Annals of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, A.D. 1598-A.D. 1867 Part 21

A.D. 1768.

H. Owen, the Librarian, and Princ.i.p.al of Jesus College, died in March of this year, and was buried in his College Chapel. In his room was elected the Rev. John Price, B.D., of Jesus College, 'after a severe contest with Mr. Cleaver, of Brasenose, afterwards head of that College and Bishop of St. Asaph, who used to say that he was indebted to Mr. Price for his mitre, for had he obtained the Bodleian he should have there continued, instead of becoming tutor in a n.o.ble family, and so placed in the road to advancement. In this election the votes were equal, and Mr.

Price, being senior, was nominated by the Vice-Chancellor[259].' Price appears to have been employed in the Library as early as the year 1760, when a payment of 8 8_s._ was made to him; in 1766 he signs, together with Owen and Thomas Parker, an account of books received from Stationers' Hall.

[259] Note by Dr. Bliss in the edition of Wood's _Life_ published, in 1848, by the Eccl. Hist. Soc. p. 88.

A.D. 1770.

The Library was largely enriched with books which were then modern, in which it appears to have been very deficient, by the legacy of the library of Rev. Charles G.o.dwyn, M.A., Fellow of Balliol College. The collection, which is still in the main kept undivided (although a few folio and quarto volumes are placed in the general cla.s.s marked _Art._), consists chiefly of works in English and general history, civil and ecclesiastical, published in the eighteenth century, and includes besides the later Benedictine editions of the Fathers. There is also a series of theological and literary pamphlets; to which have been added of late years upwards of 2400 volumes, of all dates and on all subjects, which are now all alike numbered, for convenience sake, in connection with G.o.dwyn's own. The residue of his property, after payment of all claims and bequests, formed a further portion of his legacy; and the interest upon 1050 which accrued from this source, still forms part of the annual income of the Library.

A.D. 1771.

A payment of 2 12_s._ 6_d._ was made in this year (or rather, at the close of 1770) to a gla.s.s-painter, named Brooks, for one of the coats of arms in the great east window.

A.D. 1775.

Twenty-four Oriental MSS. and bundles of papers which had been found in the study of Rev. Dr. Thos. Hunt, Reg. Prof. of Hebrew, who died in the preceding year, were given by various persons.

A.D. 1776.

Lord North, the Chancellor of the University, presented to the Library the observations made by Dr. James Bradley, while Astronomer Royal, at Greenwich, 1750-62. These had been given to him by Mr. John Peach, son-in-law to Dr. Bradley, while a suit was pending between the Board of Longitude on behalf of the Crown and Mr. Peach respecting his right to their possession. The claim of the Crown had been first made in 1765, on the ground that they were the papers drawn up by Bradley in discharge of his public and official duties, but the executor, Mr. Sam. Peach, refused to resign them except for some valuable consideration. But after his death, his son, Mr. John Peach, who married Dr. Bradley's daughter, presented them to Lord North, with the understanding that the latter should give them to the University, on condition that they should be forthwith printed. They were, consequently, immediately put into the hands of Dr. Hornsby, the Savilian Professor of Astronomy, for publication; but the work progressed very slowly, in consequence of his ill-health, and a remonstrant correspondence ensued between the Board of Longitude, the Royal Society, and the University, which was printed by the Board, together with a statement of the whole case and of the steps taken by them for the recovery of the papers, in 1795. Several letters from Sir Joseph Banks, as President of the Royal Society, to Price the Librarian, in 1785, on the slow progress of the work, are preserved in a volume of MS. Letters to Librarians, recently bound up by Mr. c.o.xe. The first volume at length appeared in 1798, in folio, and the second, edited by Prof. A. Robertson, in 1805, with an appendix of observations made by Bradley's successor, Rev. Nath. Bliss, and his a.s.sistant, Mr.

Charles Green, to March, 1765, which had been purchased by the Board of Longitude, and were presented by them to the University, in March, 1804.

Some further remains of Dr. Bradley were, after Dr. Hornsby's death, found among the papers of the latter, and these (having been restored to the University by his family, on application, about 1829) were published in 1831, under the editorship of Prof. S. P. Rigaud, in one vol.

quarto, ent.i.tled _Miscellaneous Works and Correspondence of Rev. J.

Bradley_. In 1861, a fresh application for the return of the Observations was made to the University, by Mr. Airy, the Astronomer Royal, on the ground that they were the only volumes wanting in the series preserved at Greenwich, and that they were frequently needed there for reference. By a vote of Convocation, on May 2, this application was acceded to, and thirteen volumes of Observations were returned to what was certainly their legitimate place of deposit. Some miscellaneous papers, making about thirty parcels, still remain in the Library.

