Annals of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, A.D. 1598-A.D. 1867 Part 27

Room, or room containing the publications, foreign and English, which appeared in parts. And on Dec. 20, the Rev. John Besly, M.A., Fellow of Balliol (afterwards D.C.L., and Vicar of Long Benton, Northumberland, deceased April 17, 1868, aged sixty-eight), was confirmed as Mr. Reay's colleague, in the place of Dr. Bliss.

[313] Some notes by G. J. Thorkelin on Northern Antiquities were bought in 1846.

A.D. 1829.

The great Hebrew collection, which at present forms so distinguished a feature in the contents of the Library, was virtually commenced in this year by the purchase, at Hamburgh (for 2080), of the famous Oppenheimer library, consisting of upwards of 5000 volumes, of which 780 are MSS[314]. Many Hebrew works had, it is true, come with Selden's library, in 1659; but little or nothing had been done since that period to advance upon that beginning. The additions made in this department from 1844 up to about the year 1857, are said, in Dr. Steinschneider's introduction to his catalogue (_col._ 50), to have numbered no fewer than about 2100 volumes[315].

David Oppenheimer, Chief Rabbi at Prague, devoted more than half a century to the formation of his library. On his death, Sept. 23, 1735, it came into the possession of his son, a Rabbi at Hildesheim, and thence into the hands of Isaac Seligmann at Hamburgh. Several catalogues were issued during this period, the last being one in octavo, at Hamburgh, in 1826, an index to which, compiled by Dr. J. Goldenthal, was printed at the expense of the Library in 1845. The collection would have been dispersed by auction, had it not been bought _en ma.s.se_ for Oxford.

It possesses extreme interest and value in the eyes of Jewish students, insomuch that for a series of years the Library was never without several foreign visitors engaged in its examination. A very elaborate catalogue of all the printed Hebrew books contained in it, and throughout the whole of the Library, was compiled by Dr. M.

Steinschneider during the years 1850-1860, and printed at Berlin, where it was published in the latter year in a very thick quarto volume. The book is divided into two parts: the first containing a description of the Biblical, Talmudical, liturgical and anonymous volumes; the second containing the works of miscellaneous authors, in the alphabetical order of their names. Prefixed is a brief list of the Hebrew MSS. in the Library, with the numbers at present attached to them, and references to the catalogues in which they are described. Of several rare books in the Oppenheimer library there are duplicate copies, varying in condition and ornamentation; of some there are copies on red, yellow, and blue paper.

Distinguished amongst all is a copy of the Talmud, printed in 1713-28, in twenty-four folio volumes, entirely on vellum. 'Perhaps,' says Archdeacon Cotton, 'this work is the grandest and most extensive vellum publication extant[316].'

Mr. Robert Bowyer, miniature painter to Queen Charlotte, who had devoted a considerable part of his life to the collection of drawings and engravings ill.u.s.trating the Holy Scriptures, put forward a proposal for their purchase by subscription with a view to their being deposited in the Bodleian. Their number amounted to nearly seven thousand (including 113 drawings by Loutherbourg), described as being in fine condition and of great value; and they were inserted as additional ill.u.s.trations in a copy of Macklin's folio Bible, which was enlarged thereby from its original extent of seven volumes to forty-five. Hence the collection pa.s.sed, and pa.s.ses, under the name of Bowyer's Bible. Mr. Bowyer, who had spent upon it upwards of three thousand pounds, proposed to dispose of it for 2500, and a committee was formed in London, upon which appeared the names of many distinguished persons, to raise a subscription for the purpose. But upon Mr. Bowyer's despatching an agent to Oxford, the matter met with so little encouragement here, the Librarian, in particular, being (as Dr. Bliss has noted upon his copy of the original proposal) unfavourable to it, that the project fell to the ground. The reasons why Oxford made so little response do not appear; probably the value set upon the collection was deemed to be greatly exaggerated. After the death of Mr. Bowyer (June 4, 1834, aged seventy-six) the Bible came into the hands of one Mrs. Parkes, of Golden Square, by whom it was disposed of, in 1848, in a lottery (together with a few other prizes) for which four thousand tickets were issued at one guinea each. The successful speculator was Mr. Saxon, a gentleman-farmer, near Shepton Mallet. In 1852 it was in the hands of Messrs. Puttick and Simpson, the well-known book-auctioneers, for sale.

By them it was announced for an auction on Feb. 26, 1853, and was disposed of, about that time, to Messrs. Willis and Sotheran, the booksellers, for about 500. Since then it has been announced for sale at Manchester.

[314] One MS. which had strayed from Oppenheimer's library previously to its transfer to the Bodleian, was purchased and restored to its place in 1847.

