Chapter IX: Part 9

[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_ (4^o. 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_, 8^o 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 5_s._ 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 10_s._

[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 10_s._ 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 10_s._ 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 15_s._ 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 10_s._ 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. 4^o. Norib. 1738. This was incorporated by De Murr in his _Memorabilia Bibliothecarum publicarum Norimbergensium_, published in 1788, part ii. p. 100, who added thirteen well-engraved plates of the illuminations, binding and text. It was formerly bound in leather-covered boards, ornamented with gold, with five silver-gilt stars on the sides, and fastened with four silver clasps. This cover being much decayed, Ebner cased the volume in a most costly binding of pure silver, preserving the silver stars, and affixing on the outside a beautiful ivory figure (coæval with the MS.) of our Saviour, throned, and in the attitude of benediction. Above the figure, Ebner engraved an inscription in Greek characters, corresponding to the style of the MS., praying for a blessing upon himself and his family.

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

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

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

[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 10_s._ 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 10_s._

[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 5_s._ 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 16_s._ 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.