Annals of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, A.D. 1598-A.D. 1867 Part 23

The MSS. of the distinguished cla.s.sical scholar, James Philip D'Orville, who died at Amsterdam, Sept. 14, 1751, were bought for 1025. After the purchase was completed, a question arose whether the University of Leyden were not, by the terms of his will, ent.i.tled to them after the death of his son, but it was ascertained that this provision was only made in case his son did not reach manhood. The collection numbers about 570 volumes, containing many valuable Greek and Latin Cla.s.sics, together with numerous collations of texts, and annotated printed copies.

Thirty-four volumes contain correspondence (autograph and in copy) of Is. Vossius, Heinsius, Cuper, Paolo Sarpi, Beverland, and the letters addressed to D'Orville by all the great scholars of his time. And thirty-eight volumes, in folio and quarto, contain _Adversaria_ of Scipio and Alberic Gentilis. There are also six Turkish and Arabic MSS.

The gem of the collection is a quarto MS. of _Euclid_, containing 387 leaves, which was written, '?e??? Stefa??? ????????,' A.M.

6397 = A.D. 889. It contains a memorandum by one Arethas of Patras, that he bought the book for four (or, most probably, fourteen,) _nummi_. A Catalogue of the MSS., compiled anonymously by Dr. (then Mr.) Gaisford, was printed in quarto, in 1806. D'Orville's signature occurs in the Admission-book as having been admitted to read on Aug. 18, 1718.

A form of new Statute was put out on March 28, to be proposed to Convocation in May; but it appears to have been withdrawn, as no fresh Statutes were actually enacted until 1813. The staff was proposed to be increased to the number which was adopted in the latter year, but with smaller salaries; and the Library was to be open from nine to three, throughout the year.

A.D. 1806.

Fifty pounds were paid for some 'Tibetan MSS.' of Capt. Samuel Turner, E.I.C.S., who had been sent by Warren Hastings, on a mission to the Grand Llama, in 1785. Of this mission he published an account, in a quarto volume, in 1800. His MSS. consist chiefly of nine bundles of papers and letters in the Persian and Tartar languages, written in the last century, together with a few Chinese printed books. Capt. Turner died Jan. 2, 1802; but as one of his sisters was married to Prof. White, it was probably through him that the papers were now purchased.

A beautiful copy of the _Koran_ which had been in the library of Tippoo Sahib (now exhibited in the gla.s.s case near the door) was presented, together with another MS. from the same collection, by the East India Company. Dibdin speaks of it as a work 'upon which caligraphy seems to have exhausted all its powers of intricacy and splendour,' and adds the following description:--

'The preservation of it is perfect, and the beauty of the binding, especially of the interior ornaments, is quite surprising. The first few leaves of the text are highly ornamented, without figures, chiefly in red and blue. The latter leaves are more ornamental; they are even gorgeous, curious and minute. The generality of the leaves have two star-like ornaments in the margin, out of the border. Upon the whole this is an exquisite treasure, in its way[272].'

The _Catholicon_ of J. de Janua, printed at Mentz, in 1460, was bought for 63.

The following singular memorandum, relating to this year, is preserved on a small paper:--

'Oxford, Aug. 29, 1806. Borrowed this day, of the Rev. the Bodleian Librarian, the picture given to the Library by Mr. Peters, which I promise to return upon demand.

'JOSEPH WHITE.

'_Mem._ Not returned, June 24, 1807.

'Nor as yet, Oct., 1808. J. P. (_i.e._ J. Price).

'And never to be ret^d.' (added at some later period.)

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

On the morning of Sat.u.r.day, April 19, probably but little after nine o'clock, the statutable time for the opening of the Library, some zealous student stood at the door, but could get no further. No one appeared to give him entrance; the Librarian himself never came on a Sat.u.r.day, and probably his a.s.sistants were not scrupulous in punctuality; at any rate, the expectant student stood and expected in vain. But ere he departed, he denounced a 'Woe' which perpetuates to this day the memory of his vain expectancy; he affixed to the door the following text, which doubtless seemed to him naturally suggested: '??a? ???, ?t? ??ate t?? ??e?da t?? ???se??; a?t?? ??? e?s???ete, ?a?

t??? e?se???e???? e????sate.' The paper is now preserved over the door of one of the Sub-librarians' studies, with this note added: 'Affixed to the outer door of the Library by some _scavant inconnu_, April 19, 1806.'

[272] _Bibliogr. Decam._ iii. 472.

[273] Gutch's _Wood_, II. ii. 979.

A.D. 1807.

A list of the books printed during the year at the University Press is added to the annual account. This was not repeated.

A copy of the _Speculum Christiani_, printed by Will. de Machlinia, was given by Rev. A. H. Matthews, of Jesus College.