[315] A notice of the Oppenheimer collection, and of the other Hebrew portions of the Library is given in the preface to vol. iii. of Furst's _Bibliotheca Judaica_, 8^o. Leipz. 1863, pp. 42-51. The _Catalogus Interpretum S. Script._, by Thomas James, in 1635, is here metamorphosed into one by Thomas _Jones_, in 1735.

[316] _Typographical Gazetteer_, p. 349.

A.D. 1830.

A copy of the rare edition of Luther's translation of the Bible, printed at Wittemberg in 1541, was bought, through Messrs. Payne and Foss, for fifty guineas, at the sale, in London, of the library of the Archdeacon de la Tour, of Hildesheim, which was said to have been formerly the property of the English Benedictine Monastery of Landspring, and which was then, it appears, in the possession of Mr. -- Solly. It contains some texts on the fly-leaves in the autograph, and with the signatures, of both Luther and Melanchthon, which seem to have been unnoticed at the time of the sale. A facsimile of a part of Luther's inscription is given in plate x.x.xi. in Mr. Leigh Sotheby's _Ill.u.s.trations of the Handwriting of Melanchthon_[317]. The book is now exhibited in a gla.s.s case, in one of the windows of the Library.

[317] A copy of this edition, with MS. notes by Luther, Melanchthon, Bugenhagen and Major, was sold to the British Museum, at Hibbert's sale in 1829, for 267 15_s._!

A.D. 1831.

In December of this year, Viscount Kingsborough[318] presented a magnificent copy (being one of four which were printed on vellum) of his _Antiquities of Mexico_, or coloured facsimiles, executed at his expense, in seven folio volumes, of Mexican paintings and hieroglyphics preserved in the libraries of Paris, Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, Rome, Bologna, and Oxford (in Laud's and Selden's collections), together with preliminary dissertations. This sumptuous book is exhibited near the entrance of the library, in a case made expressly for its reception.

On June 30, the nomination, as Sub-librarian, of Rev. Ernest Hawkins, M.A., of Balliol, afterwards Fellow of Exeter, (of late well-known for his labours in the cause of Missions, as Secretary to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel), was approved by Convocation. He succeeded Dr. Besly, who had taken the Balliol College living of Long Benton, in Northumberland.

[318] This learned and spirited n.o.bleman died, in 1837, in a debtors'

prison in Dublin, where he was confined for liabilities incurred on behalf of his father, the Earl of Kingston.

A.D. 1832.

A twelfth-century MS. of Scholia on the _Odyssey_ was purchased for 100. The collection of Bibles, which had during some time past made some slow progress, was increased by copies of various early printed versions in European languages, and its further enlargement was steadily kept in view in succeeding years.

Six guineas were given for copies of Servetus' treatise _De Trinitatis erroribus_ and his _Dialogi de Trinitate_, printed in 1531 and 1532, which are of very great rarity, in consequence of their having very generally shared the fate of their author.

A.D. 1833.

Some precious Shakespearian volumes, consisting of the _Venus and Adonis_ of 1594 and 1617, the _Lucrece_ of 1594 and 1616, with a subsequent edition of 1655, and the _Sonnets_ of 1609, were presented by the well-known collector, Mr. Thomas Caldecott, who had been formerly a Fellow of New College. They are now incorporated with the Malone collection. Several MSS. of Sir William Jones were presented by the brothers Augustus and Julius C. Hare. An interesting and large collection of tracts on the Roman Catholic disabilities, affairs in Ireland, &c., in forty-five volumes, was purchased at the sale of the library of Charles Butler, of Lincoln's Inn.

An anonymous pamphlet, ent.i.tled, _A Few Words on the Bodleian Library_, appeared in this year; its author was Sir Edmund Head, M.A., Merton College. The object was to urge the desirableness of allowing books to be borrowed from the Library, after the example of Cambridge. One of the arguments by which the author supported the proposal, viz. that College tutors were unable to visit the Library in term time during the hours at which it is open, has since been entirely removed by the attachment of the Radcliffe Library as a Reading-room, which remains open until ten o'clock at night. The pamphlet was reprinted in the Report of the University Commission in 1852.

A.D. 1834.

Numerous purchases were made during the sale of Mr. Heber's library.

