A.D. 1837.

[328]A short description of them will be found in Gough'sBrit. Topogr.vol. ii. pp. 369-70, and a fuller account in Britton'sMemoir of Aubrey, 1845, pp. 87-91. Mr. Britton, however, strange to say, was not aware that the volumes had been for nine years in safe custody in the Bodleian, and consequently deplores their unfortunate disappearance! He describes their contents from an abstract in the Gough collection.

[329]An account of Mr. Boucher, who quitted America on account of his royalist principles, and afterwards was Head-Master of a well-known school at Cheam, will be found inNotes and Queriesfor 1866, vol. ix. pp. 75, 282.

The magnificent series of historical prints and drawings which is called, from the name of its collectors and its donor, the Sutherland collection, was presented to the University on May 4 in this year, although it was not actually deposited in the Library until March, 1839[330]. The six volumes of the folio editions of Clarendon'sHistory of the RebellionandLife, and of Burnet'sOwn Times, are inlaid and bound in sixty-one elephant folio volumes,and illustrated with the enormous number of 19,224 portraits of every person and views of every place in any way mentioned in the text, or connected with its subject-matter[331]. The gathering was commenced in 1795 by Alexander Hendras Sutherland, Esq., F.S.A.; on his death (May 21, 1820) it was taken up by his widow[332], who spared neither labour nor money to render it as complete as possible, and by whom its contents were, consequently, nearly doubled. At length, desiring, in accordance with her husband's will, that the results of her own and his labour should be always preserved intact, Mrs. Sutherland presented the whole collection to the Bodleian. Its extent may be in some degree appreciated when it is mentioned that there are (according to Mrs. Sutherland's statement in the preface to the Supplementary Catalogue) 184 portraits of James I, of which 135 are distinct plates; 743 of Charles I, of which 573 are distinct plates, besides sixteen drawings; 373 of Cromwell (253 plates); 552 of Charles II (428 plates); 276 of James II; 175 of Mary II (143 plates); and 431 of William III, of which 363 are separate plates[333]. There are also 309 views of London and 166 of Westminster. Amongst those of London is a drawing on many sheets, by a Dutch artist, Antonio van den Wyngaerde, executed between 1558-1563. It affords a view which extends from the Palace at Westminster to that at Greenwich, both included; and comprehends also Lambeth Palace and part of Southwark, with the palacethere of the Protector Somerset, in which the Mint was situated. The whole amount expended on the formation of the series is estimated at £20,000.

The collection is accompanied by a handsomely printed Catalogue, compiled by Mrs. Sutherland, and published in 1837 in three volumes quarto, two containing the portraits, and one the topography[334]. A Supplement to this was printed in the following year, in the preface to which Mrs. Sutherland records her transfer of the collection. She adds that 'the University of Oxford, by the manner in which it has received the collection, has afforded her the high gratification of witnessing the fulfilment, in their utmost extent, of the wishes of its founder; and in the liberal step which its future conservators have taken, to insure a direct and easy means of reference to the prints, she finds proof of their intention to comply with her own earnest desire, that the books should be as freely open to those really interested in them as may be consistent with their safe preservation. Under the superintendence of the compiler, but at the expense of the University, a copy of the Catalogue has been prepared, in which every print is marked with the page which it respectively fills in the volumes; by means of this, every difficulty of reference, and every doubt as to the print intended to be described, is obviated, and the manuscript indices will be preserved from the injury of constant use. In order to prevent the possibility of disappointment in referring from this marked catalogue, every print (with four exceptions only) of which the page has not been ascertained, has been struck out, although probably several of the portraits not at presentfound are still in the volumes.' The following letter of thanks was addressed by Convocation to the donor[335]:—

'To Mrs. Sutherland, of Merrow, in the County of Surrey.'Madam,—We, the Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Oxford, feel ourselves called upon to acknowledge, in a public and formal manner, the splendid donation recently made by you to our Bodleian Library.'It is doubtless a source of much gratification to us that our University should have been selected by you as the fittest depository of so valuable a collection; but we are not, on that account, less disposed to appreciate and admire the feeling which has led you to make so considerable a sacrifice, and to relinquish the possession of what has been to you, for many years, an object of constant interest and occupation.'We shall prize the matchless volumes about to be committed to our care, not merely as being embellished with the richest specimens of the graphic art, but as possessing a real historical character; as enhancing, in no slight degree, the value of works which we have long been accustomed to regard as most important contributions to the annals and literature of our Country.

