough, M.D.
Stationers' Company. See 1610.
MSS. from Wood. See 1658.

A.D. 1696.

From this year until 1700, Humphrey Wanley was an assistant in the
Library, at an annual salary of £12. He had also £10 at the end of this year
'extraordinary, for his paines already past,' and £15, at the beginning of
1700, 'for his pains about Dr. Bernard's books.' Possibly this grant may have
been in consequence of the interposition of Bishop Lloyd of Worcester,
who, in a letter to Wanley of Jan. 6, in that year, promises to speak to the

Bishop of Oxford to see whether he can get his place in the Library made
better for him[151]. Wanley was no favourite with Hearne. The following
passage from the MS. Diary of the latter[152] is a specimen of the censure
which he on several occasions passes on him: 'Humphrey Wanley appears
from several passages to be a very illiterate silly fellow. He committed
strange and almost incredible blunders when he was employed by Dr.
Charlett and some others in printing the catalogue of the MSS. of England
and Ireland, which work was committed first to the care of Dr. Bernard; but
he being then very weak and otherwise employed, he could not take so
much pains about it as he would, had he not been thus hindered.' The very
accurate index, however, to this Catalogue was Bernard's own work, made
from the proof-sheets, and written with his own hand, 'uti ab illo accepi,'
says Dr. T. Smith in his Life (1704, p. 48). He prepared also another index,
which included besides the contents of eight of the great foreign libraries,
but not the Royal Library at Paris, the catalogue of which he was unable to
obtain.
[151] Walker's Letters by Eminent Persons, i. 102. It is pleasant to find that
Wanley in more prosperous days evinced his gratitude for the help he had
received in the Library, by giving, in the year 1721, £7 7s., together with a MS.
Latin Bible.
[152] 1714, vol. li. p. 193.

A.D. 1697.

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

to the Ath. Oxon. (iv. 709), who adds that this addition 'contained many of
the most valuable books, both printed and MSS., now in the Library.'
In the discharge of his duty of selection, Wanley came into sharp collision
with his chief, Dr. Hyde, as is shown by a curious paper, in Wanley's
handwriting, which was transcribed by Dr. Rawlinson from the original in
Dr. Charlett's possession[153]. The paper gives a list of books for the not
securing which, together with others, out of Dr. Bernard's collection, blame
had been thrown upon Wanley, and which Hyde had said must by all means
be bought at the auction which was to be held in October, 1697. To the title
of each book so specified, Wanley appends some caustic remarks, exposing
Dr. Hyde's little acquaintance with the Library or with the books
themselves; and sums up thus at the close:—'This is what I have to say to
these 13 books, one whereof I look upon as imperfect, two more I was
charged not to meddle with, and the other ten are in the Library already. I
shall wave all unmannerly reflections, as whether this be not in you insignis
insufficientia, for which you are liable to be turned out of your place; or
[whether,] if you had been employed to bring in a list of Dr. Bernard's
books wanting in the Library, and took the same method as now, the
University would not have bought a fair parcel of duplicates, and such like;
but I pass them by. Tho' it must be owned that the University being willing
to lay out but 140 pounds, some different editions of the Bible, Fathers,
Classicks, &c., were preferr'd to some books not at all in the Library, but
they were at the same time judged to be of less moment, and likely to be
given to it by future benefactors.'
The quarrel, however, soon ceased; for, in the following year, Hyde was
anxious to see Wanley appointed as his successor. The latter, in a letter to
Dr. Charlett, dated Oct. 10, 1698[154], repeats a conversation held with Hyde
on the previous evening, in which the Librarian said 'that he is heartily
weary of the place of Library-keeper; that he must use more exercise in
riding out, &c., if he intends to preserve his health; which will of necessity
hinder his attendance there. He had rather I succeeded him than anybody
else, which I cannot do untill I am a graduate; that, if I have any friends
amongst the heads of houses, they cann't do better for me than in procuring
for me the degree of Batchellor of Law, that I may be in a condition to stand
for his place with others, which he will resign as soon as I have obtain'd the
said degree, and (for my sake) will communicate his intentions to nobody

else in the mean time. He presses me to get this degree as soon as possible,
urging that he does not care how soon he is rid of his place.' Wanley asks
for Charlett's advice; what that was does not appear, but, at any rate, he did
not obtain the degree which he desired, and consequently did not become
eligible as Hyde's successor.
Sixteen MS. treatises on Mathematics, Astronomy, and Ancient History, by
Thomas Lydiat, were given by Will. Coward, M.D. They are placed
amongst the Bodl. MSS., chiefly between Nos. 658-671.
[153] Rawlinson's copy is now in MS. Rawl. Misc. 937. For the knowledge of
this paper the writer is indebted to Rev. W. H. Bliss.
[154] Ballard MSS. xiii. 45.

A.D. 1700.

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

of Wren on the subject, with the draughts, and reports of the workmen
employed, are preserved in Bodley MS. 907. They are printed in [Walker's]
Oxoniana, iii. 16-27.

In this year died Henry Jones, M.A., Vicar of Sunningwell, Berks[155]. He
bequeathed to the Library sixty volumes in MS., very miscellaneous in
character, and chiefly of the 16th and 17th centuries. Some of them had
belonged to Bishop Fell. The bequest probably came to Oxford some few
years after Mr. Jones' death, as the books are entered (in a full and accurate
list) by Hearne, in the Benefaction Book, among the gifts of about the years
1706-12. It was from a modern transcript among these that Hearne edited
the Historia Regum Angliæ of John Ross or Rouse; and seventy-one
documents from No. 23, which is an Hereford Chartulary, were printed by
Rawlinson at the end of his History of Hereford, 8o, Lond. 1717. One
volume has for many years been missing from the collection, viz., a funeral
oration, by John Sonibanck, on the death of Queen Elizabeth of York, in
1503. A list of the MSS. is printed from the Benefaction Register, in
Uffenbach's Commercium Epistolicum, pp. 200-208.
Between 1700 and 1738 Sir Hans Sloane is recorded to have given
considerably more than 1400 volumes, together with his picture in 1731;
but the majority of them do not appear to have been considered of much
value, and only 415 are specified by name in the Benefaction Register. Dr.
Hyde, in a letter to Hudson, which accompanied a list of the books for
which the latter had asked with a view to registration, says he scarce thinks
the entry to be 'for the credit of the business, nos inter nos[156].' But Hudson
appears to have thought that the omission proceeded rather from
carelessness, for, in a letter to Wanley, he says that he thinks Hyde assigned
'non causa pro causa[157].'
[155] Steele's MSS. Collections for Berks; Gough MS. 27.
[156] Walker's Letters by Eminent Persons, i. 173.
[157] Ellis's Letters of Eminent Literary Men, Camd. Soc. pp. 302-3.

A.D. 1701.

The long-entertained idea of resigning the Librarianship was at length
carried out by Dr. Thomas Hyde in this year, for the reasons given in the
following letter, which was addressed by him to the Pro-Vice-Chancellor,
probably Dr. Charlett. It is here printed from a copy sent by Hyde to Wake,
then Rector of St. James, Westminster, and preserved amongst the Wake
Correspondence in the library of Ch. Ch.:—
'March 10, 1700/01,
'Christ Church, Oxon.
'Sir,—I being a little indisposed by the gout, acquaint you thus
by letter, that what I long agoe designed (as you partly knew) I
am now about to put in execution. That is to say, I shall shortly
lay down my office of Library-keeper, about a month hence,
which resolution I do now declare, and I do hereby give you
timely and statuteable notice of the same as Pro-Vice-
Chancellor, entreating that, as the Statute requires, you will in
two days order Mr. Cowper to draw a Programma to be set up at
the Schools to the sence of the enclosed paper, he best knowing
forms and lawyers' Latin.
'Among the Bodleian Statutes in the Appendix, in the Statute de
causis amovendi aut libere recedendi, you will find that upon
the Library-keeper's notice thus given, you are in two days' time
to fix up the programma preparatory to make it known that
about a month hence (which is about the end of this term) that
office will be actually resigned and void.
'My reasons for leaving the place are two, viz. one is because
(my feet being left weak by the gout) I am weary of the toil and
drudgery of daily attendance all times and weathers; and
secondly, that I may have my time free to myself to digest and
finish my papers and collections upon hard places of Scripture,
and to fit them for the press[158]; seing that Lectures (though we
must attend upon them) will do but little good, hearers being
scarce and practicers more scarce.
'I should have left the Library more compleat and better
furnish'd but that the building of the Elaboratory[159] did so

exhaust the University mony, that no books were bought in
severall years after it. And at other times when books were
sometimes bought, it was (as you well know) never left to me to
buy them, the Vice-Chancellor not allowing me to lay out any
University mony. And therefore some have blamed me without
cause for not getting all sorts of books.
'Before the Visitations I did usually spend a month's time in
preparing a list of good books to offer to the Curators; but I
could seldom get them bought, being commongly (sic) answered
in short, that they had no mony. Nay, I have been chid and
reproved by the Vice-Chancellor for offering to put them to so
much charge in buying books. These things at last discouraged
me from medling in it. But, however, I leave the Library three
times bigger than I found it[160], and furnished with a Catalogue
of which I found it destitute. I wish the University a man who
may take as much pains and drudgery as I have done whilst I
was able to do it.
'I entreat you with all speed to cause the Register to put up the
programma signed with your name, that so things may be
regularly and statutably dispatched in order, until the time of
actuall resignation shall come.
'In the mean time I remain,
'Your humble servant,
'THOMAS HYDE.'
John Hudson, M.A., of Queen's, afterwards D.D. and Princ. of St. Mary
Hall, was elected in Hyde's room; he was opposed by J. Wallis, M.A., of
Magd., the Laudian Professor of Arabic, but was chosen by 194 votes to
173[161]. A letter to him from Hyde on his election, with advice about the
entering of Sir H. Sloane's books in the Register, the augmentation of Mr.
Crabbe's salary, the Catalogues and the Statutes, is printed in [Walker's]
Letters by Eminent Persons, i. 173. He had previously, in 1696-98, given
seventy books to the Library, and in 1705-10 he added nearly 600. Hyde did
not long survive his resignation, dying before one year had elapsed, on Feb.
18, 1702. He was buried at Handborough, near Oxford.

In this year Thomas Hearne, the famous antiquary, was appointed Janitor, or
Assistant, in the Library. He tells us in his Autobiography (p. 10) that, from
the time of his taking the degree of B.A. in Act term, 1699, 'he constantly
went to the Bodleian Library every day, and studied there as long as the
time allowed by the Statutes would admit,' and that the fact of this his
'diligence being taken notice of by all persons that came thither, and his
skill in books being likewise well known to those with whom he had at any
time conversed,' occasioned Hudson's appointing him to be an Assistant
immediately upon his own election as Librarian. It appears, from the
Visitors' Book, that a payment of £10 was made to him in this year, and
that, in the next year, £30 were voted to him for his assistance in making an
Appendix to the Catalogue of printed books[162], and for enlarging and
correcting the Catalogues of MSS. and Coins. Extra payments of 50s. were
also made to him in 1704 and 1706, and of 20s. in 1709.
The Bodley Speech. See 1682.
[158] These were left in MS. at Hyde's death, and have never been published.
[159] i.e. the Ashmolean Museum.
[160] Hyde was greatly mistaken here, as a calculation made by Hearne in 1714
(q.v.) showed that the Library had then little more than doubled since 1620.
[161] Reliqq. Hearn. ii. 616.
[162] For an account of Hearne's Appendix, see 1738.

A.D. 1702.

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

A.D. 1704.

The name of John Locke appears in the Register, as the donor of his own
works (which he gave at Hudson's request), together with some others,
including, with an honourable fairness, those of Bishop Stillingfleet written
in controversy with himself. As Locke's expulsion from Ch. Ch., in 1684,
by royal mandate, for political reasons, is sometimes, with an injustice

which he himself would doubtless have warmly repudiated, represented as
if it had been the act of Oxford itself, it is worth while to quote the language
in which this gift from him, twenty years afterwards, is recorded, and
recorded, too, by the pen of the earnest and conscientious Jacobite, Thomas
Hearne: 'Joannes Lock, generosus, et hujus Academiæ olim alumnus, præter
Opera ab ipso edita, ob ingenii elegantiam, doctrinæ varietatem, et
philosophicam subtilitatem, omnibus suspicienda (here follow the titles of
his own works), insuper ex suo in optimas artes amore, animoque ad
supellectilem literariam augendam propenso, Bibliothecæ huic dono dedit
libros sequentes;' scil. Churchill's Voyages and Travels, 4 vols., 1704,
Stillingfleet's Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity, Stillingfleet's
Answer to Locke, and Rob. Boyle's History of the Air. Locke desired, in a
codicil to his will, that in compliance with a second request from Hudson,
all his anonymous works should also be sent to the Library[163].
William Ray, formerly consul at Smyrna, presented about 600 coins, chiefly
Greek, which E. Lhwyd (who reported their number to be about 2000) said
he had been told had been collected at Smyrna by his cook[164]. But the
Benefaction Register records that they were obtained by Ray from the
widow of one 'domini Dan. Patridge,' who had himself intended to present
them to the University. They were put in order, and a Catalogue made of
them, some years afterwards, by Hearne, who intended to have given the
Catalogue to the Library, 'had not,' he says, 'the ill usage he afterwards met
with there obliged him to alter his mind[165].' Ray also gave a Turkish
almanac.
[163] Lord King's Life of Locke, edit. 1830, vol. ii. p. 51.
[164] Walker's Letters by Eminent Persons, i. 137.
[165] Life, p. 13, in Lives of Leland, Hearne, and Wood, 1772.

A.D. 1706.

The supposed original MS. of The Causes of the Decay of Christian Piety,
by the author of The Whole Duty of Man, was given by Mr. Keble, the
London bookseller. It is now numbered Bodl. MS. 21. Dr. Aldrich was of
opinion that it is not in the author's own hand, but copied in a disguised

hand by Bishop Fell. Hearne thought it to be in a disguised hand of
Sancroft's; but the resemblance is very slight indeed[166].
[166] See Letters by Eminent Persons, vol. ii. pp. 133-4.

A.D. 1707.

