Chapter VIII: Part 8

[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 10_s._ 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 48^o (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, 4^o. 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 Hon^ble. S^r. Edmund Warcup (being all writ w^th his own hand at y^e Isle of Wight at y^e 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 4_s._ per oz., and two more in 1743 for £8 5_s._ 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 6_s._

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 8_s._ 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 12_s._ 6_d._ 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 6_s._) 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 15_s._; and Fust and Schoeffer's first _dated_ Latin Bible (Mentz, 1462) for £127 15_s._ 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 14_s._ 6_d._; 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 ret^d.' (added at some later period.)

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

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

[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 5_s._ 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 10_s._

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
" York " 4
" Rouen " 1
" Roman " 3
" 'pro sacerdotibus in Anglia, &c. itinerantibus.' 1
_Breviaries_ and _Portiforia_, Salisbury use, 18
" " York " 2
" " Hereford " 1[280]
_Manuals_, Salisbury use, 10
" York (MS.) " 1
_Processionals_, Salisbury use, 10
" York " 1
_Hours_, Salisbury use, 24
" Roman " (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 1_s._ 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.