Part 13 (1/2)

[158] These were left in MS. at Hyde's death, and have never been published.

[159] _i.e._ the Ashmolean Museum.

[160] Hyde was greatly mistaken here, as a calculation made by Hearne in 1714 (_q.v._) showed that the Library had then little more than doubled since 1620.

[161] _Reliqq. Hearn._ ii. 616.

[162] For an account of Hearne's Appendix, see 1738.

A.D. 1702.

A considerable number of printed books were given by Steph. Penton, B.D., and a collection of 500 coins was bequeathed about this time by Tim. Nourse, of Univ. Coll.

A.D. 1704.

The name of John Locke appears in the Register, as the donor of his own works (which he gave at Hudson's request), together with some others, including, with an honourable fairness, those of Bishop Stillingfleet written in controversy with himself. As Locke's expulsion from Ch. Ch., in 1684, by royal mandate, for political reasons, is sometimes, with an injustice which he himself would doubtless have warmly repudiated, represented as if it had been the act of Oxford itself, it is worth while to quote the language in which this gift from him, twenty years afterwards, is recorded, and recorded, too, by the pen of the earnest and conscientious Jacobite, Thomas Hearne: 'Joannes Lock, generosus, et hujus Academiae olim alumnus, praeter Opera ab ipso edita, ob ingenii elegantiam, doctrinae varietatem, et philosophicam subtilitatem, omnibus suspicienda (_here follow the t.i.tles of his own works_), insuper ex suo in optimas artes amore, animoque ad supellectilem literariam augendam propenso, Bibliothecae huic dono dedit libros sequentes;' _scil._ Churchill's _Voyages and Travels_, 4 vols., 1704, Stillingfleet's _Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity_, Stillingfleet's _Answer to Locke_, and Rob. Boyle's _History of the Air_. Locke desired, in a codicil to his will, that in compliance with a second request from Hudson, all his anonymous works should also be sent to the Library[163].

William Ray, formerly consul at Smyrna, presented about 600 coins, chiefly Greek, which E. Lhwyd (who reported their number to be about 2000) said he had been told had been collected at Smyrna by his cook[164]. But the Benefaction Register records that they were obtained by Ray from the widow of one 'domini Dan. Patridge,' who had himself intended to present them to the University. They were put in order, and a Catalogue made of them, some years afterwards, by Hearne, who intended to have given the Catalogue to the Library, 'had not,' he says, 'the ill usage he afterwards met with there obliged him to alter his mind[165].'

Ray also gave a Turkish almanac.

[163] Lord King's _Life of Locke_, edit. 1830, vol. ii. p. 51.

[164] Walker's _Letters by Eminent Persons_, i. 137.

[165] _Life_, p. 13, in _Lives of Leland, Hearne, and Wood_, 1772.

A.D. 1706.

The supposed original MS. of _The Causes of the Decay of Christian Piety_, by the author of _The Whole Duty of Man_, was given by Mr.

Keble, the London bookseller. It is now numbered Bodl. MS. 21. Dr.

Aldrich was of opinion that it is not in the author's own hand, but copied in a disguised hand by Bishop Fell. Hearne thought it to be in a disguised hand of Sancroft's; but the resemblance is very slight indeed[166].

[166] See _Letters by Eminent Persons_, vol. ii. pp. 133-4.

A.D. 1707.

Six volumes of Archbishop Usher's _Collectanea_, with two or three other MSS. which had belonged to him, were given to the Library by James Tyrrell, the historian, who was the archbishop's grandson. He had placed them previously in the hands of Dr. Mill, for use by him in his edition of the Greek Test., and it was about a week before Mill's death, June 21, 1707, that they were transferred, together with a gift from Mill of various printed books, to the Library[167]. They are now placed among the Rawlinson Miscellaneous MSS., 1065-1074, and one volume containing various readings in the Gr. Test., is numbered Auct. T. v. 30. Other volumes of his MSS. Collections in the Library are Barlow, 10 and 13; _e Musaeo_, 46 and 47; Rawl. Misc. 225, 280; Rawl. Letters, 89, and Rawlinson C. 849, 850, which last were given to Hearne by Tyrrell.

Hearne has printed some extracts at the end of _Gul. Neubrig._ iii. 804.

Six Samaritan and other MSS. which belonged to Usher are now in the cla.s.s called _Bodl. Orient._

By the bequest of Dr. Humphrey Hody the Library acquired some 400 or 500 volumes, being all those in his own collection which were wanting here, together with his MSS. _Collectanea_. These last, amounting to twenty-three volumes, are now numbered Bodl. Addit. 1. D. 1-4, 2. B.

1-16, 2. C. 1-3.

Thomas, Archbishop of Gocthan, in Armenia, visited England on an errand which seems to have justly excited great sympathy and attention.

Sensible of the low condition of his fellow-countrymen, through their want of means of instruction, and being earnestly anxious to do something towards their elevation, he had spent some forty years in travels through Europe and Asia for the purpose of procuring books, establis.h.i.+ng printing-presses, educating young men, and obtaining help for the furtherance of his Christian and patriotic projects. His first printing establishment, at Ma.r.s.eilles, was ruined by the mismanagement and fraud of those to whom it was entrusted. He then, for ten years, carried on a press at Amsterdam, where he printed, in Armenian, the New Testament, the Prayers and Hymns of the Church, a translation of Thomas a Kempis, and several other theological works, together with some in geography, history, and science. But troubles and trials again overtook him; disputes and law-suits involved him in debt; one hundred books, which he s.h.i.+pped for Armenia in 1698, were taken at sea, and so never reached their destination. And so, poor and sorrowful, in extreme old age, the Archbishop came to England to seek for help, recommended by Dr.