Amongst the names of a.s.sistants, written by them, _more Anglico_, on the wood-work of their studies, occurs the name of 'Rob. Fr. Walker, New Coll., Dec. 1807.' Mr. Walker (B.A. 1811, M.A. 1813) was subsequently Curate of Purleigh, Ess.e.x, where he died in 1854. He was known as the translator of a _Life of Bengel_, and other works, from the German. A memoir of him was published by Rev. T. Pyne, from which the account given by Dr. Bloxam in his _Register of Magd. Coll._ ii. 115-117, was taken. In 1810, John Woodc.o.c.k (B.A. 1817, M.A. 1818, Chaplain of New College) appears, from the same evidence as Mr. Walker, to have been an a.s.sistant, one Will. John Lennox in 1808, and John Jones, (Ch. Ch.? B.A.

1808, M.A. 1815), in 1809.

A.D. 1808.

The Latin Bible printed by Ulric Zell, at Cologne, in two volumes, about 1470, was bought for 47 5_s._ The Bible printed at Rome, by Sweynheym and Pannartz, in 1471, had been bought, in 1804, for 35; and in 1826 a Strasburgh edition, printed with Mentelin's types, without date, was obtained for 94 10_s._

A set of the Oxford Almanacks, from the commencement in 1674 to this year, was given by a frequent donor, Alderman Fletcher[274].

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

A.D. 1809.

The death of the eminent topographer and antiquary, Richard Gough, on Feb. 20, 1809[275], brought into operation the bequest made to the Library in his will, dated ten years previously. This consisted of all his topographical collections, together with all his books relating to Saxon and Northern literature, 'for the use of the Saxon Professor,' his maps and engravings, and all the copper-plates used in the ill.u.s.tration of the various works published by himself. The transmission of this vast collection was accomplished by Mr. J. Nichols, the executor, in the course of the year; and some of his correspondence on the subject is printed in his _Ill.u.s.trations of Literary History_, vol. v. pp. 556-561.

The collection (which numbers upwards of 3700 volumes) was placed in the room formerly the Civil Law School, that room having been a.s.signed to the Library a few years previously, and fitted up (at a cost of about 675) for the reception of various historical collections. In the same room are now the Carte, Dodsworth, Tanner, Willis, Junius, and portion of the Rawlinson, ma.n.u.scripts, with other smaller collections; the name proposed to be given to it, and by which it was designated in Gough's will, was 'The Antiquaries' Closet.' Gough's library consists, firstly, of a large series of maps[276] and topographical prints and drawings, in elephant-folio volumes; of this a very brief outline-list is given in the printed catalogue, but a full list in detail exists in MS[277].

Secondly, of printed books and MSS., arranged under the heads of General Topography, Ecclesiastical Topography[278], Natural History, the several Counties (with London, Westminster, and Southwark) in order[279], Wales, Islands, Scotland, and Ireland. Thirdly, of 227 works connected with Anglo-Saxon literature and that of the Scandinavian races generally.

Fourthly, of an extremely large and valuable series of printed Service-books of the English Church before the Reformation, together with a few MSS., chiefly _Horae_. The value of this series may be gathered from the following statement of the Missals, Breviaries, Manuals, Processionals, and Hours, which it comprises, besides which there are Graduals, Psalters, Hymns, Primers, &c.

_Missals_, Salisbury use, 30 " York " 4 " Rouen " 1 " Roman " 3 " 'pro sacerdotibus in Anglia, &c. itinerantibus.' 1 _Breviaries_ and _Portiforia_, Salisbury use, 18 " " York " 2 " " Hereford " 1[280]

_Manuals_, Salisbury use, 10 " York (MS.) " 1 _Processionals_, Salisbury use, 10 " York " 1 _Hours_, Salisbury use, 24 " Roman " (besides several MSS.) 1

Of several of these books there are more than single copies.

A fifth division of Gough's library consists of sixteen large folio volumes of coloured drawings of monuments in churches of France, chiefly at Paris, in Normandy, Valois, Champagne, Burgundy and Brie, and at Beauvais, Chartres, Vendosme and Noyon. They form part of a large collection extending through the whole of France, which was made by M.

Gagnieres, tutor to the sons of the Grand Dauphin, and given by him to Louis XIV in 1711. Of this collection, now preserved in the Imperial Library, twenty-five volumes were lost amid the troubles of the French Revolution, between 1785 and 1801; but in what way, out of the twenty-five, these sixteen came into Gough's hands, has not been clearly ascertained. The collection is of great value, as most of the monuments were defaced or destroyed by the revolutionary mobs. Gough's volumes contain about 2000 drawings, of the whole of which facsimiles were made in 1860 by M. Jules Frappaz, by direction of the French Minister of Public Instruction, (who made application for the purpose, through Mr.

J. H. Parker, in 1859) for the purpose of so far supplying the deficiency in the series at Paris[281].

The copy of the _British Topography_, which Gough had prepared for a third edition (of which a considerable part of vol. i. had been printed, but was burned in the disastrous fire at Mr. Nichols' printing-office in Feb., 1808,) was bought by the Curators of Mr. Nichols in 1812 for 150[282]. It has been recently bound in four very thick volumes. A fifth volume contains the proof-sheets of that portion of vol. i. which had been printed, extending to _Ches.h.i.+re_, p. 446. The collections for the first edition make three volumes.

