Part 11 (2/2)

It is said that Wood in this year estimated the number of MSS. in the Library at 10,141. This must have been the number of separate books, not volumes, as in 1697 the latter appear from Bernard's Catalogue to have been about 6700.

[146] In Bernard's Catalogue the purchase is said to have been made in 1692, but this is an error, as it is entered in the accounts of 1690.

A.D. 1691.

On Oct. 8, died Dr. Thomas Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln, who, retaining his attachment for the place over which he had presided from 1652 to 1660, bequeathed to it seventy-eight MSS. (now bound in fifty-four volumes), and all the printed books in his collection which the Library did not possess, the remainder going to Queen's College. They appear to have been received in the years 1693-4, as large payments for the carriage are found in the accounts then. His MSS. are described in the old Catalogue of 1697. The printed books, which are particularly rich in tracts of the time of Charles I and the Usurpation, are still kept distinct, being called _Linc._; ending, in the 8^o series, at about the middle of the shelves marked with the letter C in that division. They are placed in the gallery on the left hand of the great central room[147]. His legacy included a copy of the famous _Exposicio Sancti Jeronimi in Simbolo Apostolorum_, which was printed at Oxford in 1468, and completed, as the colophon states, on Dec. 17. This volume was given to Barlow, as he notes at the beginning, by Bishop Juxon, July 31, 1657.

It is exhibited in the gla.s.s case near the entrance. The Library possesses also seven other productions of the early Oxford press. They are as follow:--

1. _aegidius Roma.n.u.s de Peccato Originali_, dated March 14, 1479.

This was one of Rob. Burton's books. Qu. unique?

2. _Textus Ethicorum Aristotelis, per Leonardum Arretinum translatus_, 1479. One of Selden's books.

3. _Expositio Alexandri [de Ales] super tertium librum [Arist.] De Anima_. 'Impressum per me Theoderic.u.m rood de Colonia in alma universitate Oxon.' Oct. 11, 1481.

4. _Joh. Latteburii Exposicio Trenorum Jheremie_, July 31, 1482. No place, but printed with the same type as the last.

5. _Liber Festivalis_, in English, printed by Rood and Hunt, 1486.

Two copies, but both very imperfect. The more imperfect one of the two formerly belonged to Herbert, and was bought for 6 6_s._ in 1832; two additional leaves have been inserted by Mr. c.o.xe, which were found among Hearne's sc.r.a.ps, having been given to him as fragments of a Caxton by Bagford. The other copy was bought in 1852, at Utterson's sale, for 6 10_s._

6. _Opus Wilhelmi Lyndewoode super Const.i.tutiones Provinciales_. No place or date, but identified by the type.

7. _Vulgaria quedam abs Terentio in Anglicam linguam traducta_.

Without place or date, but also identified by the type. The following note, which corroborates the identification, is written in red ink on a fly-leaf in the volume (which includes several other tracts): '1483. Frater Johannes Grene emit hunc librum Oxon. de elemosinis amicorum suorum[148].'

A list of sixty-six books, which Hunt, the Oxford printer and bookseller, had in his hands for sale in 1483, is preserved in his own writing on a fly-leaf in a copy of a French translation of Livy, Paris, 1486, which was bought for the Library from Mr. C. J. Stewart, in Dec.

1860, for 12. The list is headed thus: 'Inventorium librorum quos ego Thomas Hunt, stacionarius universitatis Oxoniensis, recepi de Magistro Petro Actore et Johannis (_sic_) de Aquisgrano ad vendendum, c.u.m precio cujuslibet libri, et promito (_sic_) fideliter rest.i.tuere libros aut pecunias secundum precium inferius scriptum, prout patebit in sequentibus, Anno Domini M^o. CCCC^o. octuagesimo tercio.'

[147] In most of them is inscribed the motto, a?e? a??ste?e??.

[148] This last book is described by Dr. Cotton in the second series of his _Typographical Gazetteer_, published in 1866, from a copy in the University Library at Cambridge. Besides the other Oxford books enumerated by that learned bibliographer, several fragments of another, a _Compendium totius Grammaticae_ (conjectured to have been written by John Anwykyll, Waynflete's first Grammar Master at Magdalene College) have been discovered. They have been identified by Mr. H. Bradshaw, the Librarian of the University of Cambridge, whose extensive acquaintance with early typography is well known. That gentleman found, at Cambridge, two leaves in the University Library in 1859, two more in Corpus Christi in 1861, and two in St. John's in 1866. Four other leaves were discovered by the present writer in 1867, bound up as fly-leaves in a volume in the library of Viscount Dillon, at Ditchley, Oxfords.h.i.+re. Mr.

Bradshaw supposes the book to have been printed about 1483-6.

A.D. 1692.

Thirty-eight Persian and Arabic MSS., with one printed book, were bought from Hyde, the Librarian. They are entered in Bernard's Catalogue, pp.

286-7. Being bought out of the funds of the University, no mention of the price paid for them is found in the Library accounts.

A.D. 1693.

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