'To Mrs. Sutherland, of Merrow, in the County of Surrey.

'Madam,—We, the Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Oxford, feel ourselves called upon to acknowledge, in a public and formal manner, the splendid donation recently made by you to our Bodleian Library.

'It is doubtless a source of much gratification to us that our University should have been selected by you as the fittest depository of so valuable a collection; but we are not, on that account, less disposed to appreciate and admire the feeling which has led you to make so considerable a sacrifice, and to relinquish the possession of what has been to you, for many years, an object of constant interest and occupation.

'We shall prize the matchless volumes about to be committed to our care, not merely as being embellished with the richest specimens of the graphic art, but as possessing a real historical character; as enhancing, in no slight degree, the value of works which we have long been accustomed to regard as most important contributions to the annals and literature of our Country.

'Given at our House of Convocation, under our Common Seal, this first day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-seven[336].'

A few other books were sent by Mrs. Sutherland at the same time, including Boydell'sShakespeare, Heath'sChronicle, Scott's edition of Dalrymple'sPreservation of Charles II, Faber'sKit-Cat Club, Wilson'sCatalogue of an Amateur, &c. And in 1843 she increased her former gift by the presentation of copies of a large number of illustrated, biographical, and historical works, many of which are in a like manner enriched with additional engravings. Chief amongst these is a copy of Park's edition of Walpole'sRoyal and Noble Authors, enlarged from five vols. 8o. to 20 vols. 4o. by the insertion of prints, portraits, and some of the original drawings. Similarly enlarged copies of Dr. Dibdin's works are also included; together with framed oil-portraits of Frederic, King of Bohemia, and of Mr. Sutherland.

A curious collection of rare Dutch tracts, in two vols., printed at Amsterdam between 1637 and 1664, and relating to English, Irish, and Scottish affairs, chiefly during the Civil Wars, was bought for £2 13s.And an enormous gathering of English pamphlets, on every kind of subject, in prose and verse, between about 1600 and 1820, said to number 19,380 articles, and which had accumulated in the stores of the well-known bookseller, Mr. Thomas Rodd, was bought of him for £101 14s.6d.These exceeding, from their number, the powers of the then very slender staff of the Library for arrangement and cataloguing, remained piled up in cupboards for about twenty-five years. But a general clearance out of all neglected corners taking place on the appointment of the present Librarian to the Headship, they were then sorted (to a certain extent), bound, numbered, and incorporated in the general Catalogue; when they proved to be a valuable addition to the pamphlet-literature, comparatively few of them being found to be duplicates.

Shakespeare; Romeo and Juliet.See1834.

Sanscrit MSS.See1842.

A grant was made by Convocation of £400 annually, for five years, towards the expense of the new Catalogue, the printing of which was commenced in the summer. A statute also was passed providing that there should be two 'ministri,' or assistants, with salaries regulated by the Curators.

The Rev. Herbert Hill, M.A., Fellow of New College, was approved by Convocation, on Oct. 26, as Sub-librarian, in the room of Mr. Cureton, who removed in this year to the British Museum. Mr. Hill, however, only held the office for one year. And Mr. Richard Firth, New College (B.A. 1839, M.A. 1849, now, and from 1850, a Chaplain in the diocese of Madras), becameministerin the room of Mr. F. J. Marshall, New College (B.A. 1834, M.A. 1837, Chaplain of New College, deceased 1843), who had probably entered the Library in 1834 in the place of Mr. Etty.

[330]MS. note by Mrs. Sutherland in the Library copy of her catalogue.

[331]As early as 1819 the collection numbered 10,000 prints, bound in 57 volumes. Clarke'sRepert. Bibliogr.pp. 574-577.

[332]Mrs. Sutherland died March 18, 1852.

[333]In Mrs. Sutherland's own copy of the catalogue (now in the possession of E. L. Hussey, Esq., Oxford), some of these numbers are enlarged in MS. as follows: Charles II, 557, being 432 plates; Cromwell, 379, 255 plates; William III, 436, 367 plates. Amongst the portraits, there are frequently numerous copies of the same plate, being impressions in all its different states. In a few instances (particularly with regard to Charles I) some of the prints entered in the catalogue have not been found in the volumes.