Six volumes of Archbishop Usher's Collectanea, with two or three other
MSS. which had belonged to him, were given to the Library by James
Tyrrell, the historian, who was the archbishop's grandson. He had placed
them previously in the hands of Dr. Mill, for use by him in his edition of the
Greek Test., and it was about a week before Mill's death, June 21, 1707, that
they were transferred, together with a gift from Mill of various printed
books, to the Library[167]. They are now placed among the Rawlinson
Miscellaneous MSS., 1065-1074, and one volume containing various
readings in the Gr. Test., is numbered Auct. T. v. 30. Other volumes of his
MSS. Collections in the Library are Barlow, 10 and 13; e Musæo, 46 and
47; Rawl. Misc. 225, 280; Rawl. Letters, 89, and Rawlinson C. 849, 850,
which last were given to Hearne by Tyrrell. Hearne has printed some
extracts at the end of Gul. Neubrig. iii. 804. Six Samaritan and other MSS.
which belonged to Usher are now in the class called Bodl. Orient.
By the bequest of Dr. Humphrey Hody the Library acquired some 400 or
500 volumes, being all those in his own collection which were wanting
here, together with his MSS. Collectanea. These last, amounting to twenty-
three volumes, are now numbered Bodl. Addit. 1. D. 1-4, 2. B. 1-16, 2. C.
1-3.
Thomas, Archbishop of Gocthan, in Armenia, visited England on an errand
which seems to have justly excited great sympathy and attention. Sensible
of the low condition of his fellow-countrymen, through their want of means
of instruction, and being earnestly anxious to do something towards their
elevation, he had spent some forty years in travels through Europe and Asia
for the purpose of procuring books, establishing printing-presses, educating
young men, and obtaining help for the furtherance of his Christian and
patriotic projects. His first printing establishment, at Marseilles, was ruined
by the mismanagement and fraud of those to whom it was entrusted. He
then, for ten years, carried on a press at Amsterdam, where he printed, in

Armenian, the New Testament, the Prayers and Hymns of the Church, a
translation of Thomas à Kempis, and several other theological works,
together with some in geography, history, and science. But troubles and
trials again overtook him; disputes and law-suits involved him in debt; one
hundred books, which he shipped for Armenia in 1698, were taken at sea,
and so never reached their destination. And so, poor and sorrowful, in
extreme old age, the Archbishop came to England to seek for help,
recommended by Dr. John Cockburn, the English Minister at Amsterdam.
He was well received by the Archbishops, and Sharp, of York, procured him
an interview with the Queen, who gave him some assistance. Then,
recommended by Bishop Compton[168], of London, he came to Oxford.
What he received in the way of the help which he most of all needed,
deponent sayeth not; let us hope it was not small. What he received in the
way of honour, and what he did to cause the introduction of his name in
these Annals, Hearne tells, in his own interesting way, in his Diary[169]:—
'May 24. Last night came to Oxon one of the Armenian
Patriarchs. He is Patriarch of the Holy Cross in Gogthan (near
Mount Ararat) in Greater Armenia. He subscribes himself in his
speech to the Queen in the last month, by translation, Thomas.
The next day he was attended to the publick Library by Dr.
Charlett, Pro-Vice-Chancellor. At the entrance, Dr. Hudson, the
Keeper, made him a handsome complement in Latin; but the
Patriarch, being about 90 years of age, and understanding no
Latin, nor Greek, nor any European language but Italian, took
but little notice of any thing. He afterwards was carried to Dr.
Charlett's lodgings, where he was treated.
'May 29. This day was a Convocation in the Theatre, when the
Archbishop of the Holy Cross in Gocthan was created Doctor of
Divinity, and his nephew, Luke Nurigian, and Mr. Cockburn,
son of Dr. Cockburn, were created Masters of Arts. The day
before, the Archbishop presented to the publick Library several
books in Armenian which he has caused to be printed. Mr.
Wyatt, the orator, spoke a speech in his commendation, and
presented him, the Queen having been pleased to let us be
without a Professor. During the Convocation, several papers
printed at the Theatre were given to the Doctors, Noblemen, and

some others, entitled, Reverendissimi in Christo Patris Thomæ,
Archiepiscopi Sanctæ Crucis in Gocthan Perso-Armeniæ,
peregrinationis suæ in Europam, pietatis et literarum
promovendarum caussa susceptæ, brevis narratio; una cum dicti
Archiepiscopi ad serenissimam Magnæ Britanniæ Reginam
oratiuncula ejusque responso. Accedunt de eodem
Archiepiscopo testimonia ampla et præclara. Printed upon two
sheets, folio[170].'

In another volume of memoranda[171], Hearne adds the following notice of
one of the books given by the Archbishop: 'Amongst other books which he
gave to the Bodleian Library is a History, at the beginning of which the
Archbishop's nephew put the following memorandums: "Historia Nationis
Armeniæ, a Moise Chorenensi grammatico, doctore Armeno. Amst. 1695.
Maii 28, 1707, Bibliothecæ Bodleianæ dono dedit reverendiss. Thomas
Archiep. S. Crucis in Majori Armenia. Per manum ejusd. reverendiss.
nepotis, Lucæ Nurigianidis." Underneath which is written, at the motion of
Dr. Charlett, and by the direction of the said Archbishop's nephew:
"Auctorem istius libri floruisse traditur seculo quarto post Christum."' The
book is now numbered, 8o V. 134 Th.
[167] Hearne's MS. Diary, xv. 24.
[168] And by the good Robert Nelson (Letters by Eminent Persons, i. 167, 9),
who had also obtained ten guineas for him from the Christian Knowledge
Society (Secretan's Life of Nelson, pp. 113-4).
[169] Vol xiv. pp. 64, 68.
[170] A copy of this tract is in V. 1. 1. Jur.
[171] Rawlinson MS. C. 876. p. 44.

A.D. 1709.

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

A.D. 1710.

Dr. Richard Middleton Massey, formerly of Brasenose College, gave (with
a few other books) a very curious and valuable series of Registers of the
Parliamentary Committee for augmentation of poor vicarages, from 1645 to
1652, in eight folio volumes, with one earlier volume containing a list of
livings in the diocese of Norwich, with their values and incumbents. To
local antiquaries these proceedings are full of interest, while their historical
and biographical value is equally great. They are now numbered Bodl.
MSS. 322-330. Of the printed books given by Dr. Massey, most of those in
octavo were placed at the end of Bishop Barlow's books, in the shelves
marked D. Linc.
Three thousand pounds were offered by the University for the library of
Isaac Vossius, but refused. But the books were shortly afterwards sold to the
University of Leyden for the same sum[172].
[172] Reliquiæ Hearn. i. 205, 6.

A.D. 1711.

A watch which had belonged to Dudley, Earl of Leicester, is said to have
been presented by Mr. Ralph Howland, of Maidenhead.
Grabe's Adversaria. See 1724.

A.D. 1712.

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

'Alteri [præfecto Bibliothecæ], nomine Crab, caput vacuum
cerebro est, lepidum alias, dignusque homo quem ridiculo illo
encomio, quo tamen multi serio egregios viros onerarunt,
ornetur, vociteturque Helluo, non librorum tamen sed
præmiorum, quæ ab exteris Bibliothecam hanc invisentibus
avide excipit, statimque cauponibus reddit pro liquore, ad guttur
colluendum purgandumque a pulvisculo, qui librorum
tractationem velut umbra aut nebula comitari solet. Quamvis
non ejus, sed tertii infimique Bibliothecarii, hoc sit muneris, ut
libros in loculos reponat, quævis in ordinem redigat atque
emundet.'
The date of Crabb's appointment has not been ascertained, but it must have
been previous to 1699, as on Nov. 8 of that year an order appears in the
Visitors' Book for an extra payment to him of £10[175]; other additional
payments of £5 and 50s. are made to him annually until 1710. Two vols. of
an index to texts of printed sermons, ending about the year 1708, (now
Bodl. MSS. 47 and 657,) which were, doubtless, intended to form a
continuation of Verneuil's little book, are said in an old entry in the
Catalogue to be by 'Mr. Crabb.' The following brief account of him is given
in Rawlinson's MSS. collections for a continuation of Wood's Athenæ:—
'Joseph Crabb, son of Will. Crabb, clerk, born at Child-Ockford
in Dorsetshire on —— 1674; educated in grammar learning at
——; matriculated as a member of Exeter College, 18 July
1691; took the degree of B.A. 17 Oct. 1695; became Sub-
librarian at the public library; removed to Gloucester Hall,
where he became M.A., 4 July 1705, and died ——.'
Rawlinson goes on to attribute to him (as his solitary claim to a place in the
Athenæ) a Poem on the late Storm, Lond. 1704, fol., but this was written (as
well as a Latin poem In Georgium reducem, Lond. 1719, fol.) by John
Crabb, Fellow of Exeter College (B.A., Oct. 15, 1685; M.A., June 19,
1688), who was also a Sub-librarian at an earlier period, but the date of
whose entrance into office as well as of quittance is not known. The latter
became Rector of Breamore, Hants, in 1709, where he died in 1748 at the
age of eighty-five. He is remarkable for having married four wives, all of
whom lie buried with him in his church. The third of these, Grace

Shuckbridge, became his wife when he was aged seventy-six and she was
forty-nine; the last (who survived until March 13, 1777) was thirty-six
when she took him, at the age of eighty-one, for better or worse. There is a
handsome marble tablet to his memory on the north wall of the Chancel of
Breamore Church, bearing the following inscription, and surmounted by his
arms (scil., on a field gules a chevron between two fleur-de-lis above and a
crab displayed below or; crest, a demi-lion rampant or) painted in their
proper colours:—
'H. S. E. Reverend. Johan. Crabb, A. M. è Coll. Exon quondam
Socius Oxon., Bibliothecæ Bodleianæ Sub-Librarius, et a sacris
olim Episc. Fowler, hujus Parochiæ Minister residens amplius
XXXVIII ann. Vir doctus, pius, generosus, in Ecclesiâ
Orthodoxus, in Republicâ fidelis, et omnibus liberalis. Author
Georgianæ et aliorum Carminum celebrium latine et anglice,
Obiit tandem XIII Id. Martii, Anno ætat. suæ LXXXV., Æræ
Christianæ MDCCXLVIII[176].'
On July 22, Thomas Hearne was appointed Second-keeper by Dr. Hudson,
in the room of Crabb, while still retaining his post as Janitor, 'with liberty
allow'd him of being keeper of the Anatomy schoole, or Bodleian
repository, on purpose to advance the perquisites of the place, which are
very inconsiderable[177],' but with the proviso that the salary of the janitor's
place should go to an assistant officer. By this arrangement Hearne retained
the keys, so that he could go in and out when he pleased[178].
'Sept. 16, Dr. Hudson told me to-day that some have complain'd that books
in the Publick Library are not so easily come at as usual. I am glad there is
such a complaint. I am afraid the complainers are such as us'd to steal books
from the Library, and, upon that account, are concern'd that they are more
strictly look'd after than formerly[179].'
[173] Hearne's MS. Diary, xxxvii. 180.
[174] 1753, p. 182. For the reference to this passage the author is indebted to
Dibdin's Bibliogr. Decam. iii. 281. The same volume of Uffenbach's contains
some criticisms on Bernard's Catalogue of the MSS., chiefly with relation to the
Barocci collection, with extracts from the additional entries in the Reg. Benef.
[175] This was granted at Hyde's urgent request, 'in regard of his great pains in
entering books in the Catalogue, and of the smallness of his place.' Letter from

Hyde to Hudson, in Walker's Letters, i. 174.
[176] For the above particulars of John Crabb's history subsequent to his leaving
Oxford the author is indebted to his friend the Rev. J. H. Blunt, lately the Curate
in charge of the parish of Breamore, who mentions, with reference to Crabb's
connubial experiences, the parallel case of Bishop John Thomas, Bishop of the
adjoining diocese of Salisbury, 1757-61, and afterwards of Winchester. At his
fourth wedding that prelate had the good taste and feeling to present his friends
with memorial rings inscribed with the couplet:—

'If I survive
I'll make them five.'

But the lady did not afford him the wished-for opportunity.
[177] Hearne's MS. Diary, xxxvii. 191.
[178] Life, 1772, p. 14.
[179] MS. Diary, xxxix. 120.

A.D. 1713.

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

At this period every stranger admitted to read in the Library had to pay nine
shillings in fees, of which 1s. went to the Head Librarian, 3s. 6d. to the
Second Librarian, 1s. 6d. to the Janitor, 2s. to the Registrar (for an order for
admission, but in the Long Vacation this fee went to the Second Librarian),
and 1s. to the Proctor's man[181]. In 1720 the fee to be received from every
visitor not qualified to read was fixed at one penny, to be paid to a porter
who was then first appointed to the charge of the Picture Gallery. It
subsequently rose by a silent custom to the large sum of a shilling; but some
few years ago the Curators fixed the charge to visitors at threepence each,
unless accompanied, and in consequence franked, by some member of the
University in his academic dress. Since this moderate sum has been fixed,
the number of ordinary sight-seeing visitors has, naturally, much
increased[182].
The suppression, by an order of the Heads of Houses, dated March 23,
1712/3, of Hearne's edition of Dodwell's tract De Parma Equestri
Woodwardiana, was attributed by Hearne himself to (as the remote
occasion) an incident connected with his office in the Library, which is
related very fully by himself in vol. xliv. of his MS. Diary. On Feb. 20, Mr.
Keil, the Savilian Professor of Geometry, brought to the Library an Irish
gentleman named Mollineux, recommended by Sir Andrew Fountaine, to
whom he requested Hearne to show the curiosities of the place. As Keil was
'a very honest gentleman,' Hearne little suspected that his friend was
possessed with the 'republican ill principles' and 'malignant temper' of
Whiggism, and consequently was not very guarded in his talk. After
showing him various MSS. and coins, he took the visitor into the Anatomy
School[183], where all kinds of odds and ends were preserved; amongst
which was (as Hearne gravely notes in another place) a calf which, being
born in the year of the Union, 1707, had (it is to be presumed in
consequence thereof) two bodies and one head. What followed during the
exhibition of this museum is worth relating in the diarist's own words:—
'I mentioned a picture engraved and hanging there with horns
and wings, and underneath, uxor ejus ad vivum pinxil. This
picture many had said was Benjamin Hoadley, the seditious
divine of London; but, for my part, I gave no other description
of it than this, that 'twas the picture of one of the greatest

Presbyterian, republican, antimonarchical, Whiggish, fanatical
preachers living in England. And this description was enough to
exasperate him. And yet, for all that, he did not discover any
passion, nor give the least hint that he was a Whig himself.
Neither did he give any hint of it afterwards till I came to
mention a tobacco stopper tipped with silver, and given to me by
a reverend divine, who had informed me that it was made out of
an oak that lately grew in St. James's Park, but was destroyed by
the D. of M. for the great house he was building near St.
James's, and that the said oak came from an acorn that was
planted there by King Charles II, being one of those acorns that
he had gathered in the Royal Oak, where he was forced to
shelter himself from the fury of the rebells after the fight at
Worcester. Mr. Mollineux was at the other end of the room when
this was shew'd, and the said story told; but hearing it he comes
immediately to the tables, and expresses himself in words of this
kind, viz. that 'twas a bawble, and that an hundred such things
were not worth the seeing. Mr. Keil however thought otherwise,
and said that he thought my collection was better than that in the
Laboratory. Some mirth passing after this, I went on with my
description, and had not yet formed an opinion that Mr.
Mollineux was a Whig; but finding that he was still inquisitive
after other curiosities, and that he pretended to much skill in
good ingraving and drawing, I produced the picture of a
beautifull young man, over the head of which was ΕΙΚΩΝ
ΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΗ, and underneath, Quid quæritis ultra? I did not tell
them whose picture it was, but said that I shew'd it them as a
thing excellently well done, which they all allow'd and view'd it
over and over, and seemed to be mightily taken with it, and Mr.
Mollineux in particular was pleased to say that 'twas admirably
well done, and deserved a place amongst the most exquisite
performances of this kind, at the same time asking how long I
had had it, and whose picture I took it to be. To the former of
which questions I reply'd, about a quarter of a year, to the latter
that I did not pretend to tell who it was designed for. Yet Mr.
Keil was pleased to laugh, and to tell Mr. Mollineux, They are
all rebells, Mr. Mollineux, they are all rebells in this place,

speaking these words in a merry joking way, and not with any
intent to do me an injury. Mr. Mollineux took the words upon
the picture down, which I did not deny him, not thinking that
'twas with a design to inform against me, as it afterwards
proved. Yet from this time I began a little to suspect his
integrity, and that he was not one of those good men I expected
from Mr. Keil, whom I had always found to be a man of
honesty.'
Hinc illæ lachrymæ! Poor Hearne was reported to Dr. Charlett the same
afternoon for showing the Pretender's Picture; a meeting of the Curators of
the Library was threatened; but eventually the matter seemed to pass over
by his being desired by the Vice-Chancellor to give up the key of the
Anatomy School, in order that the determining Bachelors might meet there,
by which change Hearne was mulcted of the fees which he obtained for
showing the room, and was sometimes detained one hour, or two, later than
usual in order to see to the locking up of the staircase on which it is
situated. On March 23, however, he was summoned before the Heads of
Houses for remarks made in his preface to Dodwell's above-mentioned
tract, and, after a sharp discussion, in which reference was made to his
exhibition of the portraits, he was ordered to suppress his preface, and re-
issue the book without it; to which he consented. He was pressed to make a
formal retractation of the passages to which objection was made, but this he
stiffly refused to do. He says in a letter to Sir Philip Sydenham that the only
form of retractation or expression of sorrow he could have been prevailed
on to sign (strongly resembling the famous apology of a middy to an
insulted naval surgeon) would have been some such form as this:—'I,
Thomas Hearne, A.M., of the University of Oxford, having ever since my
matriculation followed my studies with as much application as I have been
capable of, and having published several books for the honour and credit of
learning, and particularly for the reputation of the foresaid University, am
very sorry that by my declining to say anything but what I knew to be true
in any of my writings, and especially in the last book I published, intituled,
Henrici Dodwelli de Parma Equestri Woodwardiana Dissertatio, &c., I
should incurr the displeasure of any of the Heads of Houses, and as a token
of my sorrow for their being offended at truth, I subscribe my name to this
paper, and permitt them to make what use of it they please[184].'

