A.D. 1716.

On Aug. 23, a legacy of £100 from Dr. South (who died July 8), for the purchase of modern books, was paid to the Vice-Chancellor[193].

Arms in the window. See 1610.

A.D. 1718.

One Mr. Hutton appears to have been employed in the Library during this year. It seems, from a passage in a letter of C. Wheatly's, printed in Letters by Eminent Persons, ii. 116, that the learned commentator Samuel Parker, son of the Bishop of Oxford, was also at some time employed in the Library; for Wheatly expresses a wish that S. Parker's son, then (1739) an apprentice to Mr. Clements the bookseller, might, if the accounts of his extraordinary proficiency be true, be placed 'in his father's seat, the Bodleian Library.' As Parker was a non-juror, his employment must doubtless have been at some earlier period than this, but his name is not met with in any of the old Account-books or Registers. One Thomas Parker occurs in the Library accounts in 1766 and in 1772.

A.D. 1719.

The bitter terms in which Hearne frequently, in the course of his Diary, condemns Hudson's management, or rather mismanagement, of the Library, may be supposed to be owing in a considerable degree to personal pique and quarrel[194]. But they meet with very singular and abundant confirmation in the letter of Z. C. Uffenbach, quoted above (p. 130), when the writer expresses, in the following strong language, his opinion of Hudson's neglect and incapacity, and of the general condition of the Library under his management:—

Of Hearne, however, Uffenbach writes in the following different strain:—

Hudson's successor, Bowles, had previously been his Assistant for some years, and as, while Hearne was Under-keeper, he had come into sharp collision with that irascible antiquary (see under 1715), his election now was a matter of sore annoyance to the latter. Hearne dwells upon it in his Diary with great bitterness and at great length: 'Competitors were Mr. Hall, of Queen's, and that pert conceited coxcomb Mr. Bowles (who is not yet Regent Master) of Oriel College. Bowles carried it by a great majority, having about 160 votes, and Mr. Hall about 77. I think it the most scandalous election that I have yet heard of in Oxford.' Of his supporters he speaks thus:—'Charlett and such rogues, who contrived to bring in that most compleat coxcomb Bowles to be Head-Librarian, to the immortal scandal of all that were concern'd in it[195].' And even, when ten years later he records Bowles' death, he indulges, in forgetfulness of charity to the departed, in the following strain: 'Of this gentleman (a most vile, wicked wretch) frequent mention hath been made in these Memoirs. He took the degree of M.A. Oct. 12, 1719. 'Tis incredible what damage he did to the Bodl. Library, by putting it into disorder and confusion, which before, by the great pains I had taken in it (&c.), was the best regulated library in the world[196].' Bowles' name never occurs in the Diary without some opprobrious epithet being attached to it, which may be accounted for partly from his having taken the oaths of allegiance after declaring he would never do it (a defection which Hearne never forgave in any one), but chiefly also from his having personally excluded Hearne from the Library, when the latter refused to resign his keys in 1715, by procuring new locks and keys, which he kept in his own custody.

Three or four days after Bowles' election, Mr. Fletcher, the Sub-librarian (disliking, no doubt, the appointment of his junior over his head), resigned his office, to which Bowles appointed the well-known antiquary, Francis Wise. Upon this appointment Hearne comments thus: 'Bowles put in Mr. Wise, A.M., of Trin. Coll. (a pretender to antiquities), tho' he had promised it to one of Oriel Coll., that came in fellow of Oriel when he did, and was very serviceable to him in getting the Head Librarian's place; for which Bowles is strangely scouted and despis'd at Oriel, as a breaker of his word, and a whiffling, silly, unfaithfull, coxcomb.' It must be allowed that the portrait of Bowles in the Library bears out in some degree Hearne's last epithet, by giving him the appearance rather of a fine clerical gentleman than of a student.

Baskett, the printer, presented to the Library a magnificent copy on vellum of the 'Vinegar' Bible, printed by him in 1717. Only three copies were so struck off; the second was placed in the King's Library, and the third was sold to the Duke of Chandos, for five hundred guineas, at whose sale, in 1747, Lord Foley purchased it for £72 9s.

A.D. 1720.

Visitors' Fees. See 1713.

A.D. 1721.

The inscription on the Schools' Tower, beneath the statue of James I, was renewed in this year[197].