[334]Ten copies were printed of a larger and finer edition, for presentation to various Libraries, but as only four of these (Bodleian, Cambridge University, British Museum, and Bibl. Royale, Paris) acknowledged the gift (the letters from which are preserved in one copy of the catalogue), no more than five copies were printed of the Supplement. Consequently those Libraries which did not return thanks for the gift have now an imperfect book.

[335]It is here printed from the original (written in the beautifully neat hand of the late Registrar, Dr. Bliss,) which is now in the possession of a nephew of Mrs. Sutherland, Edw. Law Hussey, Esq., of Oxford, M.R.C.S. It is sealed with the old University seal, described on p. 1 of theseAnnals, enclosed in a gold box. The late Rev. R. Hussey, Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History, was one of the brothers of Mrs. Sutherland.

[336]A very erroneous notice of the collection, written in a singularly depreciatory tone, was inserted in an article in theQuarterly Review, in 1852, vol. xci. p. 217. The writer appears to have confounded the facts connected with Gough's preference of the Bodleian to the British Museum (as told in Nichols'Lit. Hist.), or possibly Douce's, with the totally different circumstances of Mrs. Sutherland's gift, whose husband had left the collection entirely at her disposal, provided only that it were not dispersed.

One of the 'curiosities of literature' was obtained by the purchase (for £10 10s.) of theSystem of Divinity, in a Course of Sermons on the first Institutions of Religion, by Rev. Will. Davy, A.B., Vicar of Lustleigh, Devon. It is a work in twenty-six volumes, of which only fourteen copies were printed, entirely by the hands of the indefatigable author himself, between the years 1795 and 1807. It is very roughly executed, the author having purchased only just so much old and worn-out type, as sufficed for the printing of two pages at once; accomplishing in this way the work upon which he had set his heart, 'arte meâ, diurno nocturnoque labore' (as he says in a Latin preface), in consequence of having failed to procure in any other way the publication of his book. The copy in our Library is distinguished by having many additions inserted, printed (in many cases with later and better type) upon small slips[337].

A set of theMonthly Review, from the commencement to 1828, in 200 volumes, in which the names of the contributors are appended in MS. to their several articles, together with a volume of Correspondence with the Editor, Ralph Griffiths, LL.D., between 1758 and 1802 (now numbered Bodl. MS. Addit.VII.D. 11), was bought for £42.

Among the donations were: 1. A collection of twenty-one Oriental works, printed between 1808-1835 by the East India Company, presented by the Directors, and, 2. A valuable series, MS. and printed, of the Statutes of various Italian cities, presented by George Bowyer, Esq. (the present baronet, who succeeded to the title in 1860), who also in the years 1839, 1842, and 1843, forwarded large additions to the printed series. These volumes are now kept distinct as a separate collection. Altogether there are seventy-eight printed volumes, besides four MSS.

On Nov. 15, a Statute was approved by Convocation which raised the stipend of the Sub-librarians from £150 to £250.

From the year 1825 an annual folio Catalogue had been printed, containing, in one list, all the accessions accruing in each yearfrom purchases, gifts, and the supply of new publications from Stationers' Hall. The issue of these lists was discontinued after the appearance of that for the years 1837 and 1838 jointly; except that in 1843 one for that year was printed in octavo.

A form of declaration and promise for due use of the privilege of admission to the Library, to be made by all graduates upon taking their first degree, in lieu of the oath formerly required, was approved by Convocation, on June 9[338]. In accordance with this form, which is still used, each graduate now promises: 'Me libros cæterumque cultum sic tractaturum ut superesse quam diutissime possint, et, quantum in me est, curaturum ne quid Bibliotheca detrimenti aut incommodi capiat.' The same declaration is subscribed in the Library by all non-graduates who are admitted to read there, with the addition of a promise that they will devote their attention 'ad studia et silentium.' The statutable penalty for any wilful mutilation or abstraction of any book, or portion of a book, is immediate expulsion from the Library and University, 'sine ulla spe regressûs.'