[180] Hearne's MS. Diary, vol. lxxi. May 20.
[181] Ibid. vol. xlvii. p. 89.
[182] In an account of a visit to Oxford by an American tourist, which appeared
very recently in the New York Times, and was copied into English journals,
written with the warm-hearted tone of one who could rightly appreciate the
interest of the place, although (like most Transatlantic visitors) he spent but
twenty-four hours in it, the following comment is made upon the smallness of
this Bodleian fee:—'The gentleman [i. e. the present Janitor, Mr. John Norris]
who showed me through this noble collection, and gave me the most interesting
explanations, politely informed me that the charge was 3d. It went against my
conscience to give a gentleman of his civility and erudition the price of a pot of
beer, and I added a small testimonial, for which he seemed more than sufficiently
grateful.'
[183] This was the room which is now attached to the Library under the name of
the Auctarium.
[184] Hearne's MS. Diary, xlviii. 22. The retractation and apology which Hearne
afterwards actually submitted to the Vice-Chancellor in court in 1718, when in
trouble again for his preface to Camden's Elizabeth, was very similar in style to
this. But he was not allowed to read it. Ibid. lxxi. 3 May.

A.D. 1714.

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

30169 pr. vols.
05916 MSS. vols.
In all 36085.'

(Hearne's MS. Diary, vol. xci. p. 256.)
It is strange that, notwithstanding Selden's and Laud's large additions, the
Library had therefore very little more than doubled since 1620.

It is recorded in vol. li. of the same Diary (p. 187) that the old series of
portraits which were painted on the wall of the Picture Gallery was renewed
in November of this year. These portraits, amounting in number to about
222, ran round the gallery, immediately under the roof; many of them were
fancy-heads of ancient philosophers and writers, but besides these there
were some real portraits of English writers and divines, up to the time of
James I. A list of the whole series, as well as of the oil paintings in the
Gallery, was printed by Hearne together with his Letter containing an
Account of some Antiquities between Windsor and Oxford. Of the
renovation of the wall-paintings he thus speaks in his preface to Rossi
Historia Regum Angliæ (1716): 'Non possim quin bibliothecæ Bodleianæ
Curatores laudem, qui pictori Academico [i.e. Wildgoose] in mandatis
dederunt, ut veteres effigies renovet nitorique pristino restituat: quippe quas
eo pluris æstimendas esse censeo, quod eas in galeria depingendas jusserit
ipse Bodleius, Loci Genius.' When the Gallery was re-roofed in 1831, all
these paintings were, however, removed [see p. 15].
About the end of this year the Arundel Marbles, which, strange to say, had
been exposed to the open air within the quadrangle of the Schools ever
since they were given to the University, were removed into one of the
rooms on the ground-floor, where they still remain. It was said that they had
suffered more 'since they were exposed to our air, than they did in many
hundred years before they came into it[185].' But the influence of the air was
not all they had to contend against, for Hearne tells us that the defacing of
the Marble Chronicle (of which there are portions that were read by Selden,
which now can no longer be read at all) and some others, was owing not
merely to exposure to the weather, but 'to the abuses of children who are
continually playing in the area, and of other ignorant persons[186].'
[185] Letters by Eminent Persons, 1813, vol. i. p. 297.
[186] Letters by Eminent Persons, 1813, vol. i. p. 204.

A.D. 1715.

We learn from Hearne's MS. Diary [vol. liii.] that differences between him
and Dr. Hudson (of which he makes frequent mention) increased during this
year. He was reported to the Vice-Chancellor in April for absence from the

Library through his duties as Bedel, by reason of which readers had
difficulty in obtaining books lodged above stairs. To this complaint his
reply was that he was not bound, as Second Librarian, exclusively to do
such 'drudgery,' but that Dr. Hudson was himself obliged by statute to
deliver out such books as were under lock-and-key, and books in quarto and
octavo, either personally or by his own special deputy. At the same time a
complaint was made against him by three Bachelors of Arts of Queen's
College, for refusing books to them which were out of the faculty of Arts
prescribed to them by the statutes of the Library. Hearne's only reply to the
Vice-Chancellor in this case was the asking whether they had, also in
accordance with the Statutes, come to the Library in their hoods, if under
two years' standing; at which 'he smiled.' It appears, therefore, that this
requirement had already become obsolete. Dr. Hudson, however, regarded
the matter more seriously, and threatened that Hearne should be turned out
of both his places.
April 15. (Good Friday!) 'This morning Dr. Hudson went out of
town, and that pert jackanapes Bowles (who is Dr. Hudson's
servitor) came to tell me that he is gone, and that the sweeper of
the Library being dead, I must not admitt any one to sweep the
Library as formerly. I returned answer I had nothing to do in that
case. In the afternoon I was at study in the Library, and Bowles
brings up a woman and girl, and set them to sweeping, and left
them there, tho' this should not have been, they being not sworn
nor admitted as sweepers. Indeed all things are now done very
irregularly in the Library by the permission of Dr. Hudson, and
by the impudence of this pert, silly servitour, and I am afraid
much mischief is done withall. The whole Library and galleries
and studies and the Anatomy School used to be swept this day;
they began about eight, and had not done till four or five in the
afternoon. But now the Library only below stairs was swept
over, and that very slightly, and all things were left in a bad
condition, to my very great concern[187].'
At the visitation on Nov. 8, the Curators passed a resolution that the places
of Under-librarian and Bedel were inconsistent, and that on S. Thomas' day
Hudson should be at liberty to appoint some other person to Hearne's office.
Hereupon Hearne immediately, without a moment's delay, resigned both the

offices of Architypographus and Superior Bedel of Civil Law, and claimed
to remain in the Library; but Hudson had fresh locks put on the doors, of
which Bowles kept the keys, so that Hearne was unable to go in and out as
before. However, he continued to execute his office whenever the Library
was open until Jan. 23, 1716, when the Act which imposed a fine of £500,
with other penalties, upon any one who held any public office without
having taken the Oaths, came into operation. Then at once, all worldly
interests, all affection for the old place of his studies and his care, gave way
to the honest and unwavering dictates of his conscience; the Non-juror
withdrew, and, with singularly hard measure, in spite of his representations,
his place was ordered by the Curators to be filled up at Lady-Day, not on
the ground of his own retirement, but on that of neglect of duty! His
successor was Rev. John Fletcher, M.A., Chaplain, and afterwards Fellow,
of Queen's College. Hearne states that his salary was, with great unfairness,
withheld from him for the whole half-year preceding Lady-Day, together
with some fees which were due[188]. But to the end of his life he maintained
that he was still, de jure, Sub-librarian, and, with a quaint pertinacity,
regularly at the end of each term and half-year, up to March 30, 1735[189],
continued to set down, in one of the volumes of his Diary, that no fees had
been paid him, and that his half-year's salary was due.
On Hearne's announcing John Ross's Historia Angliæ for publication in this
year, W. Whiston forwarded to him a MS. of a Latin historical poem
entitled Britannica, written in 1606 by an author of the same names as the
forth-coming historian, with the following note inserted:—
'This book was written, as I think, by my great uncle, Mr. John
Rosse, rector of Norton-juxta-Twycross in Leicestershire, where
I was myself born. If it may be of any use to Mr. Hern at Oxford
in his intended edition of this or some other work of the same
author now advertis'd, or may be thought worthy of a place in
the publick library of that University, it is hereby freely given
thereto by
'WILLIAM
WHISTON.
'London, December 12, 1715.'

Hearne adds that (of course) the author was altogether different from the
Ross of his editing, and that the poem had been printed at Frankfort in
1607, as he learned from a MS. Catalogue of Mr. Richard Smith's books
lent him by Bp. Fleetwood of Ely[190]. The MS. is now numbered, Bodley
573.
A learned tailor of Norwich was in this year recommended by Dr. Tanner,
then Chancellor of Norwich Cathedral, for the Janitor's place in the Library
should it be vacant. Although but a journeyman tailor of thirty years of age,
who had been taught nothing but English in his childhood, Henry Wild had
contrived within seven years to master seven languages, Latin, Greek,
Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic and Persian, to which Tanner adds, in
another letter to Dr. Rawlinson, Samaritan and Ethiopic. The application
appears to have been unsuccessful so far as the holding office in the Library
was concerned; but Wild found some employment in the Library for a time
in the translating and copying Oriental MSS[191]. He removed to London
about 1720, and died in the following year, as we learn from an entry in
Hearne's MS. Diary, (xcii. 128-9,) under date of Oct. 29, 1721, where we
read:—
'About a fortnight since died in London Mr. Henry Wild,
commonly called, the Arabick Taylour. I have more than once
mentioned him formerly. He was by profession a taylour of
Norwich, and was a married man. But having a strange
inclination to languages, by a prodigious industry he obtain'd a
very considerable knowledge in many, without any help or
assistance from others. He understood Arabick perfectly well,
and transcrib'd, very fairly, much from Bodley, being patroniz'd
by that most eminent physician, Dr. Rich. Mead. He died of a
feaver, aged about 39. He was about a considerable work, viz. a
history of the old Arabian physicians, from an Arabick MS. in
Bodley. The MS. was wholly transcrib'd by him a year agoe, but
what progress he had made for the press I know not.'
Five MSS., including the Leiger Book of Malmesbury Abbey, together with
a large number of printed books, were given on May 7, by William
Brewster, M.D. of Hereford, a well-known antiquary[192].

A thick quarto volume (1052 pages) containing a Latin treatise by Adam
Zernichaus on the controversy between the Eastern and Western Churches,
concerning the Procession of the Holy Ghost, was forwarded to the Library
through Sir Robert Sutton, ambassador at Constantinople, by Chrysanthus,
Patriarch of Jerusalem, nephew and successor of Dositheus, an autograph
Greek epistle from whom, occupying seven pages, is prefixed. At the end is
a list of eleven German scribes who were employed upon the transcription
of the volume, with the payments they severally received. It appears from
the Benefaction Register that the volume was not actually received at the
Library until 1722; and in 1731, an entry in the catalogue records that the
MS. 'was restored to Sir Robert Sutton, by order of the Vice-Chancellor;'
but no reason or explanation is given. For more than a century the
Patriarch's gift was consequently lost from the place of its destination; but
in Dec. 1864, having turned up for sale among the well-known stores of Mr.
C. J. Stewart, it was secured by the Librarian at the cost of £5 15s. 6d., and
is once more to be found in its legitimate quarters, numbered MS. Addit.
Bodl. ii. c. 9. Chrysanthus also gave, in 1725, a copy of Dositheus' History
of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which was printed, in Greek, in 1715.
[187] Hearne's MS. Diary, liii. 124, 5.
[188] Life, 1772, pp. 18-20.
[189] He died on June 10, in that year.
[190] This catalogue was sold at the auction in 1855 of the MSS. of Dr. Routh,
who had bought it at Heber's sale.
[191] Letters by Eminent Persons, i. 271, 300. [On p. 270 for Turner, read
Tanner.]
[192] Hearne's MS. Diary, liii. 148.

A.D. 1716.

On Aug. 23, a legacy of £100 from Dr. South (who died July 8), for the
purchase of modern books, was paid to the Vice-Chancellor[193].
Arms in the window. See 1610.
[193] Hearne's Diary, lix. 141; Reliqq. Hearn. i. 366.

A.D. 1718.

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

A.D. 1719.

Dr. Hudson died, on Nov. 27, of dropsy. And at one o'clock on the afternoon
of the very next day, Joseph Bowles, M.A., of Oriel College, was elected in
his room.
The bitter terms in which Hearne frequently, in the course of his Diary,
condemns Hudson's management, or rather mismanagement, of the Library,
may be supposed to be owing in a considerable degree to personal pique
and quarrel[194]. But they meet with very singular and abundant
confirmation in the letter of Z. C. Uffenbach, quoted above (p. 130), when
the writer expresses, in the following strong language, his opinion of
Hudson's neglect and incapacity, and of the general condition of the Library
under his management:—
'Perpende, quæso, mecum, vir eruditissime, quantus thesaurus
ex solius Bodleianæ Bibliothecæ codicibus elici possit, nisi
Proto-Bibliothecarii Hudson negligentia ac pertinacia obstaret.
Is enim muneri abunde satisfecisse, imo eximie ornasse Spartam
videri vult, dum tot annis unico scriptori, Thucydidem ejus puto,
omni Bibliothecæ cura plane abjecta, insudavit, cum hoc, quod
supra dixi, potius agendum fuisset. Nefandam hujus insignis
Bibliothecæ sortem (ignosce justæ indignationi) satis deplorare
nequeo. Inculta plane jacet, nemo ferme tanto thesauro uti, frui,
gestit. Singulis sane diebus per trium mensium spatium illam
frequentavi, sed, ita me dii ament, nunquam tot una vice