Sir Godfrey Kneller presented his own portrait to the Gallery.

A.D. 1722.

Chrysanthus, Patriarch of Jerusalem. See 1715.

A.D. 1723.

The noble brass statue of William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, (who was Chancellor of the University from 1617 to his death in 1630, and was the donor of the Barocci MSS.,) which forms such a conspicuous feature in the Picture Gallery, was presented this year by the earl's great nephew, Thomas, the seventh Earl of Pembroke. It was cast by the famous artist Hubert le Sœur, from a picture by Rubens, and is said to weigh about 1600 lbs. The letter of thanks from the University was read in Convocation on April 19; it is criticized by Hearne in his Diary[198] in the following terms: 'I am told that this letter is very silly and poor, and that, among other things, his Lordship is told in it that the statue is placed in æde immortalitatis. Now what this ædes immortalitatis, church, temple or chappel of immortality is, I cannot conceive, but am sure that the statue is at present fix'd in the Picture Gallery, adjoyning to the Bodl. Library.'

A.D. 1724.

A Zend MS. very well and clearly written (dated in the year 1005 of the era of Yezdegird, i.e. A.D. 1635), of the Leges Sacræ, Ritus, &c. Zoroastris, was received from G. Bowcher, a merchant in the East Indies. It was given in 1718, but not forwarded until 1723, when it was brought from India by Rev. Rich. Cobbe, M.A. It is now numbered Bodl. Or. 321. And a Coptic Lexicon, compiled and prepared for the press by Rev. Thos. Edward, M.A., a former Chaplain of Ch. Ch., was bought for the sum of ten guineas, which was specially granted from the University Chest. It is now numbered Bodl. Orient. 344. The author was originally of St. John's College, Cambridge, and tells us in his preface that Bishop Fell, who was also Dean of Ch. Ch., meeting him there in the house of Dr. Edmund Castell, with whom he was living, brought him to Oxford by appointing him a Chaplain of the Cathedral, with the view of carrying on the study of the Coptic language, which had fallen to the ground upon the death of Dr. Marshal of Lincoln College. But just when Edward was prepared to begin printing the results of his labours, his patron, the Bishop, died; and, as he found no one else cared for the subject, he took the College living of Badby in Northamptonshire, and quitted Oxford. He finally became Rector of Aldwinkle in the same county, and died there in the year 1721. His book is dated 1711. It is cited by Archdeacon Tattam in his Lexicon Ægyptiaco-Latinum. Another MS. Coptic Lexicon, in two volumes, was purchased in 1857.

A.D. 1726.

A.D. 1727.

Thomas Perrott, D.C.L., of St. John's College, gave nine volumes of MSS., the most important of which is a copy-book of the letters written by Sir John Perrott, Lord Deputy of Ireland, in 1584-6. Another is a book of orders from the Privy Council to the officers of the Customs at London, 1604-18: a third, notes of a sermon preached by Usher at the Temple, July 2, 1620. A few political and miscellaneous tracts, tempp. Eliz.—Jac. I, and two heraldic MSS., complete the number. The MSS. are noticed in the return printed in the Record Commission Report for 1800, p. 348.

Some Greek MSS. were bought which had been brought from Mount Athos; three of them are now placed amongst the Cromwell MSS., Nos. 15, 16, and 27, and three others are numbered Miscell. Gr. 137-9.

Sale of Duplicates. See 1745.

A.D. 1729.

Forty-two MS. volumes came to the Library by the bequest of the widow of Mr. Francis Cherry, of Shottesbrooke, Berks, the early patron and constant friend of Hearne[199]. Cherry himself died Sept. 23, 1713, and Hearne says that he had intended to give his MSS. to his old protégée. They are not, for the most part, of very great value, but among them are various volumes by Dodwell; and a book written and bound by Q. Eliz. is described above, under the year 1628. Hearne was greatly annoyed at a paper of his own, containing reasons for taking the oath of allegiance, which he had written in 1700, coming into the Library amongst these books; he endeavoured in vain (although now in these days his legal right would be at once recognized) to recover it, and it was published, to his still greater annoyance, by the Whigs, under the editorship of Mr. Bilstone, the janitor. An account of Hearne's endeavours to regain it, together with a notice of Mrs. Cherry's bequest and of the MSS., is to be found in Dr. Bliss' Appendix to his Reliqq. Hearn. ii. 899-906.