On the resignation of Rev. H. Hill, Sub-librarian, in this year, he was succeeded by Rev. H. O. Coxe, M.A., of Worcester College, who had previously worked for five years and a-half in the Department of MSS. in the British Museum[339]. Mr. Coxe's nomination was approved by Convocation on Nov. 16.

[337]Mr. Davy has had a rival, with much more success, within late years in the Rev. Thos. R. Brown, M.A., Vicar of Southwick, Northamptonshire. The Library possesses three works written and printed by this gentleman in his own house. The first is entitled,A Grammar of the Hebrew Hieroglyphs applied to the S. Scriptures, containing the History of the Creation of the Universe and the Fall of Man, 8o. 1840. This appears to have been partlycomposedin type, literally as well as technically, for the author says that 'a considerable part of the mental composition is coeval with' the manual labour, which last was entirely performed by himself. A second book appeared in 1841,Elements of Sanscrit Grammar. A third,A Dictionary, containing English Words of difficult Etymology, tracing them chiefly to Sanscrit roots, appeared in two vols. 8o. 1843. Of this the author certifies that only nine copies were printed, and the one now in the Library was bought of Mr. Lilly (who had it from the author) for £5 5s.in 1855. The execution of all these volumes does the reverend printer great credit. The Rev. Dr. J. A. Giles had also a private press for some time in his house at Bampton, Oxon., which he taught some of the village children to work, and from which issued some of the publications of the Caxton Society, but the results were anything but satisfactory, although probably quite as good as could be expected from such juvenile compositors.

[338]A previous proposal of this alteration had been rejected by Convocation on March 17, 1836.

[339]Mr. Coxe had a considerable share in the compilation of the folio catalogue of the Arundel MSS. preserved in the Museum.

An application was made by Magdalen College for the return of a copy of the Statutes of the College, found among the Rawlinson MSS., but it was refused by the Curators, on the ground that sufficient evidence was not produced of its having ever been the property of the College.

Ninety specimens of the Aldine press, together with other volumes chiefly printed at Venice by A. de Asula, were purchased at the sale of the library of Dr. Samuel Butler, Bishop of Lichfield. From the same library was purchased, in the following year, a collection of portions of more than twenty of the very earliest editions of Donatus'De Octo Partibus Orationis, many of which were unknown; these had previously come from the library of Dr. Kloss. A ninth-century MS. of St. Gregory'sSacramentarywas purchased for £63; and early MSS. of Juvenal, Lucan, &c. A fine and perfect copy of Caxton'sDictes and Sayinges of the Philosophres, printed in 1477, was purchased for £50. It had previously been sold, at Dr. Vincent's sale in 1816, for £99 15s.; this sum, which is marked in pencil on a fly-leaf, having been altered by some practical joker, by the insertion of a figure, to £199 15s., Mr. Blades has in consequence recorded that as being the price at which the Library secured the volume[340].

The Rev. Rob. J. M'Ghee, Rector of Holywell, Hunts, deposited in the Bodleian (as also in the University Library, Cambridge, and in that of Trinity College, Dublin,) a collection of thirty-one volumes relating to the controversy with the Churchof Rome, and to the Moral Theology taught at Maynooth. The volumes consist of editions of the Douay and Rheims versions, of some Irish diocesan Statutes, of Bailly'sTheologia Moralis, and Delahogue's Dogmatic Treatises, and of various Irish polemical pamphlets; and they are enclosed in a mahogany case, with glass door. In consequence of reference having been made to this collection by the donor, at a County Meeting held at Huntingdon, Dec. 28, 1850, upon the occasion of the 'Papal Aggression,' some slight degree of public attention was called to it; and a controversial volume was in consequence published by Mr. M'Ghee, in 1852, entitled,The Church of Rome; a Report on the Books and Documents on the Papacy, deposited in the University Library, Cambridge, &c.

Shakespeare;Richard IIIandHamlet. See1834.

The first non-academicministerwas appointed in Mr. H. S. Harper (viceMr. Firth), of whose valuable services and acquaintance with details the Library still enjoys the benefit. Mr. Harper had acted for three years previously as an under-assistant.

[340]As Mr. Blades' valuable work onThe Life and Typography of Caxton, 1863, gives most accurate descriptions of all the copies and fragments of our great printer's works which are preserved in the Library, it is only necessary to refer the reader to it for detailed information. A notice of two, however, which were unknown to be Caxtons at the time of Mr. Blades' investigations, will be found in the account of Bishop Tanner's books, p.155; and two fragments, among Douce's books, are mentioned at p.250.