homines in illa vidi quot numero sunt Musæ, vel saltem artes
liberales. De librorum studiosis loquor; nam puerorum,
muliercularum, rusticorum, hinc inde cursitantium,
voluminumque multitudinem per transennas spectantium
mirantiumque, cœtum excipio.... De Proto-bibliothecarii incuria
jam dixi, ejusque stupendam in historia literaria librariaque,
inprimis extra Insulam ultraque maria, ignorantiam taceo.'
Of Hearne, however, Uffenbach writes in the following different strain:—
'Hîc scholaris, ut hîc loqui amant, esse solet, atque etiamnum
est, nomine Hearne, qui, præ reliquis, diligentiam suam non
modo scriptis, sed in novo etiam Bibliothecæ catalogo
confitiendo, typis proxime exscribendo, probavit; ast, quod
dolendum, ad exemplum prioris, qui satis jejunus, inconcinnus,
erroribusque innumeris scatens est.'
Hudson's successor, Bowles, had previously been his Assistant for some
years, and as, while Hearne was Under-keeper, he had come into sharp
collision with that irascible antiquary (see under 1715), his election now
was a matter of sore annoyance to the latter. Hearne dwells upon it in his
Diary with great bitterness and at great length: 'Competitors were Mr. Hall,
of Queen's, and that pert conceited coxcomb Mr. Bowles (who is not yet
Regent Master) of Oriel College. Bowles carried it by a great majority,
having about 160 votes, and Mr. Hall about 77. I think it the most
scandalous election that I have yet heard of in Oxford.' Of his supporters he
speaks thus:—'Charlett and such rogues, who contrived to bring in that
most compleat coxcomb Bowles to be Head-Librarian, to the immortal
scandal of all that were concern'd in it[195].' And even, when ten years later
he records Bowles' death, he indulges, in forgetfulness of charity to the
departed, in the following strain: 'Of this gentleman (a most vile, wicked
wretch) frequent mention hath been made in these Memoirs. He took the
degree of M.A. Oct. 12, 1719. 'Tis incredible what damage he did to the
Bodl. Library, by putting it into disorder and confusion, which before, by
the great pains I had taken in it (&c.), was the best regulated library in the
world[196].' Bowles' name never occurs in the Diary without some
opprobrious epithet being attached to it, which may be accounted for partly
from his having taken the oaths of allegiance after declaring he would never

do it (a defection which Hearne never forgave in any one), but chiefly also
from his having personally excluded Hearne from the Library, when the
latter refused to resign his keys in 1715, by procuring new locks and keys,
which he kept in his own custody.
Three or four days after Bowles' election, Mr. Fletcher, the Sub-librarian
(disliking, no doubt, the appointment of his junior over his head), resigned
his office, to which Bowles appointed the well-known antiquary, Francis
Wise. Upon this appointment Hearne comments thus: 'Bowles put in Mr.
Wise, A.M., of Trin. Coll. (a pretender to antiquities), tho' he had promised
it to one of Oriel Coll., that came in fellow of Oriel when he did, and was
very serviceable to him in getting the Head Librarian's place; for which
Bowles is strangely scouted and despis'd at Oriel, as a breaker of his word,
and a whiffling, silly, unfaithfull, coxcomb.' It must be allowed that the
portrait of Bowles in the Library bears out in some degree Hearne's last
epithet, by giving him the appearance rather of a fine clerical gentleman
than of a student.
Baskett, the printer, presented to the Library a magnificent copy on vellum
of the 'Vinegar' Bible, printed by him in 1717. Only three copies were so
struck off; the second was placed in the King's Library, and the third was
sold to the Duke of Chandos, for five hundred guineas, at whose sale, in
1747, Lord Foley purchased it for £72 9s.
[194] In one passage, Hearne says that such was Hudson's self-esteem that he
reckoned himself equal to Erasmus or Sir Thomas More, while all that was
curious in his books was gained from Hearne himself or others. (MS. Diary, vol.
lviii. p. 158.)
[195] Vol. lxxxiv. pp. 59, 60.
[196] Vol. cxxii. p. 158.

A.D. 1720.

About this time, one John Hawkins, a highwayman (who was executed in
May, 1722), is said by an accomplice, Ralph Wilson, who published an
account of his robberies, to have defaced some pictures in the Library. The
University is said to have offered £100 for discovery, and a poor Whig
tailor was taken up on suspicion, and narrowly escaped a whipping. No

particulars, however, of Hawkins' act are given in the pamphlet, and no
further notice of it has been found elsewhere.
Joseph Swallow, B.A., who died in this year, is found from the Accounts to
have been employed, for some short time, in the Library.
In this year the titles of all books which were bought out of the Library
funds begin to be recorded, together with their prices; they are entered in a
Register marked with the letter C.
Visitors' Fees. See 1713.

A.D. 1721.

The inscription on the Schools' Tower, beneath the statue of James I, was
renewed in this year[197].
Sir Godfrey Kneller presented his own portrait to the Gallery.
[197] Hearne's Diary, xci. 196.

A.D. 1722.

Mrs. Mary Prince is recorded to have presented heads of our Blessed Lord
and of King Charles I, painted by herself. They appear to be the two
paintings on copper, now hanging in the Sub-librarian's study, called Mus.
Bibl. II. Beneath that of our Lord is the following inscription: 'This present
figure is the symylytude of our Lorde Jesus our Saviour, imprinted in
amyrald by the Predecessors of the Great Turke, & sent to Pope Innocent ye
Eight at the cost of the Great Turke for a token, for this caus, to redeme his
brother that was taken prisner.' The inscription is, of course, if the painting
be Mrs. Prince's work, reproduced literatim from some older copy.
The attachment to the old Stuart family, which was so warmly cherished in
Oxford, appears to have lingered in the Bodleian, notwithstanding Hearne's
departure, who himself would scarcely have thought that a vestige of it had
been left behind. For in the Benefaction Register for this year, the gift of a
portrait of Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, from his widow Catherine, a

natural daughter of James II, is entered as coming from 'filia Regis Jacobi
II, του μακαριτου.'
Chrysanthus, Patriarch of Jerusalem. See 1715.

A.D. 1723.

The noble brass statue of William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, (who was
Chancellor of the University from 1617 to his death in 1630, and was the
donor of the Barocci MSS.,) which forms such a conspicuous feature in the
Picture Gallery, was presented this year by the earl's great nephew, Thomas,
the seventh Earl of Pembroke. It was cast by the famous artist Hubert le
Sœur, from a picture by Rubens, and is said to weigh about 1600 lbs. The
letter of thanks from the University was read in Convocation on April 19; it
is criticized by Hearne in his Diary[198] in the following terms: 'I am told
that this letter is very silly and poor, and that, among other things, his
Lordship is told in it that the statue is placed in æde immortalitatis. Now
what this ædes immortalitatis, church, temple or chappel of immortality is, I
cannot conceive, but am sure that the statue is at present fix'd in the Picture
Gallery, adjoyning to the Bodl. Library.'
[198] Vol. xcvi. p. 101.

A.D. 1724.

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

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

A.D. 1726.

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

A.D. 1727.

Thomas Perrott, D.C.L., of St. John's College, gave nine volumes of MSS.,
the most important of which is a copy-book of the letters written by Sir
John Perrott, Lord Deputy of Ireland, in 1584-6. Another is a book of orders
from the Privy Council to the officers of the Customs at London, 1604-18: a
third, notes of a sermon preached by Usher at the Temple, July 2, 1620. A
few political and miscellaneous tracts, tempp. Eliz.—Jac. I, and two

heraldic MSS., complete the number. The MSS. are noticed in the return
printed in the Record Commission Report for 1800, p. 348.
Some Greek MSS. were bought which had been brought from Mount
Athos; three of them are now placed amongst the Cromwell MSS., Nos. 15,
16, and 27, and three others are numbered Miscell. Gr. 137-9.
Sale of Duplicates. See 1745.

A.D. 1729.

Mr. Bowles, the Librarian, died at Shaftesbury, the place of his birth, and
was buried there on Nov. 25. On Dec. 2, Mr. Robert Fysher, B.M., Fellow
of Oriel College, was elected his successor by 100 votes to 85 over Francis
Wise, the Under-librarian. Mr. John Bilstone, M.A., Chaplain of All Souls'
and Janitor of the Library, was also a candidate, but retired before the
election, in the hope of securing Wise's return. As Wise held Hearne's old
place, and was regarded by him as an usurper, and as Bilstone held in his
possession the new keys which Bowles originally procured to render
Hearne's old ones useless, the latter consequently regarded them both with
great disfavour, and rejoiced greatly at the result of the election. His
account of it is printed in the Reliqq. Hearn. vol. ii. p. 712.
Forty-two MS. volumes came to the Library by the bequest of the widow of
Mr. Francis Cherry, of Shottesbrooke, Berks, the early patron and constant
friend of Hearne[199]. Cherry himself died Sept. 23, 1713, and Hearne says
that he had intended to give his MSS. to his old protégée. They are not, for
the most part, of very great value, but among them are various volumes by
Dodwell; and a book written and bound by Q. Eliz. is described above,
under the year 1628. Hearne was greatly annoyed at a paper of his own,
containing reasons for taking the oath of allegiance, which he had written in
1700, coming into the Library amongst these books; he endeavoured in vain
(although now in these days his legal right would be at once recognized) to
recover it, and it was published, to his still greater annoyance, by the
Whigs, under the editorship of Mr. Bilstone, the janitor. An account of
Hearne's endeavours to regain it, together with a notice of Mrs. Cherry's
bequest and of the MSS., is to be found in Dr. Bliss' Appendix to his Reliqq.
Hearn. ii. 899-906.

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

[199] In the Benefaction Register they are erroneously entered as coming by the
bequest of Mr. Cherry himself.

A.D. 1735.

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

A.D. 1736.

The Library was enriched with the collections of the well-known antiquary,
Thomas Tanner, Bishop of St. Asaph, who died on Dec. 14, in the preceding
year. By his will, dated Nov. 22, 1733, he bequeathed his MSS. to the
Library together with such printed books, not already there, as the Curators
and Library-keeper should think fit to accept. But he directed his executor
to burn all his sermon-notes, 'and other little pieces and attempts in divinity,'
as well as all his own private papers and letters. The largest portion of his
MSS. (nearly 300 volumes out of 467) consists of the papers which he
himself says he 'bought of Archbishop Sancroft's executors,' but which it is
said in the Gent. Mag. for 1782 (cited by Gough in his British Topography,
i. 126) he bought for eighty guineas of the bookseller Bateman, to whom
Sancroft's executors had sold them[200]. Together with these, and perhaps
not now to be distinguished, are some of the collections of Dr. Nalson
between 1640 and 1660. To the latter a claim was made through
Archdeacon Knight, in 1737, by Dr. Williams of St. John's College, as
grandson of Nalson; but the Bishop's brother replied (as we learn from a
copy of his answer and of another letter written by him in 1753) that the
Bishop had bought them at Ely, where they had lain neglected for many

years, and he thought possibly from some one living in the house which
Nalson inhabited when Prebendary of Ely. The matter ended by Dr.
Williams waiving any claim which he had, in consideration of the place of
deposit being the Bodleian[201]. Sancroft's and Nalson's papers together
comprise a large series of letters of the time of the Civil War, of the highest
interest and value, from most of the leading personages on both sides,
including Charles I, Rupert, the Protector Oliver, and Hampden. There are
also collections relating to various dioceses, with very much that illustrates
both the ecclesiastical and literary history of the seventeenth century[202]. A
selection from the Civil War letters was published, in 2 vols. in 1842, by
Rev. Henry Cary, M.A. (a son of the translator of Dante, and at that time an
assistant in the Library), under the title of Memorials of the Civil War; but
the transcripts were very carelessly made, and scarcely a single letter can be
trusted as faithfully and verbatim representing the original. Another volume
of selections from Sancroft's papers was published, with much better care,
by Will. Nelson Clarke, D.C.L., 8o, Edinb. 1848, entitled, A Collection of
Letters addressed by Prelates and Individuals of high rank in Scotland, and
by two Bishops of Sodor and Man, to Archbishop Sancroft, in the reigns of
Charles II and James VII[203]. A catalogue of the MSS., compiled by the
Rev. Alfred Hackman, M.A. (now Sub-librarian) was published in 1860, in
a thick quarto volume, forming vol. iv. of the general Catalogue of MSS.
The several volumes are described in brief in the body of the work; but a
very full Index is subjoined, in which the contents of all the letters and
papers are entered in detail. The printed books (upwards of 900) contain
many, by the Reformers and their opponents, which are of the utmost rarity
in early English black-letter divinity. One of these is an unique copy (as it is
believed) of an edition, printed without place or date, of the Pore Helpe, of
which there is also an unique copy of another edition, equally without place
or date, among the Douce books. It has not hitherto been remarked that two
copies, or two editions, exist of this metrical satire. Another volume, which
contains several tracts printed by W. de Worde and Gerard Leeu, has also
two by Caxton, hitherto unnoticed as exhibiting his type, and described in
the Catalogue simply as being books without place or date. The merit of
their discovery as Caxton's is due to the recent research of Mr. Bradshaw,
the Librarian of the Cambridge Library. The one is a clean and perfect copy
of the Governayle of Helthe, with the verses called Medicina Stomachi, of
which the only copy known to Mr. Blades is in the library of the Earl of

Dysart at Ham House; the other a wholly unknown quarto edition, in the
same type, of the Ars Moriendi.
Unfortunately, when Tanner was removing his books from Norwich to
Oxford, in Dec. 1731, by some accident in their transit (which was made by
river) they fell into the water, and were submerged for twenty hours[204].
The effects of this soaking are only too evident upon very many of
them[205]. The whole of the printed books were uniformly bound in dark
green calf, apparently about fifty years ago; the binder's work was well
done, but unhappily all the fly-leaves, many of which would doubtless have
afforded something of interest, with regard to the books and their former
possessors, were removed. Many of Tanner's own letters are to be found
amongst the Ballard and Hearne MSS., as well as scattered here and there in
other collections; and one volume of them was purchased in 1859. Some
coins were given by him in 1733. We learn from the Accounts that Thomas
Toynbee, an undergraduate of Balliol College (B.A. 1743, M.A. 1745),
received £12 12s., in 1741, for making a list of Tanner's MSS., and that E.
Rowe Mores, the subsequently well-known antiquary, arranged some of his
deeds in 1753-4.
[200] Eighteen other volumes of Sancroft's MSS. are to be found in the Harleian
Collection, Brit. Mus., and a few among Wharton's books at Lambeth.
[201] Thirty-one other volumes of Nalson's papers were offered for sale to Dr.
Rawlinson in 1751 (Letter to H. Owen, Rawl. MS. C. 989. fol. 121). Four
volumes which belonged to Bp. Moore's library were restored to Cambridge out
of Tanner's collection in 1741; two of them were registers of the Abbeys of St.
Edmund's-bury and Langley.
[202] Some collections for Wiltshire made by Tanner did not come to Oxford
with his library, but were forwarded by his son in 1751.
[203] Dr. Clarke appears not to have been aware of the existence of an
interesting volume of letters from Scottish Bishops to Bishop Compton of
London, among Rawlinson's MSS. (C. 985), which was rescued by Rawlinson,
with the rest of Compton's papers, from being destroyed as waste paper. Other
letters, including a large number from Archbishop Burnett of Glasgow, addressed
to Archbishop Sheldon, are in a volume of the Sheldon papers.
[204] Gent. Magaz. 1732, p. 583.
[205] None of them, however, are now in the state described in a note in Letters
by Eminent Persons, ii. 89, where it is said that many 'have received so much
injury as to be altogether useless, crumbling into pieces on the slightest touch.'
Perhaps the unique copy of The Children of the Chapel Stript and Whipt which
Warton says was amongst Tanner's books, but which has never appeared in any

Bodleian Catalogue, may have perished from this cause. For a notice of the
disappearance of two of Churchyard's tracts, see under the year 1659, p. 81.

A.D. 1738.