In the Register of Readers admitted by favour occurs, under date of April 19, the name of 'C. Wesley, Ædis Xti alumn.,' written in a neat and clear hand. The name of his great brother is not found in any register extending over the period of his stay in Oxford. At this time the Library appears to have been almost entirely forsaken. Between 1730-1740 it rarely happens that above one or two books are registered to readers in a day, while often for whole days together not a single entry occurs; and since, in the register for this period, the books are noted down by three hands, it can hardly be possible that the blanks are due to the negligence of librarians (as might have been supposed were the same handwriting found throughout) rather than to the lack of students.

A.D. 1735.

On the death of Hearne (June 10, 1735) fifteen of the MSS. of Thomas Smith, D.D., of Magdalen College, the well-known and learned non-juror, came to the Library, Smith having bequeathed them to Hearne on this condition. With them came also copies of Camden's Britannia and Annales Eliz., with MSS. notes by their author. The rest of Smith's MSS. appear to have come to the Library together with the mass of Hearne's collections, included in Rawlinson's bequest in 1755. They amount altogether to 138 thin volumes, containing notes, extracts and letters on all kinds of subjects. There is a very full written catalogue of their contents, in two volumes. Three Greek MSS. were given by Smith himself on his return from his travels in the East about 1681.

A.D. 1736.

The Library was enriched with the collections of the well-known antiquary, Thomas Tanner, Bishop of St. Asaph, who died on Dec. 14, in the preceding year. By his will, dated Nov. 22, 1733, he bequeathed his MSS. to the Library together with such printed books, not already there, as the Curators and Library-keeper should think fit to accept. But he directed his executor to burn all his sermon-notes, 'and other little pieces and attempts in divinity,' as well as all his own private papers and letters. The largest portion of his MSS. (nearly 300 volumes out of 467) consists of the papers which he himself says he 'bought of Archbishop Sancroft's executors,' but which it is said in the Gent. Mag. for 1782 (cited by Gough in his British Topography, i. 126) he bought for eighty guineas of the bookseller Bateman, to whom Sancroft's executors had sold them[200]. Together with these, and perhaps not now to be distinguished, are some of the collections of Dr. Nalson between 1640 and 1660. To the latter a claim was made through Archdeacon Knight, in 1737, by Dr. Williams of St. John's College, as grandson of Nalson; but the Bishop's brother replied (as we learn from a copy of his answer and of another letter written by him in 1753) that the Bishop had bought them at Ely, where they had lain neglected for many years, and he thought possibly from some one living in the house which Nalson inhabited when Prebendary of Ely. The matter ended by Dr. Williams waiving any claim which he had, in consideration of the place of deposit being the Bodleian[201]. Sancroft's and Nalson's papers together comprise a large series of letters of the time of the Civil War, of the highest interest and value, from most of the leading personages on both sides, including Charles I, Rupert, the Protector Oliver, and Hampden. There are also collections relating to various dioceses, with very much that illustrates both the ecclesiastical and literary history of the seventeenth century[202]. A selection from the Civil War letters was published, in 2 vols. in 1842, by Rev. Henry Cary, M.A. (a son of the translator of Dante, and at that time an assistant in the Library), under the title of Memorials of the Civil War; but the transcripts were very carelessly made, and scarcely a single letter can be trusted as faithfully and verbatim representing the original. Another volume of selections from Sancroft's papers was published, with much better care, by Will. Nelson Clarke, D.C.L., 8^o, Edinb. 1848, entitled, A Collection of Letters addressed by Prelates and Individuals of high rank in Scotland, and by two Bishops of Sodor and Man, to Archbishop Sancroft, in the reigns of Charles II and James VII[203]. A catalogue of the MSS., compiled by the Rev. Alfred Hackman, M.A. (now Sub-librarian) was published in 1860, in a thick quarto volume, forming vol. iv. of the general Catalogue of MSS. The several volumes are described in brief in the body of the work; but a very full Index is subjoined, in which the contents of all the letters and papers are entered in detail. The printed books (upwards of 900) contain many, by the Reformers and their opponents, which are of the utmost rarity in early English black-letter divinity. One of these is an unique copy (as it is believed) of an edition, printed without place or date, of the Pore Helpe, of which there is also an unique copy of another edition, equally without place or date, among the Douce books. It has not hitherto been remarked that two copies, or two editions, exist of this metrical satire. Another volume, which contains several tracts printed by W. de Worde and Gerard Leeu, has also two by Caxton, hitherto unnoticed as exhibiting his type, and described in the Catalogue simply as being books without place or date. The merit of their discovery as Caxton's is due to the recent research of Mr. Bradshaw, the Librarian of the Cambridge Library. The one is a clean and perfect copy of the Governayle of Helthe, with the verses called Medicina Stomachi, of which the only copy known to Mr. Blades is in the library of the Earl of Dysart at Ham House; the other a wholly unknown quarto edition, in the same type, of the Ars Moriendi.