The very large and valuable MS. collections of the Rev. John Brickdale Blakeway, relating to the history of Shropshire, were presented by his widow. Mr. Blakeway was minister of St. Mary's Church, Shrewsbury, for thirty-two years, and died March 10, 1826. He was long engaged in gathering materials for a county history, and his collections now form fifteen closely-written volumes in folio, nine in quarto, and two in octavo, arranged, and lettered on their backs, according to their several subjects, viz. Pedigrees, County History, Parochial History, &c. A list of them is given at the end of the Annual Catalogue. They were supplemented in 1850 by the purchase (for £42) of a copy of Mr. T. F.Dukes'Antiquities of Shropshire(4o. Shrewsbury, 1844), divided into two large volumes, and enriched by the author with many MS. additions and copies of ancient deeds, and with upwards of 700 portraits and original drawings of churches, fonts, &c. relating to almost every parish in the county. As Mr. Blakeway's collections are not accompanied with engravings or drawings, these volumes largely assist to make the materials for the history of this county complete.

A parcel of 136 early French and Anglo-Saxon coins was presented by Her Majesty the Queen, out of a mass of upwards of 6700 which were found in digging at the bank of the river Ribble, at Cuerdale, in Lancashire, and were adjudged to belong to Her Majesty in right of the Duchy of Lancaster. The largest part of the Saxon coins were of the reigns of S. Edmund of East Anglia (in number 1770) and of Alfred (793); of the Continental, of Charles le Chauve (712) and, apparently, of Charles le Simple (2942).

Some rare and interesting books issued by English printers about the middle of the sixteenth century were acquired in this year; among them, theBoke of Common Prayer, printed by Oswen, at Worcester, in 1552, bought for the very moderate sum of £3 16s.Two rare American Psalters were purchased, the one calledThe Massachuset Psalter, printed at Boston in 1709, for £2, and the other, the Psalms in blank verse with tunes, printed at Boston in 1718, for £1 19s.

Shakespeare,Henry VI.See1834.

American Tracts.See1836.

Donatus.See1840.

The hitherto somewhat narrow funds of the Library received in this year a welcome increase by the bequest of the large sum of £36,000 in the Three per Cents. from Rev. Robert Mason, D.D., of Queen's College, deceased Jan. 5. He bequeathed also afurther sum of £30,000 for a new library to his own College. In commemoration of this munificent legacy, one room, devoted to the reception of costly illustrated works, and works of some degree of value or rarity in various languages, has been styled theMason Room(see p.251). The elegant model of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, now exhibited in the Library, came by his bequest, together with a painting of the Zodiac of Tentyra, in Egypt, which is hung in the Picture Gallery.

Seven Sanscrit MSS. had been given to the Library in 1837 by B. H. Hodgson, Esq., the British Resident in Nepaul, before which time there were but a very few works in that language scattered through some of the various Oriental collections, and most of them recently acquired[341]. But in this year the real foundation of the present very large and valuable collection was laid, by the purchase for £500 of the MSS. obtained by Professor H. H. Wilson (dec.May 8, 1860) during his residence in India, numbering 616 works and 540 volumes, of which 147 are MSS. of the Vedas. A brief list of them is attached to the Annual Catalogue for 1842, and the whole are fully described in the catalogue of the Sanscrit MSS., compiled by Theod. Aufrecht, M.A., now Professor of Sanscrit in the Univ. of Edinburgh, the second and last part of which was published in 1864. The greater part of Mr. Wilson's collection consists of MSS. written in the last and present centuries.

Some small collections towards the history of Cheshire, made by Rev. F. Gower, were purchased in this year and in 1846.

In printed books the chief purchase was a copy (at the price of fifty guineas) of the original and hitherto unknown edition of the poems of Drummond, of Hawthornden. It is in quarto, with a portrait, having the letter-press only on one side of the page, and was printed at Edinburgh by Andro Hart in 1614. There are three or four small corrections in Drummond's own handwriting[342].

Bowyer.Italian Municipal Statutes.See1838.

Laing.Almanac by W. de Worde.See1755.

Old Plays.See1834.