The fourth Catalogue of the printed books appeared this year in two
volumes, folio, of 611 and 714 pp. respectively. It is still a Catalogue of
great use and value, from its remarkable accuracy, and from the abundance
and minuteness of its cross-references. The secret history of this Catalogue,
however, as of the preceding one, is related by Hearne. By him, as he
himself frequently tells us[206], the greater portion of it was virtually
prepared soon after his appointment as Sub-librarian, in 1712 (although no
mention of his name is made in Fysher's preface), and to him, therefore, its
accuracy is most probably in a great measure due[207]. He compared every
book in the Library with Hyde's Catalogue, and corrected many mistakes,
adding notes here and there about anonymous and synonymous authors,
and, as the Vice-Chancellor (Dr. Maunder, of Balliol) was anxious to have
an Appendix issued, he transcribed for this purpose all his corrections and
additions into two folio volumes, 'which' (to take up now Hearne's own
account in his Diary, vol. lxii. p. 58, under date 1717) 'now lye and are to
be seen in the Library.... But at last Dr. Hudson thought it more convenient
with respect to himself that both Dr. Hyde's Catalogue and my Appendix
should come out together as one intire work, so that he might have the
honour of all. Upon which he employed one Moses Williams, his
servitour[208] (the Dr. being then Fellow of University College), to
transcribe it, the said Williams being in the Dr.'s debt. When Williams had
done, he demanded the remaining part of his money, which was about ten or
twelve pounds, the rest having been stopped by the Dr. for the debt just now
mentioned. The whole was fifty lbs. which he bargained for with the Dr.
But when Williams desired the said ten or twelve pounds, of which he had
immediate occasion to discharge the fees and charges for the degree of
Bachelor of Arts, the Dr. was in a very great passion, and refused to pay it.
Upon which Williams moved the matter so far that the Catalogue was laid
before the Delegates of the Press, and the Dr. was called before them to his
very great mortification, and they told him that 'twas highly unreasonable to
stop the poor lad's money. Upon which the Dr. in a great rage and fury paid
him; otherwise Williams had most certainly put him into the Court. This

Catalogue was last summer ordered to be printed, and the Dr. was refunded
his money; but 'tis not yet put to the press, the Dr. being unwilling it should
be printed till such time as he hath done Josephus.' But Hudson died before
his Josephus was finished, and the proposed new Catalogue was
consequently begun, and only begun, by his successor, Bowles. The latter
printed as far as p. 244 of vol. i. and p. 292 of vol. ii. His successor, Fysher,
upon his appointment, engaged the assistance of his friend, Emmanuel
Langford, M.A., Vice-Principal of Hart Hall, who completed the second
volume, while Fysher himself finished the first. At the end of the second
volume appeared an announcement of a supplemental Catalogue, as being
ready for the press, containing the books existing in College Libraries but
wanting in the Bodleian. This, however, never appeared, and nothing is
known of the MS. from which it was to have been printed. Fysher's
Catalogue appears, from the University Accounts, to have occupied from
1735 in preparation, for which, and for transcribing it for the press, £194 5s.
were paid to him.
Alexander Pope gave, together with copies of his Iliad and Odyssey, a
curious volume, containing a series of 178 Portraits of East Indian Rajahs
and Great Moguls, down to Aurung-Zebe. It is now numbered Bodl. MS.
Sansk. 14.
The names of various persons (all, probably, undergraduates) employed in
the Library about this time are learned from the Accounts:—1738, Mr. Hall;
1740-1, Mr. Allen; 1740, Mr. Toynbee (Ball. Coll., B.A., 1743); 1743, Mr.
Jessett (All Souls', B.A., 1745); 1747, Mr. Thomas Winbolt (All Souls',
B.A. 1748).
[206] Pref. to Chron. de Dunstaple, p. xii. Autobiogr. p. 11, &c.
[207] It is fair to say that Fysher remarks in his preface that experience proved
how entirely vain and foolish were the reports which had been spread abroad of
the little or the nothing which, after the labours of their predecessors, would
remain for the then editors to do.
[208] Moses Williams took his degree as B.A. in 1708. One John Williams
(probably the one of that name who is entered in the Register of Graduates as
having taken the degree of B.A. at Oriel in 1704) appears to have been a
colleague of Hearne's in employment in the Library, about 1704. For in a letter
written to Hearne, March 20, 1705/6, one year and a-half after he had quitted
Oxford, in which he mentions his having been appointed to the Head-mastership
of Ruthin School in November, 1705, he refers to 'our dear friends that are in
irons at the Bodleian Library, there being several, I suppose, that have been

manacled in that pleasing prison since my being there.' (Rawlinson Letters, vol.
xii. f. 1.)

A.D. 1739.

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

A.D. 1740.

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

A.D. 1745.

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

the Accounts for 1746 occur special payments to Fr. Wise, and to one Mr.
Gerard Bodley, for cataloguing and arranging Crynes' books.
[209] He left a benefaction to his successor in this office, which now produces
£13 6s. 8d. yearly.

A.D. 1746.

Trott's Clavis Linguæ Sanctæ. See 1686.

A.D. 1747.

Dr. Fysher, the Librarian, died on Nov. 4, at Mr. Warneford's, of
Sevenhampton, Wilts, and was buried, on Nov. 7, in Adam de Brome's
chapel in St. Mary's Church, Oxford. And on Nov. 10, Rev. Humphrey
Owen, B.D., Fellow of Jesus College (afterwards D.D., and chosen
Principal of his College in 1763), was unanimously elected his
successor[210]. Rawlinson mentions, in a letter to Owen of April 15, 1751,
that he had heard a complaint that in Fysher's time 'there was a great neglect
in the entry of books into the Benefactors' Catalogue, and into the
interleaved one of the Library; as to these objections, my answers were as
ready as true, at least I hope so, that Dr. Fysher's indisposition disabled him
much from the duty of his office, and that I did not think every small
benefaction ought to load the velom register[211].'
[210] Memorandum by Owen himself, in reply to a question from Rawlinson,
Rawl. MS. C. 989, f. 142. This volume contains a collection of letters to Owen,
chiefly from Browne Willis and Rawlinson, between the years 1748-1756. It
affords proof that Owen was what his correspondents would call an 'honest' man,
i.e. a Jacobite. In one letter, Willis sends him a Latin inscription in praise of
Flora Macdonald, which he says is 'on a fair lady's picture, in an honest gentl.
seat in the province of St. David's;' in another, Rawlinson sends him, as a
contribution to the Oxford collection of verses on the death of Frederick, Prince
of Wales, this Jacobite epitaph:—

'Here lies Fred., Down among the dead;
Had it been his Father, Most had much rather;
Had it been his Brother, Better than any other;
Had it been a Sister, More would have mist her;
Wer't the whole generation, Happy for the nation;
But since it is only Fred., There is no more to be said.'

[211] Rawl. MS. C. 989.

A.D. 1749.

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

A.D. 1750.

A copy on vellum, with illuminated initials, &c., of vol. i. (reaching to the
Psalms) of the Vulgate Bible, printed by Fust and Schoeffer in 1462, was
bought for £2 10s.! The volume was imperfect at the end, ceasing at Job
xxxii. 5, and seven leaves followed in contemporary and beautiful MS.,
which also ended imperfectly at Ps. xxxvi. 9, with one leaf wanting at the
end of Job. But when the Canonici Collection of MSS. was received from
Venice, in 1818, among some fragments which were found in one of the
boxes were fourteen leaves of a MS. Bible, which were at once recognised
as being part of those wanted to complete this book, and which left only
four still deficient. The volume came to the Library from the collection of
Nic. Jos. Foucault, 'Comes Consistorianus,' many other of whose MSS. and
printed books came by Rawlinson's bequest; but through how many hands
the missing leaves had passed in the seventy subsequent years ere they were
thus marvellously restored to their place, it is impossible to tell[212].
[212] The story of this recovery has been already related by Archd. Cotton in his
Typographical Gazetteer, p. 339, where by mistake he refers the original
purchase to the year 1752.

A.D. 1751.

A benefaction from Lord Crewe, Bishop of Durham, of £60 to the Librarian
and of £10 for the purchase of books, appears for the first time in the
Accounts for this year. These sums (which are still annually paid into the

General Fund) proceed from a bequest of £200 per ann. from Crewe (who
died Sept. 24, 1721) to the University. A proposal to give these same sums
to the Library, with other assignments for the remainder, was brought
forward in Convocation on June 5, 1723, but the scheme was then
rejected[213]. And thus nearly thirty years seem to have elapsed from the
time of the bequest before the share for the Library was definitely fixed and
paid.
Charles Gray, M.P. for Colchester, presented a MS. Roll, containing a
Survey of the estates of the Abbey of Glastonbury at the Dissolution, which
is printed by Hearne in his Appendix to Langtoft's Chronicle, vol. ii. pp.
343-388, from a copy made from this original; and an inscription, in the
Phœnician language, upon a white marble stone, which was brought, with
many others, from Citium, in the island of Cyprus, by Dr. Porter, a
physician of Thaxted in Essex. The stone measures twelve inches in length,
by three in breadth, and three in depth. It has been frequently engraved: first
by Pocock (Travels in the East, vol. ii. pl. xxxiii. 2); next by Swinton
(Inscriptiones Citieæ, 1750, and Philos. Trans. 1764); afterwards by
Chandler, Barthélemy, &c.; and, lastly, by Gesenius (for whom former
copies were collated with the original, and corrected, by Mr. Reay) in his
Scripturæ Linguæque Phœniciæ Monumenta, published in 1837, where the
inscription is described at pp. 126-133, part i., and engraved at pl. xi. part
iii. It appears to be an epitaph by a husband in memory of his wife. The
stone is now kept in one of the Sub-librarians' studies.
Thomas Shaw, the well-known Eastern traveller, bequeathed his collection
of natural curiosities, which was sent to the Ashmolean Museum, and the
MS. of his own travels, with corrections, and other papers. Copies of
Caxton's Game of the Chesse and Recuyell of Troye were given by Mr.
James Bowen, of Shrewsbury, painter[214].
[213] Hearne's Diary, xcvii. 12.
[214] A MS. vol. of collections by him relating to the history of Shropshire,
dated 1768, is among Gough's books, Salop MS. 20.

A.D. 1753.

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

A MS. of the History of the Rebellion, in seven volumes, together with one
of the Contemplations, in three volumes, was forwarded in 1785 or 1786 by
the Duke of Queensbury. The former MS. appears to be that from which the
first edition was printed by the Earl of Rochester[216].
A complete Calendar of the Clarendon State Papers is now in progress
under the care of several editors. As far as it has advanced, it has proved the
good judgment and the extreme correctness with which the printed selection
was made; but as that selection ended with the Restoration, while the papers
themselves reach on to 1667, the year of the Earl's banishment, the later
portion may be expected to contain much of fresh interest and value.
It was in this year also that the first portion of the MSS. of Thomas Carte,
the 'Englishman' and historian, came to the Library. It has been universally
supposed that his voluminous and invaluable collections came en masse
subsequently to his death, but the Library Register shows that Oxford was
indebted to him for a considerable and important portion during his life. In
this year we find that he sent the papers which relate to the life of the great
Duke of Ormonde, with a large number of others bearing on the history of
Ireland from the time of Queen Elizabeth, comprised in thirty volumes folio
and quarto. In the following year, shortly before his death (which occurred
on April 2, 1754) he forwarded twenty-six more of his Irish volumes, in
folio, marked A, B, C, D, &c. And in 1757 nine more of the same series
were forwarded by his widow from Caldecot, near Abingdon, according to
an entry in the old Catalogue, which appears to correspond to one in the
annual Register to the effect that four more boxes were forwarded by the
executors, 'by order of Rev. Mr. Hill.' The remainder of his collections were
left in the hands of his widow, who, re-marrying to Mr. Nicholas Jernegan,
or Jerningham (of the family seated at Cossey, Norfolk), bequeathed them,
upon her death, to him, with the reversion to the University of Oxford.
While they were in Mr. Jernegan's possession they were largely used by
Macpherson for his publication of State Papers, for which use of them £300
were paid; and the agreement entered into by the publisher Cadell, when
borrowing some of them for this purpose, is preserved in the MS. Catalogue
of the collection. In 1778, however, Mr. Jernegan disposed of his life-
interest to the University, for (as Nichols[217] was informed by Price) the
sum of £50, and the remainder were consequently at once transferred to the
Library. The collection numbers altogether 180 volumes in folio, fifty-four

in quarto, and seven in octavo, besides several bundles of Carte's own
papers; and is accompanied by a very full list of contents, compiled by
Carte himself, in one folio volume. The mass of papers relating to Ireland
which these volumes contain is enormous, drawn chiefly from the stores
accumulated by Ormonde at Kilkenny Castle; to which are added
miscellaneous historical collections derived from Lords Huntingdon,
Sandwich, and Wharton. There are, also, several volumes of extracts and
papers, collected with immediate reference to Carte's History of England.
And a third, and especially interesting, portion consists of the papers of Mr.
David Nairne, under-secretary to James II during his exile, which reach
from 1692 to 1718, and fill two volumes in folio and eight or nine in quarto.
It was from these that Macpherson chiefly compiled his Original Papers,
published in 1775, in 2 vols., 4o. A Report upon the contents of the
collection, with special reference to Ireland (omitting the Nairne papers)
was made to the Master of the Rolls by T. Duffus Hardy, Esq., and Rev. J.
S. Brewer in 1863, and was printed in the following year, together with an
extremely useful summary of the contents of the various volumes, and a
reference-table of the letters, &c., printed by Carte in his Ormonde
volumes. In consequence of this Report, two Commissioners (the Rev. Dr.
Russell, President of Maynooth, and J. P. Prendergast, Esq.) were appointed
to examine the whole series, and select for transcription all historical and
official papers of interest relating to Ireland, with a view to the preservation
of copies in the Record Office at Dublin. Several transcribers are therefore
now continuously employed in transcribing for this purpose the papers
selected by the Commissioners. Some notice of the MSS. is to be found in
the Record Commission Report for 1800, p. 354.
[215] On Feb. 4, 1868, a scheme for the appropriation of the accumulated fund
(now amounting to about £12,000), which had been approved by the Clarendon
Trustees, was accepted by Convocation. The money is to be applied to the
erection of laboratories, &c., at the University Museum, for the Professor of
Experimental Philosophy.
[216] In the Benefaction Book this gift is entered under 1793, but it is mentioned
in the Preface to vol. iii. of the State Papers, dated May 29, 1786, as having been
'lately' given. Another copy of part of the History, partly written by William
Edgeman, who was Hyde's secretary at Scilly and during his first exile, came to
the Library among Rawlinson's MSS., by whom it was bought at the sale of the
Chandos Library in 1747 for £1 10s.!
[217] Lit. Anecd. ii. 514.

A.D. 1754.

In this year the MS. collections of Rev. John Walker, D.D., of Exeter (son of
Endymion Walker, of Exeter; born 1674, dec. 1747[218]), from which he
compiled his valuable and laborious work, The Sufferings of the Clergy,
were forwarded to the Library by his son, William Walker, a druggist in
Exeter, as appears from a letter from the latter preserved among papers
relating to the Library in the Librarian's study. The annual accounts,
however, mention the gift under the year 1756. Dr. Walker had expressed in
his book (pref. p. xliii.) his intention to deposit his papers in some public
repository, and his purpose was fortunately thus carried out. The papers
have recently been bound, and now form twelve volumes in folio and
eleven in quarto, with a few papers still in bundles[219]. A large number of
letters from many among the sufferers and their representatives are here
preserved; but, unfortunately, Walker's own handwriting is often hard to
decipher. Many pamphlets which belonged to him (identified by the
peculiar handwriting in MS. notes) are amongst a vast series recently bound
and placed in continuation of the Godwyn Tracts; and several volumes of
pamphlets written by Dissenters were given by himself in the years 1719-
21.
The name of Hogarth occurs in the list of donors, as presenting his two
engravings of the Analysis of Beauty, which he had published in the
preceding year.
[218] His successor in his Exeter prebend was appointed in that year.
[219] The present writer, in answer to an enquiry in Notes and Queries in 1862
(3rd series, i. 218), said that these papers were amongst the Rawlinson MSS.
This mistake arose from the fact that the least important portion had recently
been found in a mass of papers belonging to that collection, but they did not at
any time themselves form part of it.