By Gough's bequest the Library became also possessed (as mentioned above) of the very valuable copper-plates which ill.u.s.trated his _Sepulchral Monuments_, and other works. In 1811, one hundred guineas were paid to Basire, the engraver, for cleaning and arranging 380 of these plates. Amongst these was the actual bra.s.s effigy of one of the Wingfield family in the fifteenth century, from Letheringham Church, Suffolk, of which an engraving is found in the _Monuments_. The bra.s.s is now exhibited in the gla.s.s case of miscellaneous objects of curiosity in the Picture Gallery.

The Catalogue of the collection was issued from the University Press, in a quarto volume, in 1814. It was chiefly compiled by Dr. Bandinel, to whom fifty guineas were paid for it, in 1813; but Dr. Bliss has noted[283] that the first 136 pages were prepared by himself. In the _Bibliographical Decameron_ (vol. i. p. xcv.) Dibdin has made honourable mention of the 'perseverance, energy, and exactness' with which he found Dr. Bandinel working on a very hot day in the year 1812, in the arrangement of the collection, 'in an oaken-floored room, light, s.p.a.cious, and dry.'

Some account and survey-books, belonging to University and Magdalen Colleges, which came to the Library among Gough's MSS., were restored by vote of Convocation on March 9, 1814.

The MSS. which the well-known traveller, Rev. Edw. Dan. Clarke, LL.D., had collected during his journeys through a large part of Europe and Asia, were purchased from him in this year for 1000. A first portion of a Catalogue, comprising descriptions of fifty volumes, of which fifteen are in Latin, two in French (Alain Chartier, one being the printed edit.

of 1526), and the rest in Greek, was published in 1812, in quarto, by Dr. Gaisford, who printed in full some inedited Scholia on Plato and on the Poems of Gregory n.a.z.ianzen. A second part of the Catalogue, containing a description of forty-five volumes in Arabic, Persian, and aethiopic, was issued by Dr. Nicoll, in 1814. The special feature in the collection is a MS. of Plato's Dialogues, from which the Scholia are printed in the Catalogue, written (on 418 vellum quarto leaves) by a scribe named John (who styles himself _Calligraphus_) in the year 896, for Arethas, a deacon of Patras, for the sum of thirteen Byzantine _nummi_. The D'Orville MS. of Euclid was also written for this Arethas (see p. 208).

[275] A very full memoir of him is to be found in the _Lit. Anecd._ vol.

vi. pp. 262-343, and 613-626. His miscellaneous library was sold by auction in 1810. Two drawings in sepia, by F. Lewis, of his house at Enfield, were bought in 1861.

[276] One of these is a very curious ma.n.u.script map of England and Scotland, executed in the fourteenth century, which now hangs, framed and glazed, in the eastern wing of the Library. It was bought by Gough at the sale of the MSS. of Mr. Thomas Martin, of Palgrave, Suffolk, in 1774. A facsimile (engraved by Basire) and a description are given in the _British Topography_, 1780, vol. i. pp. 76-85. Another object of interest among the maps is a piece of tapestry, in three fragments, containing portions of the counties of Hereford, Salop, Staffords.h.i.+re, Worcesters.h.i.+re, Warwicks.h.i.+re, Gloucesters.h.i.+re, Middles.e.x, &c. They are said by Gough, in a MS. note in his collections for a third edition of his _Topography_, to be parts of the three great maps of the Midland Counties, formerly at Mr. Sheldon's house at Weston, Long Compton, Warwicks.h.i.+re, which are the earliest specimens of tapestry weaving in England, the art having been introduced by William Sheldon, who died in 1570. They are described in vol. ii. of the _Topography_, pp. 309-310.

They were bought by Lord Orford at a sale at Weston for 30, and presented by him to Earl Harcourt, whose successor, Archbishop Harcourt, gave them to the Museum at York (where they now are) in 1827. In Murray's _Handbook for Yorks.h.i.+re_, they are said to have been made in 1579. One guinea was given by Gough for his fragments.

[277] This list was drawn up about 1844-6 by Mr. Fred. Oct. Garlick, then an a.s.sistant in the Library (afterwards of Ch. Ch., B.A., deceased 1851).

[278] Mr. A. Chalmers gave, in 1813, the second volume of a copy of Wharton's _Anglia Sacra_, with MSS. notes by White Kennett, of which the first volume was in this division of Gough's library. But both volumes had been bought by Gough for 1 1_s._ at the sale of J. West's library in 1773, at which sale he procured, besides, several other books with Kennett's notes. There are also volumes with MSS. notes by Baker (the 'socius ejectus') Cole, Rowe Mores, and other well-known antiquaries.

[279] The County Histories are in many instances enriched with various notes and papers in print and MS. The Berks.h.i.+re 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. c.o.xe, 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.