Unfortunately, when Tanner was removing his books from Norwich to Oxford, in Dec. 1731, by some accident in their transit (which was made by river) they fell into the water, and were submerged for twenty hours[204]. The effects of this soaking are only too evident upon very many of them[205]. The whole of the printed books were uniformly bound in dark green calf, apparently about fifty years ago; the binder's work was well done, but unhappily all the fly-leaves, many of which would doubtless have afforded something of interest, with regard to the books and their former possessors, were removed. Many of Tanner's own letters are to be found amongst the Ballard and Hearne MSS., as well as scattered here and there in other collections; and one volume of them was purchased in 1859. Some coins were given by him in 1733. We learn from the Accounts that Thomas Toynbee, an undergraduate of Balliol College (B.A. 1743, M.A. 1745), received £12 12s., in 1741, for making a list of Tanner's MSS., and that E. Rowe Mores, the subsequently well-known antiquary, arranged some of his deeds in 1753-4.

A.D. 1738.

The fourth Catalogue of the printed books appeared this year in two volumes, folio, of 611 and 714 pp. respectively. It is still a Catalogue of great use and value, from its remarkable accuracy, and from the abundance and minuteness of its cross-references. The secret history of this Catalogue, however, as of the preceding one, is related by Hearne. By him, as he himself frequently tells us[206], the greater portion of it was virtually prepared soon after his appointment as Sub-librarian, in 1712 (although no mention of his name is made in Fysher's preface), and to him, therefore, its accuracy is most probably in a great measure due[207]. He compared every book in the Library with Hyde's Catalogue, and corrected many mistakes, adding notes here and there about anonymous and synonymous authors, and, as the Vice-Chancellor (Dr. Maunder, of Balliol) was anxious to have an Appendix issued, he transcribed for this purpose all his corrections and additions into two folio volumes, 'which' (to take up now Hearne's own account in his Diary, vol. lxii. p. 58, under date 1717) 'now lye and are to be seen in the Library.... But at last Dr. Hudson thought it more convenient with respect to himself that both Dr. Hyde's Catalogue and my Appendix should come out together as one intire work, so that he might have the honour of all. Upon which he employed one Moses Williams, his servitour[208] (the Dr. being then Fellow of University College), to transcribe it, the said Williams being in the Dr.'s debt. When Williams had done, he demanded the remaining part of his money, which was about ten or twelve pounds, the rest having been stopped by the Dr. for the debt just now mentioned. The whole was fifty lbs. which he bargained for with the Dr. But when Williams desired the said ten or twelve pounds, of which he had immediate occasion to discharge the fees and charges for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, the Dr. was in a very great passion, and refused to pay it. Upon which Williams moved the matter so far that the Catalogue was laid before the Delegates of the Press, and the Dr. was called before them to his very great mortification, and they told him that 'twas highly unreasonable to stop the poor lad's money. Upon which the Dr. in a great rage and fury paid him; otherwise Williams had most certainly put him into the Court. This Catalogue was last summer ordered to be printed, and the Dr. was refunded his money; but 'tis not yet put to the press, the Dr. being unwilling it should be printed till such time as he hath done Josephus.' But Hudson died before his Josephus was finished, and the proposed new Catalogue was consequently begun, and only begun, by his successor, Bowles. The latter printed as far as p. 244 of vol. i. and p. 292 of vol. ii. His successor, Fysher, upon his appointment, engaged the assistance of his friend, Emmanuel Langford, M.A., Vice-Principal of Hart Hall, who completed the second volume, while Fysher himself finished the first. At the end of the second volume appeared an announcement of a supplemental Catalogue, as being ready for the press, containing the books existing in College Libraries but wanting in the Bodleian. This, however, never appeared, and nothing is known of the MS. from which it was to have been printed. Fysher's Catalogue appears, from the University Accounts, to have occupied from 1735 in preparation, for which, and for transcribing it for the press, £194 5s. were paid to him.