A.D. 1778.

_Carte's MSS._ See 1753.

A.D. 1780.

On Jan. 22, a Statute was pa.s.sed which imposed an annual fee of four shillings[260] on all persons ent.i.tled to read in the Library and all who had exceeded four years from matriculation, as well as a.s.signed to the Library a share of the matriculation fees. The preamble of the Statute alleges that the funds of the Library were so insufficient for their purpose that of works of importance daily published throughout the world 'vix unus et alter publicis sumptibus adscribi possit.' The Statute also provided for the holding of regular meetings by the Curators, and the issuing of an annual Catalogue of the books purchased during the year, with their prices, together with a statement of accounts. The commencement of the annual printed purchase-catalogues dates in consequence from this year.

In a letter from Thos. Burgess, afterwards the Bishop of St. David's and Salisbury, to Mr. Tyrwhitt, the editor of Chaucer, dated Corp. Chr.

Coll., Nov. 16, 1779, the plan for increasing the funds of the Library, established by this Statute, is mentioned as a scheme 'much talked of,'

the defects of the Library being such as 'we are now astonished should have been of so long continuance[261].' A paper in behalf of the proposal was circulated among Members of Convocation, upon a copy of which, preserved by Dr. Bliss with his set of the annual Catalogues, the latter has noted that it was written by Sir William Scott, afterwards Lord Stowell.

The exquisite portrait of Sir Kenelm Digby, supposed to be by Vand.y.k.e, was given by Edw. Stanley, Esq. It is now in the Picture Gallery; and, having recently been cleaned and covered with plate-gla.s.s, appears once more in all the freshness of its original perfection[262].

The Sub-librarian at this time was John Walters, an undergraduate Scholar of Jesus College. He published in this year a small volume of _Poems_ ('written before the age of nineteen'), the chief portion of which consists of a description of the Library, written with a warm admiration of his subject, and by no means dest.i.tute of poetic feeling.

It numbers 1188 lines, and is ill.u.s.trated with some well-selected notes.

In 1782, when B.A. and still Scholar of his College, he published _Specimens of Welsh Poetry in English verse, with some Original Pieces and Notes_. He took the degree of M.A. in 1784, and died in 1791[263].

We learn from a MS. note in a copy of his _Poems_, presented to the Library by the present Princ.i.p.al of Jesus College, that he was the son of John Walters, Rector of Llandough (author of a Welsh Dictionary, 1794), by Hannah his wife, and that he was baptized there, July 9, 1760.

[260] By the Statute pa.s.sed in 1813, and by that on Fees pa.s.sed in 1855, an annual payment of _eight_ shillings was ordered to be made to the Library out of the total sum (now 1 6_s._) paid by each graduate whose name is on the University Books. But these individual fees, varying with the numbers on the Books, were consolidated, in 1861 in one fixed annual sum, from the University Chest, of 2800.

[261] Note by Dr. Bliss, in his MS. _Collectanea_, bequeathed by him to Rev. H. O. c.o.xe.

[262] Another portrait of Sir Kenelm, which hangs in the Library, was given, in 1692, by Mr. William Pate, a woollen-draper of London. To this Mr. Pate, Thos. Brown dedicated, in 1710, as 'his honest friend,' his translation from the French of _Memoirs of the Present State of the Court and Councils of Spain_.

[263] Nichols' _Lit. Anecd._ viii. 122.

A.D. 1785.

George III and Queen Charlotte visited the Library, from Nuneham, on Oct. 13. Price, the Librarian, was in attendance, and kissed hands.

Several a.s.sistants, whose names are not perpetuated in the Library records, are found perpetuated by the inscriptions written by successive generations on the old oak staircases which run from their studies to the galleries above. In June of this year, Thomas Whiting, of Jesus College (B.A. also in this year), does in this way transmit the memory of his service to posterity. E. Thomas (_qu._ Evan Thomas, of All Souls'

College, B.A., 1793?) does the same in 1790.

A.D. 1787.

On May 31, the Reader in Chemistry, Thomas Beddoes, M.D., of Pembroke College, issued a printed Memorial to the Curators 'concerning the state of the Bodleian Library, and the conduct of the Princ.i.p.al Librarian.'

