A.D. 1840.

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's _Sacramentary_ was purchased for 63; and early MSS. of Juvenal, Lucan, &c. A fine and perfect copy of Caxton's _Dictes 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 15_s._; 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 15_s._, 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 Church of 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's _Theologia Moralis_, and Delahogue's Dogmatic Treatises, and of various Irish polemical pamphlets; and they are enclosed in a mahogany case, with gla.s.s 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, ent.i.tled, _The Church of Rome; a Report on the Books and Doc.u.ments on the Papacy, deposited in the University Library, Cambridge_, &c.

_Shakespeare_; _Richard III_ and _Hamlet_. See 1834.

The first non-academic _minister_ was appointed in Mr. H. S. Harper (_vice_ Mr. 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-a.s.sistant.

[340] As Mr. Blades' valuable work on _The 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.

A.D. 1841.

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_ (4^o. 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 a.s.sist 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 ma.s.s 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, the _Boke of Common Prayer_, printed by Oswen, at Worcester, in 1552, bought for the very moderate sum of 3 16_s._ Two rare American Psalters were purchased, the one called _The Ma.s.sachuset 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 19_s._

_Shakespeare_, _Henry VI._ See 1834.

_American Tracts._ See 1836.

_Donatus._ See 1840.

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 a further 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 ill.u.s.trated works, and works of some degree of value or rarity in various languages, has been styled the _Mason 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.

A.D. 1842.

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 Munic.i.p.al Statutes._ See 1838.

_Laing._ _Almanac by W. de Worde._ See 1755.

_Old Plays._ See 1834.

In March, Mr. J. B. Taunton, All Souls' College (B.A. 1843, M.A. 1848), was appointed a.s.sistant _vice_ Mr. F. E. Thurland, New College (B.A.

1841, M.A. 1846, now Rector of Thurstaston, Cheshire), who was made an _extra_, 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 pa.s.sed on May 6. By the same statute an annual payment was ordered of 20 to the Janitor, in lieu of fees. .h.i.therto 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 'Gentuana lingua') by one John _Ken_, in 1666, is noticed at p. 113. The book is now numbered, Walker 214.

[342] A copy of Blackwood's _Martyre de la Royne d'Escosse_ (Edinb.

1587), among Rawlinson's books, has an autograph of Drummond: 'Gui.

Dru[=m]ond, a Paris, 1607.'

A.D. 1843.

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 ma.n.u.scripts 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 gla.s.s 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's _Travels_. 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 fortunately remained 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 Poc.o.c.ke'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 princ.i.p.al 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 of _Dante_, then Inc.u.mbent 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 (from _London_)-O, S (from _Shakespeare_)-Z. The whole charges of the printing of the Catalogue amounted to 2990 12_s._[343]; the previous cost of compilation was about 2000.

_Bowyer._ _Italian Munic.i.p.al Statutes._ See 1838.

_Sutherland._ _Ill.u.s.trated Books._ See 1839.

[343] MS. note by Dr. Bliss.

A.D. 1844.

Sir William Ouseley, the editor of the three volumes ent.i.tled _Oriental Collections_ (brother to Sir Gore Ouseley, whom he accompanied when he went as amba.s.sador to Persia in 1810), gathered, during some forty years spent in acc.u.mulation, 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 sale _en ma.s.se_, 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.

A.D. 1845.

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 his service 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 14_s._ 6_d._) 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 10_s._); 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 a.s.sistant, _vice_ Mr. Taunton, after upwards of five years'

previous service as a supernumerary, having first entered the Library in June, 1840.