A.D. 1755.

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

On April 6 died Richard Rawlinson, D.C.L., a Bishop among the Non-
jurors, notwithstanding that he passed in the world as a layman. From the
time of Bodley, Laud, and Selden, he was the greatest benefactor the
Library had known; and his only rivals since his own day have been Gough
and Douce. In point of numbers, his donation of MSS. far exceeded all.
From the short autobiographical notice of himself, given in his own
collections for a continuation of the Athenæ Oxon. (where he has inserted a
small portrait of himself, engraved, without his name, by Van der Gucht),
we learn the following particulars. He was born Jan. 3, 1689/90, in the Old
Bailey, his father being Sir Thos. Rawlinson, who was Lord Mayor of
London in 1706. On March 9, 1707/8 (having been previously at St. Paul's
School and Eton), he was matriculated as a commoner of St. John's College;
but in consequence of the death of his father in the same year, he became a
gentleman-commoner in 1709; B.A., Oct. 10, 1711[220]; M.A., July 5, 1713;
Governor of Bridewell and Bethlehem Hospitals, 1713; F.R.S., 1714;
ordained (among the Non-jurors) Deacon, Sept. 21, and Priest, Sept. 23,
1716[221]. He then travelled through the whole of England, except some of
the northern parts, and in 1719 went into Normandy, where, while staying at
Rouen, he received from Oxford the degree of D.C.L. by diploma of June
30. Thence he went to the Low Countries, where, in Sept., he was admitted
into the Universities of both Utrecht and Leyden, and returned into England
in Nov. On June 12 in the following year, he started on a longer journey,
which he extended through Holland, France, Germany, the whole of Italy,
and Sicily, to Malta; and returned on the death of his elder brother Thomas,
also a well-known book-collector, in 1726. During his six years' travels, he
had seen, he remarks, four Popes[222]. Admitted F.S.A. May 10, 1727. On
March 25, 1728, he was consecrated Bishop, by Bishops Gandy, Doughty,
and Blackbourne, in Gandy's Chapel[223]. Appointed a Governor of St.
Bartholomew's Hospital in March, 1733. He resided at London House,
Aldersgate, so called from having been in early days a mansion of the
Bishops of London. During his lifetime he was a constant benefactor to the
Library; in the years 1733-4-5-7-8-9 and 1750, he is entered in the great
Register for special gifts of coins, books, and pictures. Some hundreds of
printed books, now in the gallery called 'Jur.,' and elsewhere, were given by
him at these times; while many of the Holbeins and other valuable portraits
in the Picture Gallery came from him[224]. A few MSS. also came from him

during his lifetime which are now placed in the general Bodley collection.
But at his death all his collections came en masse[225]; collections formed
abroad and at home, the choice of book-auctions, the pickings of chandlers'
and grocers' waste-paper, everything, especially, in the shape of a MS., from
early copies of Classics and Fathers to the well-nigh most recent log-books
of sailors' voyages[226]. Not a sale of MSS. occurred, apparently, in London,
during his time, at which he was not an omnigenous purchaser; so that
students of every subject now bury themselves in his stores with great
content and profit. But history in all its branches, heraldry and genealogy,
biography and topography, are his specially strong points. The printed
books bequeathed by him in selection from his whole library (of which
those in quarto and smaller sizes are still called by his name) amounted to
between 1800 and 1900[227], but the MSS. to upwards of 4800, besides a
large number of old charters and miscellaneous unsorted deeds.

The staff of the Library being very small at the time, as well as ill-paid[228],
and such an accession being completely overwhelming, the officers appear
to have contented themselves with duly entering the printed books, while
leaving the MSS. entirely neglected. About the beginning of the present
century some steps were taken towards a Catalogue, and a portion were
arranged and numbered; still later, considerably more was done. But it was
only on the accession of the present Librarian to the Headship, that the full
extent of Rawlinson's collections was ascertained. Every corner of the
Library was then thoroughly examined, and cupboard after cupboard was
found filled with MSS. and papers huddled together in confusion, while,
last not least, a dark hole under a staircase, explored by the present writer
on hands and knees, afforded a rich 'take,' including many writings of
Rawlinson's Non-juring friends. The whole number of volumes thus
brought to light amounted to about 1300.
The classes into which the whole collection of MSS. is now divided are the
following:—
1. Class A: 500 volumes, chiefly of English history, with a few theological
books. Amongst these are the Thurloe State Papers, in sixty-seven volumes,
of which all of importance were published by Birch, in seven vols. folio, in
1742. These papers were found after the Revolution concealed in the ceiling
of garrets in Lincoln's Inn, which belonged to the rooms formerly occupied

by Thurloe; and they still bear too evident marks of the damp to which they
were there exposed. They passed through Lord Somers' and Sir Jos. Jekyll's
hands into those of a bookseller, Fletcher Gyles, from whom Rawlinson
obtained them in 1751, and who, as Rawlinson says, asked at first an
'immoderate price' for them. Another series is that of Miscellaneous Papers
of Sam. Pepys, in twenty-five volumes, containing his correspondence,
collections on Admiralty business, &c.[229] These, together with many other
volumes which belonged to Pepys (including many curious dockyard
account-books of the times of Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth) were
'redeemed from thus et odores vendentibus[230].' Of another acquisition
Rawlinson writes thus:—
'There was lately an auction here of Mr. Bridgeman's books,
curiosities, and MSS., who was formerly clerk of the Council to
K. James II, and register to the Ecclesiastical Commission. Here
I laid out some pence, and picked up some curiosities; the
original minute-book of the High Commission, the proceedings
every session with the names of those present, by which it
appears that Bp. Sprat was not so innocent as he would persuade
us in his letter to the Earl of Dorset to think, and that
notwithstanding all his shiftings he sat to the penultim. Session
of that Court;' [Letters canvassing the nobility, gentry, justices of
the peace, &c., in favour of the repeal of the Test;] '3 letters
from the D. of Monmouth, two to the King and one to the
Queen, desiring an audience in which he would give them such
satisfaction, ... very pathetic, and deserved at least some
attention[231]; ... several volumes of treaties, ... instructions to
ambassadors. Very remarkable are those to Lord Castlemain on
his going to Rome, the King's two letters to the Pope, a third of
revocation, all personal and complement, but no embassy of
obedience. Copy-books of letters, private and public, wrote by
K. Charles and K. James II, from which might be collected such
a fund of true tho' secret history, that the prize is not to be
valued[232], and will, I hope, be a standing monument of great
events, and preserved in Bodley's repository, with the papers of
Bp. Turner and other great men at and since the year 1688[233].'

There are also some papers in this class and in Class C which belonged to
Archbp. Wake, about which Rawlinson writes, on June 24, 1741[234]:—
'My agent last week met with some papers of Archbp. Wake at a
chandler's shop; this is unpardonable in his executors, as all his
MSS. were left to Christ Church. But quære whether these did
not fall into some servant's hands who was ordered to burn
them, and Mr. Martin Folkes ought to have seen that done. They
fell into the curate's hands of St. George, Bloomsbury.'
2. Class B numbers 520 volumes nominally, but really, including double
numbers, 534. They comprise heraldry and genealogy (including MSS. of
Sir Richard and Sir Thos. St. George, W. Wyrley, Guillim, Ryley, Glover,
Le Neve, and other heralds) English and Irish history, and topography,
including several monastic chartularies. Among the genealogical MSS. is a
remarkable collection of pedigrees, in twelve volumes, which the present
writer ascertained to have been compiled by Thomas Wilkinson, Vicar of
Laurence Waltham, Berks, between about 1647 and 1681. They are
arranged alphabetically, as far as the letter P in tolerable order and
regularity, but thenceforward only in a rough and incomplete state.
Unfortunately the handwriting is far from clear, and the ink has often made
it worse. Among the volumes relating to Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, &c., are
twelve or thirteen which belonged to William Holman, a voluminous
collector for the first-mentioned county, who incorporated the gatherings of
Rev. John Ousley and Thos. Jekyll. Morant, the historian of Essex, obtained
the larger portion of Holman's books; some are in the British Museum; and
the remainder ('the refuse,' says Morant) were bought by Rawlinson in 1752
for £10[235]. Besides the above-mentioned volumes, there are a large
number of Holman's MSS. which are kept distinct, and which have been
recently bound in fourteen folio volumes, eleven quarto, and five octavo.
Under London are some nineteen or twenty volumes of Diocesan papers
which belonged to Bp. John Robinson. They formed (with one volume in
Class A and several in Class C) a mass which are described by Rawlinson,
as follows[236]:—
'I lately rescued from the grocers, chandlers, &c. a parcel of
papers once the property of Compton and Robinson,
successively Bps. of London. Amongst those of the first were

original subscription and visitation books, letters and
conferences during the apprehensions of Popery amongst the
clergy of this diocese, remarkable intelligences relating to
Burnet and the Orange Court in Holland in those extraordinary
times before 1688[237], minutes of the proceedings of the
Commissioners for the Propagation of the Gospel, and a great
variety of other papers. Amongst those of Bp. Robinson,
numbers of originals relating to the transactions at the treaty of
Utrecht, copies of his own letters to Lord Bolingbroke, and
originals from Lord Bolingbroke, Lord Oxford, Electress and
Elector of Hanover, Ormonde, Strafford, Prior, &c.; letters from
the Scots deprived Bishops to Compton, and variety of State
papers. They belonged to one Mr. [Anth.] Gibbon, lately dead,
who was private secretary to both the afore-mentioned prelates.'
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.
[220] This date is from the Register of Graduates; Rawlinson says, Mich. Term,
1710.
[221] By Bishop Jeremy Collier, in Mr. Laurence's Chapel on College Hill,
London. (See a communication from the present writer in Notes and Queries, 3rd
series, iii. 244.) He appears to have endeavoured to conceal from the world his
clerical character. In a letter to T. Rawlins, of Pophills, Warw. in 1736, he
requests him not to address him as Rev. (Ballard's MSS. ii. 6.) Some volumes of
Sermons in his handwriting are among his MSS. His writing is of a very broad,
rude, and clumsy character; and it is singular that his brother Thomas wrote a
hand very similar. Richard usually signs only with his initials, separated by a
cross, 'R + R.'

[222] The small note-books kept on his journeys, containing epitaphs,
inscriptions, accounts of places visited, &c., are preserved (but, unfortunately, in
an imperfect series) among his Miscellaneous MSS.
[223] See Notes and Queries, 3rd series, i. 225.
[224] Two beautiful miniature portraits of James Edward, son of James II, and
his wife Clementina Sobieski, which could not, probably, at the time be safely
exhibited, have recently been exhumed by the Librarian from the obscurity to
which they had been consigned, and are now hung in the Picture Gallery. In Feb.
1749/50, Rawlinson sent Kelly's 'Holy Table,' a marble slab, covered with
astrological figures (engraved in Dr. Dee's Actions with Spirits), which, he says,
had been subsequently in the possession of Lilly. It is now in the Ashmolean
Museum.
[225] By the terms of his will, dated June 2, 1752, and printed in 1755, he
bequeathed all his MSS. of every kind (excepting private papers and letters) to
the Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University, to be placed in the
Bodleian Library, or in such other place as they should deem most proper, for the
use and benefit of the University, and of all other persons, properly and with
leave resorting thereto with a view to the public good; and to be kept separate
and apart from every other collection. With these he gave also all his books
printed on vellum or silk (of which latter kind there are two or three small
specimens), all his deeds and charters, and all his printed books containing any
MSS. notes, together with various antiquities and miscellaneous curiosities. His
MS. and printed music he bequeathed to the Music School. Of the Musical
library preserved in this room, a MS. Catalogue was made a few years ago by
Rev. Robert Hake, M.A., then Chaplain of New College, now Precentor of
Canterbury.
[226] Apropos of log-books, it may be mentioned that whereas it appears from
the eighth Report of the Deputy-Keeper of the Records, p. 26, 1847, that the
earliest log among the Admiralty Records is of the year 1673, there are several of
about the same date and a little earlier to be found in Rawlinson's collection.
[227] Among the printed books are two copies of Archbp. Parker's rare De Antiq.
Eccl. Brit., 1572. One of these is the identical copy described by Strype in his
Life of Parker, and which was then in the possession of Bp. Fleetwood of Ely;
the other (which was given to the Library by Jos. Sanford, B.D., Balliol Coll., in
1753) was presented to Rich. Cosin by John Parker, the Archbishop's eldest son,
Jan. 5, 1593. Owen, the Librarian, notes on the cover that Dr. Rawlinson tells
him this copy was bought at the sale of the library of his brother, Thos.
Rawlinson, by the Earl of Oxford, for £40. A collection of the original broadsides
proclamations issued during the whole of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, in
beautiful condition, forms a remarkable and splendid volume; the collection is
complete, except that a few proclamations, of which printed copies are wanting,
are supplied in MS. As far as the year 1577 they are printed by Richard Jugge,
sometimes alone and sometimes in conjunction with John Cawood;
thenceforward they are printed by the two Barkers, first by Christopher, and
afterwards by Robert. They appear to have been collected in the reign of James I.
A printed chronological table of contents is prefixed, together with a portrait of
the Queen, engraved by Fr. Delaram, with six lines of verse by 'Jo. Davies,

Heref.' At the year 1559 a leaf is inserted containing the arms of Q. Mary of
Scotland quartering those of England (the assumption of which by Mary gave
irreconcileable offence to Q. Eliz.), beautifully painted, with the note, 'Sent out
of Fraunce, in July, 1559,' and these lines below:—

'The armes of Marie Queene Dolphines of ffraunce,
The nobillest Lady in earth for till aduaunce:
Off Scotland queene, and of Ingland also,
Off Ireland als, God haith providit so.'