In March, Mr. J. B. Taunton, All Souls' College (B.A. 1843, M.A. 1848), was appointed AssistantviceMr. F. E. Thurland, New College (B.A. 1841, M.A. 1846, now Rector of Thurstaston, Cheshire), who was made anextra, in the place of Mr. Symonds, resigned. Mr. Thurland had, probably, succeeded Mr. Grove in 1838 or 1839.

The stipend of the Librarian was increased by £150, by a statute which passed on May 6. By the same statute an annual payment was ordered of £20 to the Janitor, in lieu of fees hitherto taken for showing the Library or Picture Gallery to Members of the University. These, undergraduates as well as graduates, have now, if wearing their academical dress, the right of free entrance for themselves and friends; other visitors are admitted, by a regulation made five or six years ago, at the very moderate fee of threepence each person. (See p.134.)

[341]The gift of the first Sanscrit book (described in the Benefaction-Register as being 'Gentuanâ linguâ') by one JohnKen, in 1666, is noticed at p.113. The book is now numbered, Walker 214.

[342]A copy of Blackwood'sMartyre de la Royne d'Escosse(Edinb. 1587), among Rawlinson's books, has an autograph of Drummond: 'Gŭi. Drŭm̄ond, a Paris, 1607.'

The valuable collection of Oriental MSS. formed by the celebrated traveller, James Bruce, of Kinnaird, was purchased for£1000. It consists of ninety-six volumes, of which twenty-six are in Ethiopic, and seventy in Arabic; there is also one Coptic MS. on papyrus. Included in vol. iv. of an Ethiopic copy of the Old Testament is one of the three copies of the Book of Enoch, which were brought by Bruce from Abyssinia, and which were then (if they be not even still) the only manuscripts of the book to be found in Europe. One of the three had been given by Bruce himself to the University, in 1788, through the hands of Dr. Douglas, Bishop of Salisbury; it is written on forty leaves of vellum, in triple columns, and is now exhibited in the glass case near the entrance of the Library. It was from this MS. that Dr. Laurence, afterwards Archbishop of Cashel, first made the translation which he published in 1821, and then subsequently, in 1838, published the original text. The second copy ('elegantissimum et celeberrimum') was given by Bruce to Louis XVI, and is now in the Imperial Library at Paris. By the purchase of the third, the Bodleian is, therefore, the possessor of two out of the three.

Two unsuccessful attempts had previously been made to dispose of the collection by auction. It was first announced for sale by Mr. Christie, for May 17, 1827, to be disposed of in one lot; and a list was issued, abridged from the catalogue made by Dr. Alex. Murray, the editor of Bruce'sTravels. The issue of this proposed sale is recorded by Douce in the following MS. note on his copy of the auction catalogue: 'These MSS. were put in by the owner at £5500, and after an elaborate eulogium on them by Mr. Christie, no bidding or advance took place, and they were of course withdrawn. Had the owner offered them for £500, I should think the same result would have happened.' The second attempt was made in 1842, when the MSS. were offered for sale by Mr. George Robins, on May 30, but it appears that even all the eloquence of that most moving of auctioneers failed to elicit a bid corresponding to the expectation of the seller; and so the collection fortunatelyremained intact, to be disposed of to our Library in the year following.

A catalogue of the Ethiopic MSS. of the collection was issued in a small quarto volume (eighty-seven pages), in 1848, as part vii. of the General Catalogue of MSS. It was compiled by a German scholar, well acquainted with this branch of Oriental literature, Dr. A. Dillmann, and contains, besides Bruce's books, three of Pococke's MSS., one of Laud's, one of Clarke's, and three others; in all thirty-five.

Valuable materials for the history of Devon were secured by the purchase (for £90) of the collections made for that purpose by Jeremiah Milles, D.D., Dean of Exeter, and Pres. of the Soc. of Antiquaries. The library of Dean Milles (who died Feb. 13, 1784) was sold by auction by Mr. Leigh Sotheby, in April; and these collections, comprised in eighteen volumes in folio, one in quarto, and one in octavo, formed a principal feature in the sale.

