Part 11 (1/2)

A.D. 1683.

Three MSS., containing the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Syriac Pentateuch, and the Syriac Old Testament, were purchased at the cost of the University.

A.D. 1684.

Nine Oriental and Russian MSS. were given by Joseph Taylor, LL.D., of St. John's College. And Sir Rob. Viner, Bart., the loyal alderman of London, favoured the Library with a human skeleton, a tanned human skin, and the dried body of a negro boy!

A.D. 1685.

Thomas Marshall, or Mareschall, D.D., Rector of Lincoln College, and Dean of Gloucester, who died April 18, bequeathed his MSS., and all such among his printed books as were not already in the Library. The MSS.

amounted to 159, chiefly Oriental, including some valuable Coptic copies of the Gospels, &c., which were procured for him by Huntington, with a few in Dutch, and others miscellaneous in language and subject. They are entered in Bernard's Catalogue, pp. 272-3, and 373-4. The printed books are still kept together under his name.

A.D. 1686.

Fell, Bishop of Oxford, who died July 10, bequeathed a few MSS. They consist of an early and curious collection of _Vitae Sanctorum_ in four folio volumes, of a transcript (in nine folio volumes) of a _Glossarium Septentrionale_ by Francis Junius, Dionysius Syrus in Latin by Dudley Loftus, and two Greek MSS., Damascius and Euthymius Zigabenus, described at the end (col. 907) of Mr. c.o.xe's Catalogue of the Greek MSS. One other MS. has somehow been incorporated in this collection (now numbered 21-23) which does not belong to it. It is a _Clavis Linguae Sanctae_, or explanation of all the Hebrew, and some Chaldee, roots, found in the Old Testament, by Nicholas Trott, in three folio volumes, written with great care and neatness. This, of which the first part had been printed at Oxford in 1719, was sent to the Library in 1746, as appears from the following letter, preserved (without address) in a parcel of papers relating to the Library, now in the Librarian's study:--

'MY LORD,

'My wife's grandfather Judge Trott, cheif justice of South Carolina, desired on his death bed that his forty years' labour relating to the Hebrew root might be sent as a present to the Publick Library at Oxford.

I proposed to have carried it, but my time has allways been taken up at a disagreable series of Court Martials, and now I am again going to the West Indies. That I must beg your Lords.h.i.+p will order or give it a conveyance to the University, and I am, with great respect, my Lord,

'Your Lords.h.i.+p's most humble servant, '_23 Nov., 1746._ 'THOS. FRANKLAND.'

It appears, however, from the accounts, &c., that the MS. was not actually delivered until 1748 or 1749, when it was received through Dr.

Hunt.

A few of Bishop Fell's MSS. came subsequently to the Library among those of Rev. Henry Jones[144], who succeeded Fell in his rectory of Sunningwell, Berks, in the church of which parish the Bishop's wife was buried.

At the Visitation on Nov. 8, it was ordered that notice be given that 'Nullus in posterum quemlibet librum aut volumen extra Bibliothecam asportet,' and that monition be sent to every College and Hall for the return of any books taken out within three days. Several books appear to have been reported in previous years as missing; hence, doubtless, the issue of this order.

[144] Hearne's pref. to John Ross, p. 1.

A.D. 1687.

On the occasion of the visit of King James II to Oxford, chiefly, but unsuccessfully, made for the purpose of overawing the fellows of Magdalen College, who had refused to elect as president his nominee, Anth. Farmer, he was invited by the University to partake of a breakfast or collation in the Library. For this purpose he came hither on the morning of Sept. 5, between nine and ten, where, at the south part of the Selden end, a banquet was prepared which cost the University 160, consisting of 111 dishes of meat, sweetmeats, and fruit. The King sat here for about three quarters of an hour, and held some conversation with Hyde about a Chinese, 'a little blinking fellow,' who had recently visited the place, and about the religion of China; but asked no one to join him at the table. Upon rising to depart, a scene of strange indecorum, as it would now appear, ensued; the 'rabble' (as they are described) of courtiers and academics rushed upon the ma.s.s of untouched dainties, and began a disorderly scramble, in which they 'flung the wet sweetmeats on the ladies linnen and petticoats, and stained them.' The King watched the scramble for two or three minutes, and then departed, commending to the Vice-Chancellor and doctors his chaplain, W. Hall, who had preached before him the day previous, and delivering a most fatherly homily on the sin of pride, the virtue of charity, and the duty of doing as they would be done to. Good, gossipping, Ant. a Wood gives in his _Autobiography_ a full account of all that pa.s.sed, from which are taken the quotations made above[145].

[145] See also Miss Seward's _Anecdotes_, Supplement, 1797, p. 72.

A.D. 1688.

Dr. Hyde went up to London in this year to demand personally of the Company of Stationers the books which were due to the Library by Act of Parliament (1 James II, cap. 17, for seven years, continuing previous acts), but which they had neglected to send. His expenses were 6 5_s._

A.D. 1690.

Thirty pounds were paid in this year to Antony a Wood for twenty-five MSS. out of his library[146]. These are volumes of great value, including Chartularies of the Abbeys of Glas...o...b..ry and Malmesbury, and of the Preceptory of Sandford, Oxon, copies of Papal bulls relating to England, a register of lands in Leicesters.h.i.+re _temp._ Hen. VI, &c.

The rest of Wood's MSS., and printed books, came to the Library, together with the other collections preserved in the Ashmolean Museum, in 1860.