This leaf is one of two copies executed for Cecil and Q. Eliz. Two, probably
unique, 'red-letter' books are also among the rarities of Rawlinson's printed
collection. The one is a Sermon on Ps. iv. 7, preached before Charles I at Oxford
by Josias Howe, B.D., of Trinity College. It is printed entirely in red, and has no
title. It was bought, included in a volume of miscellaneous sermons, out of Dr.
Charlett's library, by Hearne, who says in a MS. note that only thirty copies were
printed. A description of it is given by Dr. Bliss in his Reliquiæ Hearn. vol. ii. pp.
960-1, where Hearne's note is printed in full. The other is a volume entitled, The
Bloody Court; or, the Fatal Tribunal, being an account of the trial and execution
of Charles I. The lengthy title is printed by Dr. Bliss, ubi supra. Some few of
Rawlinson's printed books came to the Library among Gough's, in 1809.
[228] The salaries being miserably insufficient, the recognised duties of the
officers appear to have been simply the cataloguing the few books that were
received in ordinary course, and attending upon the readers. Consequently for
any other work, for arranging or cataloguing any new collections, &c., special
payments were always made. A somewhat amusing instance of this occurs under
the year 1722, when the Librarian craved payment for making with his own hand
certain new hand-lists, &c., but was refused. However, he carried on his claim
from year to year until it was admitted to the amount of £5 15s. 6d. in 1725. And
as the funds were insufficient to defray in this way the extra cost of cataloguing
such a collection as Rawlinson's, hence, doubtless, came the neglect which it
experienced. Such work was so clearly understood to form no part of the
Librarians' regular duties, that Rawlinson says, in a letter to Owen, Apr. 15, 1751
(MS. C. 989), 'I think large benefactors should pay the expense of entries into the
Bodleian, as their books are useless till so entered.'
[229] It was chiefly from these that the two volumes published in 1841 under the
title of Life, Journals, and Correspondence of S. Pepys were compiled.
Unfortunately the editor, or his copyist, appears to have been sometimes unable
to read the MSS., and at other times very careless; his book therefore abounds
with errors. The following is one of the worst, as it libels the memory of a
statesman who deserved better treatment: Sir R. Southwell is represented as
saying in a letter to Pepys (vol. i. p. 282) that he has lost his health 'by sitting
many years at the sack-bottle,' whereas the poor man had lost it by sitting many
years 'at the inck-bottle.' A line or two farther on, Southwell's occupation with
'some care and much sorrow,' is changed into 'love, care and much sorrow.'
Certain 'Novelles,' or newspapers, which Mr. Hill sends to Pepys are explained
(vol. ii. p. 135) to have been the Novellæ of Justinian! Throughout the book
proper names are frequently made to become anything but proper to their
owners.

[230] Letter from Rawlinson to T. Rawlins, Jan. 25, 1749/50; Ballard MS. ii.
115.

[231] The same volume (now A. 139b) also contains Monmouth's
acknowledgment, written and signed by himself on the day of his execution, that
Charles II had declared that he was never married to his mother; witnessed by
Bishops Turner and Ken, together with Tenison and Hooper. This is now
exhibited in the glass case at the entrance to the Library.
[232] In his delight at his new purchase, Rawlinson seems to have exaggerated
the interest of these volumes.
[233] Letter to T. Rawlins, Feb. 24, 1742/3; Ballard MS. ii. 78.
[234] To the same; Ibid. 59.
[235] Gough, Brit. Topogr. i. 370, 345.
[236] Letter, June 24, 1741; Ballard MS. ii. 59.
[237] Including some letters from Ken while Chaplain to Princess Mary. These
papers of Compton are in class C.
[238] For the description of the contents of three of the Irish volumes, the author
was indebted to an experienced Irish scholar, Standish Hayes O'Grady, Esq.
[239] A volume of collections by him relating to the early versions of the Bible
was bought in 1858 for five guineas.
[240] Ballard MS. ii. 87.
[241] One curious volume is described by Sir F. Madden in his preface to Syr
Gawayne, printed by the Roxburghe Club in 1839.
[242] With relation to these Rawlinson says, in a letter dated Feb. 25, 1736-7,
that he had bought, about two years since, some of Ashmole's papers from his
heirs, including some of Dugdale's (Ballard MS. ii. 11).
[243] For Parish Registers, see under 1821.
[244] Two MS. volumes of the Relations of Venetian Residents in various
countries were given to the Library by Will. Gent, in 1600, and Sir Rich.
Spencer, in 1603.
[245] From this library Rawlinson also obtained some French editions of the
Horæ, printed on vellum.
[246] Ballard MS. ii. 41.
[247] The clock, still in use in the Library, made by Robinson in Gracechurch
Street, was one of the items comprised in this codicil, where it is described as a
'table clock,' then in the custody of Mr. John King, a bookseller, in Moorfields.
[248] These were bought, 'very cheap,' at Mrs. Kennon's sale, Feb. 24, 1755, by a
dealer named Angel Carmey, who sold them to Rawlinson for £10 10s. Carmey's

letter conveying his offer of sale is preserved in Rawlinson's copy of the sale
catalogue.
[249] It does not appear, however, that this sum was ever paid.
[250] A curious, and probably unique, little 'Almanacke for XII yere, after the
latytude of Oxenforde,' printed in 48o (measuring two and a-half inches by one
and three-quarters), by Wynkyn de Worde, 'in the fletestrete,' in 1508, was
presented by David Laing, LL.D., the eminent Librarian to the Writers to the
Signet, Edinburgh, in 1842. The Library also possesses two copies of a sheet
Almanack, by Simon Heuringius, for 1551, printed by John Turck, at London;
and other almanacs for 1564, 1567, and 1569. A volume containing five
almanacs for the year 1589 was bought in 1857.
[251] With the same perverse eccentricity he ordered that the recipients of his
endowments for the Keepership of the Ashmolean Museum and the
Professorship of Anglo-Saxon, should be unmarried (in the former case only
M.A. or B.C.L.), not a native of Scotland, Ireland, or the Plantations, nor a son of
such native, nor, in the case of the Museum, even educated in Scotland, and not a
member of either the Royal Society or the Society of Antiquaries.
[252] Autobiographical memoirs by Foucault, extending to 1719, were published
under the editorship of F. Baudry, 4o. Paris, 1862, in the French Government
series of Documents inédits sur l'Histoire de France. The editor remarks in the
preface (p. xli.), 'On ignore en quelles mains la bibliothèque de Foucault passa
après sa mort [1721]. Le P. Le Long nous apprend seulement qu'elle fut vendue,
et probablement dispersée.'
[253] A record of his birth and baptism is entered in a family register kept by his
father on the fly-leaves of a splendid copy of the folio Prayer-Book of 1662. He
was the second son; born in Covent Garden, Apr. 7, 1687; bapt. Apr. 21, by Dr.
Patrick, the sponsors being Major-Gen. Werden, Sir Peter Apsley and the
Countess of Bath. Prince George of Denmark was one of the sponsors to his
elder brother, George. He had also a sister, Martha.
[254] Amongst these is a large collection of MS. news-letters written from
various places abroad about the years 1637-1642; one of these, containing
particulars of movements of the Swedish and Imperialist armies, is printed, as a
specimen, in Letters by Eminent Persons, 1813, vol. i. pp. 15-17.
[255] References to many particulars relative to Thoresby, Bishop Gibson, White
Kennett and Hickes (with a few others) are given in J. Nichols' notes to the
Letters of Archbp. Nicolson (2 vols. 1809), an interesting and varied biographical
miscellany, but which is guilty of the capital crime of omitting an index.
[256] This ought, apparently, to have reached the Library much sooner, through
the hands of Dr. Charlett; since it has the following inscription on the fly-leaf:
'Given by the Honble. Sr. Edmund Warcup (being all writ wth his own hand at ye
Isle of Wight at ye Treaty) to the Public Library in Oxford, to be placed there
when I thought fitting.

'Ar. Charlett.
'Univ. Coll.
Nov. 25, 97.'

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.
[257] Boswell's Life of Johnson, edit. 1835, vol. ii. p. 54.

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.
[258] 'See papers in Files, 1763; Archiv.' (MS. note in Dr. P. Bliss' Collectanea.)

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.
[259] Note by Dr. Bliss in the edition of Wood's Life published, in 1848, by the
Eccl. Hist. Soc. p. 88.

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.

[260] By the Statute passed in 1813, and by that on Fees passed in 1855, an
annual payment of eight shillings was ordered to be made to the Library out of
the total sum (now £1 6s.) paid by each graduate whose name is on the
University Books. But these individual fees, varying with the numbers on the
Books, were consolidated, in 1861 in one fixed annual sum, from the University
Chest, of £2800.
[261] Note by Dr. Bliss, in his MS. Collectanea, bequeathed by him to Rev. H.
O. Coxe.
[262] Another portrait of Sir Kenelm, which hangs in the Library, was given, in
1692, by Mr. William Pate, a woollen-draper of London. To this Mr. Pate, Thos.
Brown dedicated, in 1710, as 'his honest friend,' his translation from the French
of Memoirs of the Present State of the Court and Councils of Spain.
[263] Nichols' Lit. Anecd. viii. 122.

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.'
[264] Among other instances the purchase (in 1784) of Sir John Hill's Vegetable
System, at the cost of £140, is mentioned.
[265] It appears incidentally, from this pamphlet, that three o'clock was the
dinner-hour at almost every College at that time.
[266] He died suddenly at his lodgings in Oxford, Oct. 18, 1796, aged upwards
of seventy (Gent. Magaz., vol. lxvi. p. 884.)
[267] The late Dr. Simonides was evidently by no means the first in his art,
although probably facile princeps.

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].'
[268] Nichols, Lit. Anecd. iii. 699, 701.

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:—

'Against my King I do not fight,
But for my King and kingdom's right.'

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.
[269] Lord Nugent, in his Memorials of Hampden, erroneously mentions this as
being preserved in the Ashmolean Museum. He also repeats two mistaken
readings first given in Miss Seward's Anecdotes, iv. 358 (a volume dedicated to
Price, the Librarian), where a small woodcut of the ornament is given.
[270] A complete Catalogue of the Library of this College, compiled by Rev. E.
M. Macfarlane, M.A., of Linc. Coll., was issued by the College, in three
handsomely-printed quarto volumes, in 1860-62. The books of all writers
belonging to the College, are entered separately in an Appendix in vol. iii.

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.
[271] A short memoir of this gentleman is given in Gent. Magaz. for 1800, p.
1212, where it is said that 'he was eminently skilled in the practice and
composition of music, and was probably excelled by no one, whether dilettante
or professor, as a sightsman in vocal execution.'

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 retd.' (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.'
[272] Bibliogr. Decam. iii. 472.
[273] Gutch's Wood, II. ii. 979.

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].
[274] A limited number of copies of the engravings of these Almanacks, from the
original plates which remain in the University Press, were re-issued in 1867,
under the superintendence of Rev. John Griffiths, M.A.

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
'pro sacerdotibus in Anglia, &c.
Missals, 1
itinerantibus.'
Breviaries and
Salisbury use, 18
Portiforia,
Breviaries and
York use, 2
Portiforia,
Breviaries and
Hereford use, 1 [280]
Portiforia,
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).
[275] A very full memoir of him is to be found in the Lit. Anecd. vol. vi. pp. 262-
343, and 613-626. His miscellaneous library was sold by auction in 1810. Two
drawings in sepia, by F. Lewis, of his house at Enfield, were bought in 1861.
[276] One of these is a very curious manuscript map of England and Scotland,
executed in the fourteenth century, which now hangs, framed and glazed, in the
eastern wing of the Library. It was bought by Gough at the sale of the MSS. of
Mr. Thomas Martin, of Palgrave, Suffolk, in 1774. A facsimile (engraved by
Basire) and a description are given in the British Topography, 1780, vol. i. pp.

76-85. Another object of interest among the maps is a piece of tapestry, in three
fragments, containing portions of the counties of Hereford, Salop, Staffordshire,
Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Gloucestershire, Middlesex, &c. They are said by
Gough, in a MS. note in his collections for a third edition of his Topography, to
be parts of the three great maps of the Midland Counties, formerly at Mr.
Sheldon's house at Weston, Long Compton, Warwickshire, which are the earliest
specimens of tapestry weaving in England, the art having been introduced by
William Sheldon, who died in 1570. They are described in vol. ii. of the
Topography, pp. 309-310. They were bought by Lord Orford at a sale at Weston
for £30, and presented by him to Earl Harcourt, whose successor, Archbishop
Harcourt, gave them to the Museum at York (where they now are) in 1827. In
Murray's Handbook for Yorkshire, they are said to have been made in 1579. One
guinea was given by Gough for his fragments.
[277] This list was drawn up about 1844-6 by Mr. Fred. Oct. Garlick, then an
assistant in the Library (afterwards of Ch. Ch., B.A., deceased 1851).
[278] Mr. A. Chalmers gave, in 1813, the second volume of a copy of Wharton's
Anglia Sacra, with MSS. notes by White Kennett, of which the first volume was
in this division of Gough's library. But both volumes had been bought by Gough
for £1 1s. at the sale of J. West's library in 1773, at which sale he procured,
besides, several other books with Kennett's notes. There are also volumes with
MSS. notes by Baker (the 'socius ejectus') Cole, Rowe Mores, and other well-
known antiquaries.
[279] The County Histories are in many instances enriched with various notes
and papers in print and MS. The Berkshire MSS. have been increased in the
present year (1868) by the addition of the collections of the late Will. Nelson
Clarke, D.C.L., of Ch. Ch., author of the History of the Hundred of Wanting (4o.
1824), which have been presented to the Library by Mr. Coxe, to whom they
were given by his cousin, the collector, when the latter relinquished the idea of
writing a history of Berks. They consist of a Parochial History of the county,
transcripts of Heralds' Visitations and of early records, and miscellaneous note-
books and papers.
[280] The splendid and, as it is believed, unique vellum copy of the Hereford
Missal ('ad usum eccl. Helfordensis,' fol. Rouen, 1502) which the Library
possesses, came to it from Rawlinson among the books of T. Hearne, to whom it
had been given by Charles Eyston, Esq., of East Hendred, Berks. (Hearne's pref.
to Camden's Annales Eliz. 1. xxvii.) This Hereford volume is described, together
with many of Gough's books, in a book by Ed. Frère, entitled Des Livres de
Liturgie des Eglises d'Angleterre imprimés à Rouen dans les xv. et xvi. Siècles,
8o Rouen, 1867.
[281] See Gent. Magaz. for 1860, p. 406.
[282] So in the Library Register of accounts. Nichols (Lit. Hist. vol. v. p. 559)
says £100.
[283] In his MS. Collectanea, in the possession of Rev. H. O. Coxe.

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).
[284] Among the purchases is a set of the Gentleman's Magazine to the year
1810 for £52 10s.
[285] This alteration of hours had been previously proposed in a Statute which
was to have been submitted to Convocation on Dec. 11, 1812, but which appears
to have been withdrawn ere the day came, probably because this larger measure

of revision of the old Statutes was already in contemplation. A blank is left in the
Convocation Book under that date, by the then Registrar, Mr. Gutch; and his
successor, Dr. Bliss, has added a pencil-note to the effect that he supposes from
the blank not being filled up, that the proposal was previously abandoned. The
Statute of 1769 had required that the Library should be open in summer from 8
to 2 and from 3 to 5, but it was stated in some remarks which accompanied the
proposed enactment that these injunctions had 'long been disregarded in
practice,' and that the Library had been open throughout the year from nine to
three o'clock. But it was added that 'experience' had 'shewn that there is no
occasion for requiring the attendance of the Librarians before ten in the winter
season.'

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.
[286] In a clever and amusing little squib of four pages, which he printed
anonymously in 1819, and which is preserved in the Library-collection of
University papers, professing to be a 'Syllabus' of treatises on academic matters,
to be printed at the University Press in not more than thirty vols., elephant
quarto, Mr. Cotton satirized himself and his colleagues, doubtless with the more
readiness because with no reason. '21. De Bibliothecario et ejus adjutoribus.
Captain. What are you about, Dick? Dick. Nothing, sir. Captain. Tom, what are
you doing? Tom. Helping Dick, sir.' Treatise 24 has for its title the few but
emphatic words, 'De Dodd.' Lest some future delver in Oxford antiquities should
be lost in a maze of conjectures as to the personality and history of this worthy,
so evidently then well known, let it here be told that Dodd was the Clerk of the
Schools.