In this year the new Catalogue of the general Library of printed books, exclusive of the Gough and Douce libraries, and the collections of Hebrew books and Dissertations, of which already special catalogues were in print, was completed and published in three folio volumes. It had been commenced in the year 1837, and was prepared by the Rev. Arthur Browne, M.A., Chaplain of Ch. Ch. (now a retired Chaplain of the Royal Navy), whose share comprises the letters P-R, and the commencement of S; the Rev. Henry Cary, M.A. (son of the Translator ofDante, then Incumbent of St. Paul's, Oxford, but now, by returning to his previous profession of the Law, a barrister in Australia), who is responsible for the letters F-K, and part of L; and Rev. Alfred Hackman, M.A., Chaplain and Precentor of Ch. Ch., and now Sub-librarian, who completed the greater part of it, viz. the letters A-E, L (fromLondon)-O, S (fromShakespeare)-Z. The wholecharges of the printing of the Catalogue amounted to £2990 12s.[343]; the previous cost of compilation was about £2000.

Bowyer.Italian Municipal Statutes.See1838.

Sutherland.Illustrated Books.See1839.

[343]MS. note by Dr. Bliss.

Sir William Ouseley, the editor of the three volumes entitledOriental Collections(brother to Sir Gore Ouseley, whom he accompanied when he went as ambassador to Persia in 1810), gathered, during some forty years spent in accumulation, about 750 Oriental MSS., chiefly in Persian, but including also a few in Arabic, Sanscrit, Zend, &c. Of these, in 1831 a catalogue (in 24 pp. quarto) was issued by the owner, who wished to dispose of them collectively, but no purchaser was then found, and they consequently remained in Sir William's possession. After his death, however (in Sept. 1842), they were again proposed for saleen masse, and the Library became a purchaser in this year for the sum of £2000. Many of the volumes are specimens of the best styles of Persian writing and illumination, while others are of great antiquity and rarity. The printed Oriental collection was also increased by various works printed in the East Indies in 1830-1839, which were presented by the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and by some Sanscrit and Mahratta books given by Rev. G. Pigott, Chaplain at Bombay.

This year is rendered noticeable in the later annals of the Library by the fact that not a single MS. was purchased during its course. But a very valuable collection of Arabic, Persian and Sanscrit MSS. formed by Brigadier Gen. Alex. Walker, during hisservice in India, was presented by his son, Sir Will. Walker, of Edinburgh[344]. These are kept as a distinct collection, like other donations or purchases of similar extent; the Sanscrit portion is described in the catalogue compiled by Prof. Aufrecht. The collection of printed Hebrew books was increased by the purchase (for £176 14s.6d.) of 483 volumes from the library of the celebrated lexicographer, Gesenius, of Halle, who died Oct. 23, 1842, and whose library was sold by auction at Halle, in Jan. 1844. Two curious collections of tracts were also bought; the one in English consisting of 300 volumes, ranging from 1688 to 1766, and chiefly treating of the case of the Non-jurors, the Bangorian controversy, and the affairs of the city of London (for £22 10s.); and the other in French, consisting only of four small volumes, but containing a very large number of 'Merveilles,' strange histories of strange wonders, between 1557 and 1637, of great rarity and singularity. These were obtained at the sale of the library of Mr. Benj. Heywood Bright, No. 3796, for £13.

On Dec. 23, the present writer (then a Clerk of Magdalen College) was appointed Assistant,viceMr. Taunton, after upwards of five years' previous service as a supernumerary, having first entered the Library in June, 1840.

[344]Gen. Walker, who in the beginning of the century was Governor of Baroda, in Guzerat, died at Edinburgh in 1832. His MSS., in the words of Prof. Aufrecht, 'integritate et antiquitate eminent.'

The original MS., or first copy, of Wood'sHistory and Antiquities of Oxford, in English, was purchased for the moderate sum of £8 8s.Already the Library possessed the corrected copy, in the author's autograph, in two large folio volumes, which had formed part of his collection in the Ashmolean Museum, but weretransferred to the Bodleian as early as the year 1769. The volume now obtained had been in the possession of Edw. Roberts, Esq., of Ealing, a letter to whom from Mr. Joseph Parker, of Oxford, is inserted, dated July 4, 1827, in which he mentions the sale of the book to Mr. B. Roberts, and says that it was purchased at a sale at Burford, in 1797 or 1798.

A curious and valuable account-roll of Sir John Williams, Knt., Master of the Jewels to Henry VIII, which specifies all the treasures which were in his custody, was bought for £25[345].