The utmost laxity appears from this statement to have prevailed with regard to attendance, and to the hours of opening the Library; the Librarian was always absent on Sat.u.r.days and Mondays, as on those days he was occupied in journeys to and from a curacy eleven miles distant, which he held together with a living more remote; and the Library which should then in summer have been opened at eight was found unopened between nine and ten, and unopened also after University sermons. The Librarian is charged besides with having discouraged readers by neglect and incivility, with being very careless in regard to the value and condition of books purchased by the Library[264], and with having but little knowledge of foreign publications. An anecdote is related (amongst others) of his lending _Cook's Voyages_, which had been presented by King Geo. III, to the Rector of Lincoln College, and telling him that the longer he kept it the better, 'for if it was known to be in the Library, he (Mr. Price) should be perpetually plagued with enquiries after it[265].' In consequence of these complaints, the Curators, in 1788, prepared on their part a new form of Statute, while the Heads of Houses prepared another. This separate action led to a paper war between the two bodies, in which the Regius Professors of Divinity, Law, Medicine, Hebrew and Greek, (Randolph, Vansittart, Vivian, Blayney and Jackson) appeared on the Curators' side of the question, and, as the Hebdomadal Board persisted in pressing their own scheme, they at length (with the exception of Blayney) adopted the strong step, on the day when the rival plan was proposed in Convocation (June 23, 1788), of formally protesting before a notary public against this violation of their privileges. The consequence was that the Statute was withdrawn, and the proposal for a new code abandoned by both parties. The chief points of difference were, that the Curators objected to the proposal being put forward as 'c.u.m consensu Curatorum' instead of 'ex relatione Curatorum,' to the increase of the Librarian's stipend to 150, to the appointment of two Sub-librarians instead of one, and to the leaving the appointment of these in the hands of the Librarian (in accordance with Bodley's own Statute) instead of a.s.signing it to the Curators.

Eleven Arabic and Persian MSS. were given by Turner Camac, Esq., co.

Down.

A first part of a Catalogue of the Oriental MSS., comprehending those in Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, aethiopic, Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Coptic, was issued in this year, in folio. It was compiled by John Uri, a Hungarian, who had studied Oriental literature under Schultens, at Leyden, and who was recommended for this purpose to Archbp. Secker, by Sir Joseph Yorke, then Amba.s.sador in the Netherlands. Many years were occupied in the preparation of this volume, as Uri appears to have commenced his work in 1766, his signature occurring in the 'Registrum admissorum' under Feb. 17, in that year[266]. Sixty closely-printed folio pages of corrections and additions are, however, supplied by Dr.

Pusey, in the second part of the Catalogue, which he completed after Dr.

Nicoll's death and published in 1835. In his preface to this part, Dr.

Pusey remarks that Uri frequently copied with carelessness; and that the whole series of Arabic MSS. was found to need re-examination from the discovery that all kinds of cheats and impositions had been played upon all the purchasers of Eastern MSS., Poc.o.c.ke alone excepted, by the cunning sellers with whom they dealt, particularly in the pa.s.sing off of supposit.i.tious works for genuine[267]. And upon carrying out this re-examination, the following was found to be the result:--

'Varias errorum formas deprehendi, t.i.tulis nunc charta coopertis, nunc atramento oblitis, nunc cultro paene abrasis; auctorum porro nominibus paullulum immutatis quo notiora quaedam referrent; numeris etiam, quibus singula volumina signata sunt, permutatis, quo quis opus imperfectum pro integro habeat, paginis denique pauculis operi alieno a fronte a.s.sutis.'

[264] Among other instances the purchase (in 1784) of Sir John Hill's _Vegetable System_, at the cost of 140, is mentioned.

[265] It appears incidentally, from this pamphlet, that three o'clock was the dinner-hour at almost every College at that time.

[266] He died suddenly at his lodgings in Oxford, Oct. 18, 1796, aged upwards of seventy (_Gent. Magaz._, vol. lxvi. p. 884.)

[267] The late Dr. Simonides was evidently by no means the first in his art, although probably _facile princeps_.

A.D. 1789.

The Anatomy School, on the Library staircase, was fitted up in this year as a room for receiving the Greek and Biblical MSS., and fifteenth-century editions of cla.s.sics. In 1794 it was ordered that it should be distinguished by the name of the _Auctarium_, a name which it still retains. Mr. John Thomas, of Wadham College, (B.A. 1790, M.A.

1793) was employed in 1790 in arranging the room and making a list of its contents.

Many early editions of the cla.s.sics were purchased at the sale of the library of Mapheo Pinelli, at Venice. To enable these purchases to be made, the Curators made a public application for loans, to which a liberal response was returned, as noted under the following year.