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.
[287] Hooke in 1685 was one of the Chaplains attending Monmouth in his
rebellion! Lockhart Papers, 1817, vol. i. p. 148.
[288] Gent. Magaz. vol. lxxv. ii. 569.
[289] Bibliogr. Decam. iii. 429.
[290] Portions of the Letters A F and P which had been thus prepared were
subsequently printed, but the whole work was then for some years suspended,
and afterwards commenced de novo. And nearly thirty years elapsed before it
was finally completed.
[291] Previous grants amounting to £260, had been made in 1820.
[292] Three of these are described in Mr. Coxe's Catalogue, cols. 812-14.

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.
[293] The money was raised by loans of £2000 from the Radcliffe Trustees and
£3644 from the University Bankers. They were both repaid by the year 1820.
[294] De Backer's Bibliothèque des écrivains de la comp. de Jésus; quatr. série,
p. 93. 8vo. Liège, 1858.
[295] Bibliogr. Decam. iii. 429.
[296] See under the year 1852.
[297] The first MSS. of Dante which the Library possessed, came in the
Canonici collection; they are in number fifteen. This fact is worth mentioning, on
account of an extraordinary story told by Girolamo Gigli, in his Vocabolario
Cateriniano, p. cciii. (a book the printing of which was commenced at Rome in
1717, but which was suppressed, by bull, before completion), that in the
Bodleian Library at 'Osfolk,' there was a MS. of the Divina Commedia, which,
from being employed in enveloping a consignment of cheese (and so imported

into England by a mode of conveyance said to have been usually adopted by
Florentine merchants, with a view of spreading at once a knowledge of their
luxuries and their literature), had become so saturated with a caseous savour as
to require the constant guardianship of two traps to protect it from the voracity of
mice. Hence, according to this marvellous travellers' story, the MS. went by the
name of The Book of the Mousetrap! (See Notes and Queries, i. 154.)
[298] Bodl. MS. 965.

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.
[299] The minuteness of specification is such that 'Turner's Real Japan Blacking,
a Label' is duly entered.

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.
[300] The rarity of this edition was caused by its being bought up and destroyed
by the sons of Prince Radzivil.

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. 4o. 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.
[301] Some MSS. which had belonged to Saibante, together with some of the
Abate Canonici's collection, which had been brought to England by the Abate
Celotti, were sold by auction, in London, in 1821. The sale of a further portion,
which had passed into the hands of P. de' Gianfilippi (also of Verona), took place
at Paris in January, 1843.

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].
On May 25, a plan for warming the Library was, for the first time, adopted.
It consisted in introducing hot air simply at two small gratings at one end of
the Library, from pipes communicating with a stove placed (with the
consent of Exeter College) where the furnace of the present apparatus is

situated, in the wall between the north-west corner of the Library and the
Ashmolean Museum. As a means of warming the Library generally the
system was wholly ineffectual, no benefit being experienced except by
those who remained in the immediate vicinity of the gratings. It remained,
however, in use until 1845, when pipes were laid down through a
considerable part of the Library for the purpose of warming it by steam.
This plan, however, did not give satisfaction, either on the ground of safety
or of effectiveness. In 1855 Mr. Braidwood, the late distinguished head of
the London Fire Brigade, was brought down to survey the apparatus and to
examine generally how the Library could best be secured against fire; and,
by his advice and that of Mr. G. G. Scott, the pipes were enclosed in slate
casings, so as effectually to hinder contact with any inflammable materials,
and two fire-proof iron doors were inserted at the entrances to the great
Reading-room, in order to cut it off from the rest of the building[309]. But in
1861 steam was discarded for the safer and more effectual system, now in
use, of warming by hot water; new pipes (cased in slate) were laid down by
Messrs. Haden and Son, and were carried through the Examination Schools
on the ground-floor of the quadrangle, as well as through the Library.
In Feb. Mr. J. P. Roberts, New College (B.A. 1821, M.A. 1826, now Minor
Canon of Chichester) was appointed minister, vice Mr. P. Barrett, Wadham
College (B.A. 1828); and Mr. Robert Eden, of St. John's College (Corp.
Chr. Coll. B.A. 1825, M.A. 1827, now Vicar of Wymondham, Norfolk), was
appointed vice Walker. From this time there appear to have been two
assistants, although it was not until 1837 that that number was formally
allowed by Statute.
[302] Malone was the son of an Irish Judge. He was born in Dublin, Oct. 4,
1741, was educated at Trin. Coll. Dublin, where he took the degree of M.A., and
became a barrister, but soon retired from legal practice.
[303] For notices of the purchase of several early quartos, wanting in this series,
see 1834.
[304] These are now incorporated with the large collection called Godwyn
Pamphlets. A copy of Wood's Ath. Oxon. with MSS. notes by Malone, was given
by Mr. B. H. Bright in 1835.
[305] Various other editt. princ. were bought in this year, with some Aldines.
Also a collection of modern Greek works printed at Venice.
[306] Offor's copy sold for £41; Lea Wilson's for £61 10s.

[307] The present writer has in his possession an early newspaper printed in New
Zealand, the Auckland Times, No. 41, for Apr. 6, 1843, not merely curious in
relation to the history of the colony, but also as a typographical relic. Its
crowning interest is to be found in its colophon (if such a classical word may be
applied to the imprint of a newspaper), which states that it was 'Printed in a
mangle.'
[308] In Lascelles' Account of Oxford, published in this year, it is said that the
printed books in the Library were computed at 160,000, and the MSS. at 30,000.
[309] Mr. Braidwood's report was printed in 1856, together with one from Mr.
Scott, on the extension of the Library, and the means of rendering it fire-proof.

A.D. 1822.

In July, the Rev. Dr. Bliss returned to the Library as Sub-librarian, in the
room of Mr. Nicoll, appointed Regius Professor of Hebrew. And in October
the Rev. Rich. French Laurence, M.A., of Pembroke College, succeeded Dr.
Cotton, who quitted Oxford for Ireland.
'Tuesday, August 6, 1822, I was at the Library the whole day, and not a
single member of the University came into the room, excepting Mr. Eden,
the assistant. Oxford race-day.' This note occurs in vol. x. of Dr. Bliss's MS.
antiquarian and miscellaneous memoranda. Considering that the time of the
year was well-nigh the middle of the Long Vacation, it does not seem
surprising that on one day there should have been no academic readers in
the Library, even if there may have been academic riders on the race-course.
The two occurrences have so little correspondence with each other that one
would hope that the zealous Sub-librarian (who has deemed the same want
of readers worth commemorating also in another note) assigned non causa
pro causa.

A.D. 1823.

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

Parthenon, the Temple of the Sybil at Tivoli, the Maison Carrée at Nismes,
the Erechtheum and Lantern of Demosthenes at Athens, the Theatre of
Herculaneum, and the Temple of Fortuna Virilis at Rome.
A large number of works by foreign authors, chiefly theological, was
bought (for £375) at the sale at Leyden of the library of Jonas Wilh. Te
Water, professor of Eccl. Hist. in that University. A separate catalogue,
occupying twenty-three folio pages, was issued of these books.
Mr. E. P. New, of St. John's College (B.A. 1822, M.A. 1825, B.D. 1831),
was appointed in December to assist in the compilation of the new
Catalogue; but how long he remained in the Library does not appear.

A.D. 1824.

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

1796. An additional volume of the Sheldon correspondence was given to
the Library in 1840, by Dr. Routh, the President of Magdalen College. It is
a copy-book of business-letters written by the Archbishop. In a note to Dr.
Bandinel which accompanied the gift, and which is now fixed in vol. i. of
Burnet's autograph copy of his Own Times, Dr. Routh says:—
'The President takes the opportunity of sending a volume
containing the first draught of letters sent by Archbp. Sheldon to
different persons, together with a few other contemporary
papers. They were put into the President's hands by the late Sir
John English Dolben, and as the University purchased of that
gentleman what were commonly called the Sheldon Papers, he
thinks they cannot be deposited anywhere more suitably than in
the Bodleian Library.'
To the annual catalogue for this year was attached a special list, filling
thirty-two folio pages, of the books (upwards of 1500 in number) which
were bought at the Hague, at the sale of the library collected by the
distinguished Dutch scholars and lawyers, Gerard and John Meerman. The
sale-catalogue is a volume of more than 1200 pages. The books bought for
the Library were chiefly such as supplied deficiencies in foreign history and
law, together with some Greek[310] and Latin MSS., for the most part
patristic and classical. The sum expended was £925. Some rare Spanish
historical books (in which class of literature, thanks to Dr. Bandinel's care
in keeping it steadily in view, the Library is now very rich) were bought at
the sale of Don J. Ant. Conde.
But the chief distinction of this year lies in the acquisition, by bequest of
Mrs. Elizabeth Dennis Denyer (widow of Mr. John Denyer, of Chelsea, who
died in 1806) of a most valuable collection of early editions of the English
Bible, numbering altogether about twenty-five. To show the rarity and
worth of this collection, it will be sufficient to mention but a few of the
volumes which it contains. Imprimis, Coverdale's first edition, 1535[311],
and his second edition, 1537; Cranmer's, in April, 1540 and in 1541, and by
Grafton in 1553; Matthew's, by Becke, in 1551; Tyndale's New Testament,
in 1536, and another of his earliest editions; Hollybush's English and Latin
Testament, 1538, and Erasmus' Testament, 1540. Besides the Biblical
collection, Mrs. Denyer also bequeathed twenty-one English theological

works, nearly all printed before 1600; including a beautiful copy of Fisher
on the Penitential Psalms (by Wynkyn de Worde) and books by (amongst
others) Bale, Bonner, Brightwell, Erasmus, Hooper, Joye, and Tonstall.
Mr. L. E. Judge, New College (B.A. 1827, M.A. 1830; Chaplain; deceased
1853), succeeded Mr. Roberts, in March, as assistant; but in July of the next
year retired, and was succeeded by Mr. W. Bailey, also of New College
(B.A. 1829).
[310] These, in number thirty-eight, are described in Mr. Coxe's Catalogue, cols.
724-773. An eighth-century copy of Eusebius' Chronicon is among the Latin
MSS.
[311] Wanting title and map. A title had been supplied by Mrs. Denyer, who in
several instances had supplied deficiencies very successfully in pen and ink; a
perfect facsimile, however, by Mr. J. Harris, which might pass for the original,
were not the minute mark 'Fs. T. H.' seen on the back of the page, has since been
substituted. It is a marvel of caligraphic skill. Another imperfect copy came to
the Library among Selden's books.

A.D. 1825.

The sale at Paris of the library of L. M. Langlès, the keeper of the Oriental
MSS. in the Bibl. Royale, afforded a large accession of books in that branch
of literature which was his specialty.
Mr. Sim. J. Etty, New College (B.A. 1829, M.A. 1832, now Vicar of
Wanborough, Wilts), was appointed assistant in the room of Mr. Eden. Mr.
Etty remained in the Library until the year 1834. The Catalogue of
Dissertationes Academicæ, which appeared in 1832, was in a great measure
his work.
Two MSS. intended of old for the Library by Sir K. Digby, were bought in
this year. To the account of them given at p. 58 supra, it should be added
that the library left in France by Digby on his death (from which, no doubt,
these volumes came) was bought back by George, Earl of Bristol, and
finally sold by auction at London, in April and May, 1680. Sixty-nine MSS.
were included in this dispersion. It should further be added to the previous
notice that it was at Laud's instance, and through him as Chancellor of the
University, that Digby presented his collection to the Library. A letter from

the Archbishop, which accompanied the gift, is printed in Wharton's
collection of his Remains, vol. ii. p. 73.

A.D. 1826.

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

A.D. 1827.

A very large collection of Academic Dissertations published in Germany,
amounting to about 43,400, was bought at Altona for £332 16s. Of these a
folio catalogue was published in 1834, which, by a singular error, bears on
its title the date 1832, as the year in which this accession came to the
Library. In 1828, 160 volumes of the same character were added, and other
large additions were made in 1836 and 1837, but particularly in 1846, when
no fewer than 7000 were purchased[312].
Mr. Henry Forster, New College (B.A. 1832, M.A. 1834; Esquire Bedel of
Divinity; deceased 1857), succeeded Mr. Bailey, in March, as Assistant.
[312] There is scarcely an imaginable subject in law, theology, or history, on
which something may not be found in this vast collection. The something may
often be meagre and superficial, but it is still oftener curious, and even in the
former case it may be useful as pointing to sources of further information. In
days of Ritual controversy, one party or another may be glad to know that in
1725, George Henry Goetz, D.D., wrote on the interesting question whether a
clergyman might do duty in his dressing-gown,—Num Verbi ministro toga
cubicularia (Schlaffpeltze) induto officio sacro defungi liceat? Those who know
what curses were invoked of old upon the heads of stealers of books, may be
interested in hearing what one Pipping had to say on the subject in 1721, in his
Diss. de Imprecationibus libris ascriptis; while the title of Sam. Schelging's
discourse in 1729, De Apparitionibus mortuorum vivis ex pacto factis, will have
attraction for not a few. Sometimes the dryest subjects were lightened up at the
close with ponderous jokes, or unexpected turns were given to the matter in
hand; e.g. those worthy Germans who had gone to sleep at Jena, in 1660, during
the reading of a dissertation De Jure et Potestate Parlamenti Britannici, by one

J. A. Gerhard, (who must have taken unusual interest in the history of the
English Rebellion,) were wakened up at the end by the discussion of the
following novel questions in law:—'Casus ex jure privato.
'I. Titius ducit uxorem Caiam. Caia, elapso uno vel altero anno, transmutatur in
virum. Q. an Caia hæc, soluto per hanc metamorphosin matrimonio, possit
repetere dotem? Dist.
'II. Sempronia, defuncto marito Mævio, nubit Titio. Mævius divinâ potentiâ in
vitam resuscitatur mortalem. Q. an Mævius hic, secundum vivus, uxorem
Semproniam et bona sua repetere possit? Aff.'
It was usual for the friends of the candidate who defended the thesis of the
Dissertation (generally written for him by the Præses) to attach some
complimentary letters or verses. In the case of those published at Upsal, the zeal
of the encomiasts frequently breaks out into wild compositions in Hebrew,
Greek, French, German and English, affording in the latter instance (and it may
be in others) very curious specimens of the language. A laborious trifler, named
P. Wettersten, compliments a friend, who had read at Upsal, in 1742, a
dissertation by Prof. Peter Ekerman on the antiquities of a small town called
Norkoping, with a kind of acrostic in twenty-five lines on the verse, 'Nunc erit et
seclis Norcopia clara futuris,' which, starting from the centre of the page, may be
read upwards, downwards, and in every form of mazy irregularity; every way, in
short, except the right.

A.D. 1828.

A collection of 153 Northern MSS., chiefly in the Icelandic and Danish
languages, formed by Finn Magnusen, was purchased from him for
£350[313]. A catalogue (56 pp. quarto) was published in the year 1832.
Amongst them are many early and curious volumes in poetry and history.
Other collections of MSS. were sold by the same collector to the British
Museum and to the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh.
A large number of Aldines were obtained at the sale of the collection of M.
Renouard, the Aldine bibliographer, which took place in London, June 26-
30. And the rare first edition of John Knox's Historie of the Church of
Scotland was purchased for sixteen guineas.
Some additional rooms on the second story of the Schools' quadrangle, on
the north and east sides, which went by the names of the Schools of
Geometry and Medicine, were permanently attached to the Library, by vote
of Convocation, on June 5.