The department of Italian topography, antiquities and art was largely enriched by the purchase from Rev. R. A. Scott (for £234 6s.) of a collection of 1426 volumes made by his brother the late George C. Scott, Esq., during ten years' residence in Italy.

Dissertations.See1828.

Gower's Cheshire.See1842.

Thorkelin.See1828.

[345]An original account, by the same Master of the Jewels, of the plate and jewels received for the King's use from dissolved monasteries in the years 1540-1542, is preserved in MS.e Musæo, 57.

A valuable MS. of Star-Chamber Reports, from June 17, 1635, to June 4, 1638, was purchased for £11. Several similar volumes of Reports are among the Rawlinson MSS. Two curious collections of pamphlets were bought; the one consisting of tracts, broadsides and proclamations relating to the Gunpowder Plot, made by H. Glynn, Under-secretary of State (£12 10s.); the other, a series of State special Forms of Prayer, from 1665 to 1840 (£10 10s.)

Works relating to the history of America, in which theLibrary is now very rich, begin in this year to form a specially noticeable feature in the catalogue of purchases. Many rare tracts had been of old in the Library, but much of the completeness of the present collection is due to the energy of the well-known American bibliophilist, Henry Stevens, Esq.

A collection of Hebrew MSS., numbering 862 volumes and nearly 1300 separate works, was purchased at Hamburgh for £1030. It had been amassed by Heimann Joseph Michael (born Apr. 12, 1792, deceased June 10, 1846), who had devoted thirty years to the formation of his library. One hundred and ten vellum MSS. are included in it, written for the most part between 1240 and 1450. Michael's printed books amounted to 5471; these were purchased by the British Museum. A short catalogue of the collection, drawn up from the owner's papers, was issued at Hamburgh in 1848, with a preface by Dr. L. Zunz, and an index to the MSS. by Dr. M. Steinschneider. They will ere long be re-catalogued, together with all the other Hebrew MSS. in the Library, by Dr. Neubauer, who has now, in the present year, commenced his important task.

The valuable collection of Oriental MSS. formed by Rev. W. H. Mill, D.D., Regius Professor of Hebrew at Cambridge, during his residence in India as Principal of Bishop's College, Calcutta, was purchased from him for £350. A small remaining portion of his collection, comprising thirty-six volumes, was bought in 1858, after his death, for £35. In all there are 160 volumes, of which 145 are in Sanscrit. These latter are fully described in Prof. Aufrecht's Sanscrit Catalogue.

The chief purchases of printed books were made at the sale at Berlin, in May, of the library of Professor C. F. G. Jacobs, the editor of theAnthologia Græca(who died March 30, 1847), whence a large number of classical dissertations, many of them authors' presentation copies, were obtained[346], and at the sale of the library of Rev. Hen. Francis Lyte (deceased 1847) which took place in July. A collection of 360 sermons, published by Non-juring divines between 1688 and 1750, is an interesting item in the year's list; another is a copy of Pliny'sHistoria Naturalis, printed at Rome by Sweynheym and Pannartz in 1473, with a MS. collation of three very early codices made by Ang. Politian in 1490, which was bought for £21, at an extremely curious sale at Messrs. Leigh Sotheby's, in Feb., of books 'selected from the library of an eminent literary character' (M. Libri?).

The two statutable Assistants at this time and for one or two years previously were Mr. J. M. Price, All Souls' College (B.A. 1849, M.A. 1852, now Vicar of Cuddington, Bucks,) and Mr. W. W. Garrett, New College (B.A. 1849). The former of these was succeeded about 1850, by the last undergraduate Assistant, Mr. J. C. Hyatt, Magd. Hall (B.A. 1852, now Perp. Curate of Queenshead, Yorkshire). Since then, in consequence of the difficulty of reconciling attendance on College lectures, &c. with attention to the continually increasing work of the Library, the junior Assistants have been taken from the City instead of from the undergraduate members of the University, as had been generally the case hitherto.

In pursuance of an address from the House of Commons, Sept. 4, 1848, on the motion of Mr. Ewart, various returns relative to public libraries were obtained, which were printed by Parliament in 1849, State Paper, No. 18. The following is the reply from Dr. Bandinel there printed:—

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