Amongst these were some rare English tracts of the Reformers, Bale, Becon, Tyndal, Knox, &c; a large and valuable collection of booksellers'

catalogues and sale catalogues of books and coins between 1726 and 1814[319]; and a ma.s.s of some 1100 or 1200 plays, published in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries[320]. Numerous early Shakespeare editions were also obtained; _inter alias_, the first edition (1594) of the first part of the _Contention betwixt the Houses of Yorke and Lancaster_, for 64; _Richard III_, 1598, 17; fourth edit. of _Henry IV_, 1608, 12 12_s._[321], &c. The greater part of the collection of editions of Horace up to the year 1738, formed by Dr. Douglas, a collection which was used in the preparation of the edition published at London, by James Watson, in 1760, was bought for 20. It consists of twenty-seven vols. in folio, thirty-nine in quarto, and 248 in octavo and smaller sizes. Dibdin (_Introd. to the Cla.s.sics_) says that the whole collection consisted of 450 editions. A Prayer-Book of 1707, with MSS. collations by Rev. John Lewis, of Margate, of alterations in editions between 1549 and 1637, was bought for 8 8_s._ One of the chief gems in the Picture Gallery was bequeathed by James Paine, Esq., being the portrait of his father, James Paine, the architect[322], while instructing his son in drawing, by Sir Joshua Reynolds. This beautiful picture has retained its freshness of colour far more perfectly than most others of Sir Joshua's paintings; and it has recently, under the direction of the present Librarian, been carefully cleaned, and protected with gla.s.s and a curtain, that its brilliancy may incur no risk of deterioration. But this year is chiefly distinguished in the Annals of the Library by the bequest of the

DOUCE COLLECTION.

Francis Douce, the donor of this magnificent library (who died on March 30, in this year), is said to have been induced to make this disposition of his treasures through the courteous reception afforded to him by Dr.

Bandinel, upon the occasion of a visit to Oxford, in 1830. The gatherings of a lifetime with which the Bodleian was thus enriched, consist of 393 ma.n.u.scripts, ninety-eight charters, about 16,480 printed volumes, a very large collection of early and valuable prints and drawings, and some coins[323]. For the most part, the books which thus came were of cla.s.ses in which the Library was then deficient. Nearly all the finest specimens of Missal-painting which it now possesses are found among the Douce MSS., several of which are exhibited in a gla.s.s case at the further end of the Library. Chief among these are three volumes of _Horae_, one executed, perhaps by G. da Libri, at the beginning of the sixteenth century for Leonora Gonzaga, d.u.c.h.ess of Urbino, a second belonged to Mary de Medici, and the other was completed in 1527 for B.

Sforza, second wife of Sigism. I of Poland. These are priceless gems, rivalled only by such as the Bedford Missal. In the same case is a Psalter on purple vellum, probably of the ninth century, which came from the old Royal Library of France, and which, from this circ.u.mstance and its age, has sometimes been called Charlemagne's Psalter. The printed books are rich in history, biography, antiquities, manners and customs, and the fine arts[324]. In Bibles (English and French), Horae, Primers, Books of Common Prayer and Psalters, the collection is very strong.

Among the Psalters is a copy of Archbishop Parker's rare metrical version. Early French literature is also a conspicuous feature, in which the Library had previously been very deficient. Of fifteenth-century typography there are no fewer than 311 specimens. The finest of these is a magnificent copy of Christoforo Landino's Italian translation of Pliny's Natural History, printed on vellum by Nic. Janson, at Venice, in 1476. It is enriched with exquisite illuminated borders at the commencement of each book, a specimen of which, together with a description of the volume, is given in Shaw's _Illuminated Ornaments_, pl. x.x.xviii[325]. There are also a large number of fragments of works by early English printers, including two by Caxton, which are unique. One of these is a portion (two quarters of an octavo or duodecimo sheet) of an edition of the _Horae_, conjecturally a.s.signed by Mr. Blades to 1478, and the other is of an edition of the _Booke of Curtesye_, probably printed in 1491, consisting of two quarto pages. There is also one of the two known copies of a curious placard, issued by Caxton, inviting those who were disposed to buy 'ony pyes of two and thre comemoracions of Salisburi vse' to come to him at Westminster, and they should have them 'good chepe[326].' The other copy is in the possession of Earl Spencer. A very different, but still very curious, item is a large collection of chap-books and children's penny books of the last century and commencement of the present; and two folio volumes are filled with black-letter ballads. A catalogue of the library was published in one volume, in folio, in 1840; the part containing the printed books was the work of Mr. H. Symonds, of Magdalen Hall (B.A. 1840, M.A. 1842, now Precentor of Norwich), and that which describes the Fragments, the Charters and the Ma.n.u.scripts was drawn up by Rev. H. O. c.o.xe. From the year 1839 until the commencement of 1842, Mr. Thomas Dodd, formerly a well-known London dealer in prints, and author of the _Connoisseur's Repertory_, was employed in making a catalogue of the Douce prints and drawings. This catalogue still remains in MS. Four very grand studies of heads, drawn either by Raffaelle or Giulio Romano, have recently been framed and hung at the western end of the Library.