Alexander Pope gave, together with copies of his Iliad and Odyssey, a curious volume, containing a series of 178 Portraits of East Indian Rajahs and Great Moguls, down to Aurung-Zebe. It is now numbered Bodl. MS. Sansk. 14.

The names of various persons (all, probably, undergraduates) employed in the Library about this time are learned from the Accounts:—1738, Mr. Hall; 1740-1, Mr. Allen; 1740, Mr. Toynbee (Ball. Coll., B.A., 1743); 1743, Mr. Jessett (All Souls', B.A., 1745); 1747, Mr. Thomas Winbolt (All Souls', B.A. 1748).

A.D. 1739.

A.D. 1740.

A.D. 1745.

In this year died Nathaniel Crynes, M.A., Fellow of St. John's College and Superior Bedel of Arts, to which latter office he had been elected Jan. 26, 1715/16[209]. He bequeathed to the Library all such books out of his own valuable collection as it did not already possess, the rest going to his own College. His books in octavo and smaller sizes, with a few quartos, are still kept distinct, under his own name, and number 968 volumes, many of which are of great rarity. Seven MSS. were presented by him in 1736. In 1727 he purchased some duplicates from the Library, for £3 16s. 8d., and a story, told by Warton in connection with this purchase, of his fortunately rejecting books which bore the name of Milton, will be found under the year 1620. There is a biographical notice of him in J. Haslewood's Introduction to Juliana Barnes' Boke of St. Alban's, Lond. 1810, pp. 86-7. In the Accounts for 1746 occur special payments to Fr. Wise, and to one Mr. Gerard Bodley, for cataloguing and arranging Crynes' books.

A.D. 1746.

Trott's Clavis Linguæ Sanctæ. See 1686.

A.D. 1747.

Dr. Fysher, the Librarian, died on Nov. 4, at Mr. Warneford's, of Sevenhampton, Wilts, and was buried, on Nov. 7, in Adam de Brome's chapel in St. Mary's Church, Oxford. And on Nov. 10, Rev. Humphrey Owen, B.D., Fellow of Jesus College (afterwards D.D., and chosen Principal of his College in 1763), was unanimously elected his successor[210]. Rawlinson mentions, in a letter to Owen of April 15, 1751, that he had heard a complaint that in Fysher's time 'there was a great neglect in the entry of books into the Benefactors' Catalogue, and into the interleaved one of the Library; as to these objections, my answers were as ready as true, at least I hope so, that Dr. Fysher's indisposition disabled him much from the duty of his office, and that I did not think every small benefaction ought to load the velom register[211].'

A.D. 1749.

A Runic Primstaff, or Clog Almanack, was given by Mr. Guy Dickens, a gentleman-commoner of Ch. Ch. It is now exhibited, together with another (see p. 105), in the glass case near the entrance of the Library. Pointer, in his Oxoniensis Academia (p. 143), mentions that an explanation of the Primstaff was given by himself; the Accounts show that it was also in this year.

A number of coins were added to the Numismatic Museum, which had been collected by the late Librarian, Fysher.

A.D. 1750.

A copy on vellum, with illuminated initials, &c., of vol. i. (reaching to the Psalms) of the Vulgate Bible, printed by Fust and Schoeffer in 1462, was bought for £2 10s.! The volume was imperfect at the end, ceasing at Job xxxii. 5, and seven leaves followed in contemporary and beautiful MS., which also ended imperfectly at Ps. xxxvi. 9, with one leaf wanting at the end of Job. But when the Canonici Collection of MSS. was received from Venice, in 1818, among some fragments which were found in one of the boxes were fourteen leaves of a MS. Bible, which were at once recognised as being part of those wanted to complete this book, and which left only four still deficient. The volume came to the Library from the collection of Nic. Jos. Foucault, 'Comes Consistorianus,' many other of whose MSS. and printed books came by Rawlinson's bequest; but through how many hands the missing leaves had passed in the seventy subsequent years ere they were thus marvellously restored to their place, it is impossible to tell[212].