A.D. 1810.

[281]SeeGent. 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.

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'sAthenæ, 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 (thePoetry, theLetters, and the commencement of theMiscell.) for which a payment was made to him of £21. He afterwards quitted the Library for the British Museum, but returned in 1822, as Sub-librarian, for a short time.

His life-long friend, Dr. Bandinel, entered the Library also in this year. To him, for a list of a further portion of the Rawlinson MSS., £26 5s.were paid in 1812.

Only eighteen books were purchased in this year! The list, scantly filling one page, is consequently theminimumin the series of annual catalogues.

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 theGentleman's Magazinefor 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 (seep.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 owingto 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 theGentleman's Magazineto the year 1810 for £52 10s.

[285]This alteration of hours had been previously proposed in a Statute which was to have been submitted to Convocation on Dec. 11, 1812, but which appears to have been withdrawn ere the day came, probably because this larger measure of revision of the old Statutes was already in contemplation. A blank is left in the Convocation Book under that date, by the then Registrar, Mr. Gutch; and his successor, Dr. Bliss, has added a pencil-note to the effect that he supposes from the blank not being filled up, that the proposal was previously abandoned. The Statute of 1769 had required that the Library should be open in summer from 8 to 2 and from 3 to 5, but it was stated in some remarks which accompanied the proposed enactment that these injunctions had 'long been disregarded in practice,' and that the Library had been open throughout the year from nine to three o'clock. But it was added that 'experience' had 'shewn that there is no occasion for requiring the attendance of the Librarians before ten in the winter season.'

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, hisTypographical GazetteerandList 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 theEditiones principesandIncunabulawas 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 theClerk of the Schools.

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 appointedMinisterin the room of Mr. Francis Thurland, of NewCollege, 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 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. Bandineland 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'sPharsalia, 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 commencedde 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.

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 Museumof 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 twoEvangelistariaassigned 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 theyears 1507-1511. Of Latin ecclesiastical writers and Fathers there are 232 volumes; and of Latin miscellanies (chiefly in medicine, philosophy and science, theology, andbelles 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 ofHoræ, 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'sVariæ Lectiones Veteris Testamenti. The few Arabic MSS. are described in Dr. Pusey's Continuation of Nicol's Catalogue.

A curious story of the recovery, amidst these books, of some leaves belonging to a printed vellum Bible already in the Library, will be found related under the year 1750. A few other MSS. from Canonici's library were sold by auction, with some from Saibante's, in London, in 1821. And many relating to Italian and Venetian history, which were at first retained by one of the heirs, passed afterwards into the hands of the Rev. Walter Sneyd, of Baginton, Warwickshire, their present possessor. A MS. volume of notices of the Canonici library, drawn up by Signor Lorenzi, of Venice, was bought by the Bodleian, in 1859, for ten guineas[297].

A MS. of Suidas, of the fifteenth century, was purchased for £220 10s.Another acquisition was a French translation, made in 1417, by Laurens de Preme, of theEthics,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 theEdd. Pr.of Livy, 1469, Lactantius, 1465, &c.) was that of a vellum copy of the first edition of the Hebrew Pentateuch, printed at Bologna in 1482, for £17 10s.Some sets of controversial and political tracts, with other books, which had belonged to ThomasBrande 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'sBibliothèque des écrivains de la comp. de Jésus; quatr. série, p. 93. 8vo. Liège, 1858.

[295]Bibliogr. Decam.iii. 429.

[296]See under the year1852.

[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 hisVocabolario 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 theDivina 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 ofThe Book of the Mousetrap! (SeeNotes and Queries, i. 154.)

[298]Bodl. MS. 965.

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'sParents' Assistant, Mrs. H. More'sSacred Dramas, Mrs. Opie'sSimple Tales, and an edition ofOssian, 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; theTheologyincludes Owen'sHistory of the Bible Society; theHistoryincludesMemoirs of Oliver Cromwell and his Children; thePoetry, Byron'sSiege of Corinth, L. Hunt'sStory of Rimini, and Wordsworth'sThanksgiving Ode; and theNovels, [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 theyear 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, thatallpublications sent from Stationers' Hall should in future be entered and preserved.

A very valuable and curious series of original editions of Latin and German tracts, issued by the German Reformers between 1518 and 1550, in eighty-four volumes, was bought for £95 15s.Additions have been made to this collection at various times subsequently, so that now it probably comprises as complete a gathering of these controversial publications, so easily lost or destroyed from their small extent and often ephemeral character, as can anywhere be found. A kindred collection (although not of like value or interest) was obtained through the gift by Mr. A. Müller, a well-known bookseller at Amsterdam, of a series of tracts, in sixty-two volumes, and chiefly in the Dutch language, on the controversy with the Remonstrants in 1618-19. A MS. Catalogue, by Mr. Müller, dated March 3, is kept in the Librarian's study. Besides the books, Mr. Müller gave a few coins, including one struck on leather during the siege of Leyden in 1574, and some natural curiosities, which latter are now preserved in the New Museum. Ablack 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 under1610.

Mr. John Walker, Queen's College (B.A. 1820; Chaplain of New College, M.A., 1823), succeeded Mr. Fenton asministerin July.

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

A copy of the extremely rare Polish version of the Bible, made by the Socinians at the expense of Prince Nicholas Radzivil, and printed in 1563, was bought for £45[300]; and a folio Psalter, printed by Fust and Schoeffer in 1459, (finished Aug. 29), on vellum, for £70. The second vellum printed book in the Library is a copy of Durandus'Rationale, printed by the same printers in the same year, but completed on Oct. 6. This was bought in 1790 for £80 10s.Large additions were made to the collection of Aldines.

The name of Lady Hester Stanhope occurs among the benefactors as presenting an Arabic MS. of the Romance of Antar, in thirty volumes.

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

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 broughtfrom 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 ofNotitia egregii codicis Græci Novi Testamenti manuscripti, &c. 4o. Norib. 1738. This was incorporated by De Murr in hisMemorabilia 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'sVerona 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.

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'sShakespeare, 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 inGent. Magaz.and Nichol'sLit. Hist.), was published in 1836;and, in 1861, Mr. J. O. Halliwell printed fifty-one copies of a smallHand-listof 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 hisShakespeareand 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 theMenagiana.

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'sAmes, 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 rareEd. Pr.of Virgil, printed by Sweynheim and Pannartz in 1469[305]. A somewhatsimilar instance occurred also in 1826, when Daye's edition of the Apocrypha, printed in 1549 (being vol. iv. of his edition of the Bible in that year), was obtained for fifteen shillings, while £73 10s.were paid for an edition of Virgil printed at Venice about 1473.

The very rare German Bible, printed at Strasburgh about 1466, was bought for £42, and a perfect copy of the first edition of the Bishops' Bible, in 1568, for seven guineas[306]. A volume of interest in typographical history was presented, in the first book printed in New South Wales. It is entitledMichael 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 FireBrigade, 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 appointedminister,viceMr. 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 appointedviceWalker. From this time there appear to have been two assistants, although it was not until 1837 that that number was formally allowed by Statute.

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