On June 25, Convocation sanctioned the transfer to the Library of the room immediately over the entrance in the gateway-tower of the Schools, (now called the _Mason Room_) which had been hitherto a.s.signed as the 'Savile Study,' on condition that a small room in the adjoining south-east angle of the quadrangle should be prepared at the expense of the Bodleian for the reception of the MSS. and printed books, instruments, &c., which were given to the University by Sir Henry Savile for the use of his Professors. This is the room in which the Savile library (which includes also some books given by Dr. Wallis and Sir Christopher Wren) is still preserved, under the charge of the Savilian Professors of Geometry and Astronomy.

On July 5, Convocation confirmed the nomination of Rev. William Cureton, M.A., of Ch. Ch. (afterwards so well known for his Syriac studies, which gained him the patronage of the Prince Consort and a Canonry at Westminster), to the Sub-librarianship vacated by Rev. E. Hawkins.

Mr. Edmund Grove, of Magdalen College (who never graduated), was appointed a.s.sistant in April, _vice_ Mr. Stephen Exup. Wentworth, of Balliol (B.A. 1833, M.A. 1835). Mr. Wentworth appears to have succeeded Mr. Forster in 1832.

[319] Another collection of sale catalogues in forty-five vols. was purchased in 1836.

[320] Another collection, in twenty-eight vols., of plays chiefly dating from 1630 to 1707, was bought, in 1842, for 6 17_s._

[321] In 1837 _Romeo and Juliet_, printed by Smethwicke, n. d., was bought for 9 10_s._; in 1840, _Richard III_, 1605, for 21, and _Hamlet_, 1611, for 10 10_s._; and in 1841 the first edit. 1595, of part iii. of _Henry VI._ was bought at Chalmers' sale for 131!

[322] Mr. Paine died in France in 1789, aged 73 years. The picture was painted by Reynolds in June, 1764. Among the buildings erected by Paine were Brocket Hall, Herts; Wardour Castle, Wilts; and Richmond Bridge.

[323] To the British Museum Mr. Douce bequeathed his own Diaries and Notebooks, to remain sealed up until Jan. 1, 1900, in order that all of his own and the succeeding generation may have pa.s.sed away before the personal histories which they undoubtedly contain are brought to light.

[324] In the majority of instances the books bear MS. notes by Douce, which often are valuable for the references they afford to other works and sources of further information. A few specimens of some of the fuller notes of this kind were contributed by the present writer to the early volumes of the second series of _Notes and Queries_. One book, viz. John Weever's _Epigrammes_, 1599, containing notes by Douce, which had somehow escaped from his library before it came to Oxford, was purchased in 1838, for 24 10_s._ A letter written by Douce in 1804, dated from the British Museum, where he was for a short time Keeper of the MSS., was bought in 1864, and a few other papers in 1866.

[325] In the same beautiful volume are facsimiles from three of Douce's MS. _Horae_.

[326] A facsimile of this advertis.e.m.e.nt is given in the catalogue of the Douce library.

A.D. 1835.

The original MS. of Burnet's _History of his Own Times_, with a copy prepared for the press, a portion of his _History of the Reformation_, and some other papers by him, was purchased, from a family descended from the Bishop, for 210. An account of these MSS. may be found at p.

474 of the Appendix to Burnet's _History of James II_, being an extract from the _Own Times_ which Dr. Routh edited, with additional notes, when ninety-six years old, in 1852. The copy prepared for the press is expressly mentioned in the catalogue for 1835 as forming part of the purchase; and yet that copy appears from a pa.s.sage in a letter from Rawlinson, dated Aug. 18, 1743, to have been then in the hands of that collector, whence it would have been supposed that it must have pa.s.sed at once into the possession of the Library. After mentioning the book, Rawlinson says, 'I purchased the MSS. of a gentleman who corrected the press where that book was printed, and amongst his papers I have all the castrations[327].'

The MS. of Lewis' _Life of Wyclif_, with some additions by the author, was bought for 4 14_s._ 6_d._ Various other MSS. by Lewis were already in the Library among Dr. Rawlinson's collections. The purchases of printed books were chiefly amongst early editions of Cla.s.sics (Juvenal, Ovid, Virgil, &c), Fathers (Augustine, Jerome), Schoolmen, and a very large series of fifteenth-century editions of the Decretals, Digest, Inst.i.tutes, and other works in Canon and Civil Law. These were obtained at the sale of the famous library of Dr. Kloss, of Frankfort, whose collection was so remarkably rich in books bearing MS. notes by Melanchthon.

A curious collection of papers and pamphlets, printed and MS., relating to Spanish affairs, and of much interest to students of Spanish history, contained in thirty-two volumes in folio and eighty in quarto, was purchased for 40. It was lot 4583 in Heber's sale, by whom it had been bought at the Yriarte sale for more than 100.