Part 25 (1/2)

'They have recently acquired a very curious and valuable collection of MSS., which formerly belonged to an ex-Jesuit Abbe, who intended (had he lived to have seen the restoration of the order of the Jesuits) to have presented them to the Jesuits' College at Venice.

Neither pains nor expense were spared among his brethren, in all parts of the world, to make the collection, on that account, as perfect as possible.'

In Greek there are 128 volumes, chiefly of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with a few of earlier date, including two _Evangelistaria_ a.s.signed by Montfaucon to the ninth century. Of Latin cla.s.sical authors and Mediaeval poets there are 311 volumes; some of those of the former cla.s.s are of great age and value, notably a Virgil of the tenth century (No. 50). Ninety-three MSS. form the cla.s.s of Latin Bibles; the finest of these are, one written in 1178 for the church of SS. Mary and Pancras in Ranshoven, and another, in five very large folio volumes, written and illuminated in France, in the years 1507-1511. Of Latin ecclesiastical writers and Fathers there are 232 volumes; and of Latin miscellanies (chiefly in medicine, philosophy and science, theology, and _belles lettres_, with scarcely anything of an historical character), 576 volumes. Of all these cla.s.ses a catalogue was published by Mr. c.o.xe in 1854, forming part iii. of the new general Catalogue of MSS.

Another division consists of Liturgical books. In this cla.s.s there are now 400 volumes, but about 130 of these were added from the Rawlinson collection. They consist chiefly of _Horae_, Breviaries, Missals, and Psalters, with a few other service-books; most of those which belonged to Canonici being 'secundum usum Romanum.' No catalogue of this series has, as yet, been made.

A sixth division comprehends 300 Italian MSS. (including five in Spanish) of which a very elaborate catalogue was compiled, as a labour of love, by the Count Alessandro Mortara, during the years of his stay in Oxford[296]. His MS. was bought after his death from his executor the Abate Giuseppe Manuzzi, of Florence, for 201, in the year 1858; it was afterwards put to press under the care of the accomplished Italian scholar, and intimate friend of Count Mortara, Dr. H. Wellesley, the late Princ.i.p.al of New Inn Hall, and appeared, with an Italian preface by him giving some account of the whole collection, in one volume quarto (158 pages,) in 1864.

The last portion of the collection consists of 135 Oriental MSS., chiefly valuable Hebrew books on vellum. One of these (No. 78) is a copy of Maimonides' Commentary on the Law, in fourteen books, which is dated 1366. Seven of the Biblical volumes are noticed in De Rossi's _Variae Lectiones Veteris Testamenti_. The few Arabic MSS. are described in Dr.

Pusey's Continuation of Nicol's Catalogue.

A curious story of the recovery, amidst these books, of some leaves belonging to a printed vellum Bible already in the Library, will be found related under the year 1750. A few other MSS. from Canonici's library were sold by auction, with some from Saibante's, in London, in 1821. And many relating to Italian and Venetian history, which were at first retained by one of the heirs, pa.s.sed afterwards into the hands of the Rev. Walter Sneyd, of Baginton, Warwicks.h.i.+re, their present possessor. A MS. volume of notices of the Canonici library, drawn up by Signor Lorenzi, of Venice, was bought by the Bodleian, in 1859, for ten guineas[297].

A MS. of Suidas, of the fifteenth century, was purchased for 220 10_s._ Another acquisition was a French translation, made in 1417, by Laurens de Preme, of the _Ethics_, _Politics,_ &c., of Aristotle[298]. Some specimens of the Javanese language were given by Capt. L. H. Davy.

Among printed books, the most noticeable purchase (besides the _Edd.

Pr._ of Livy, 1469, Lactantius, 1465, &c.) was that of a vellum copy of the first edition of the Hebrew Pentateuch, printed at Bologna in 1482, for 17 10_s._ Some sets of controversial and political tracts, with other books, which had belonged to Thomas Brande Hollis and Dr. John Disney, were bought at the sale of the library of the latter.

[293] The money was raised by loans of 2000 from the Radcliffe Trustees and 3644 from the University Bankers. They were both repaid by the year 1820.

[294] De Backer's _Bibliotheque des ecrivains de la comp. de Jesus_; quatr. serie, p. 93. 8vo. Liege, 1858.

[295] _Bibliogr. Decam._ iii. 429.

[296] See under the year 1852.

[297] The first MSS. of Dante which the Library possessed, came in the Canonici collection; they are in number fifteen. This fact is worth mentioning, on account of an extraordinary story told by Girolamo Gigli, in his _Vocabolario Cateriniano_, p. cciii. (a book the printing of which was commenced at Rome in 1717, but which was suppressed, by bull, before completion), that in the Bodleian Library at 'Osfolk,' there was a MS. of the _Divina Commedia_, which, from being employed in enveloping a consignment of cheese (and so imported into England by a mode of conveyance said to have been usually adopted by Florentine merchants, with a view of spreading at once a knowledge of their luxuries and their literature), had become so saturated with a caseous savour as to require the constant guardians.h.i.+p of two traps to protect it from the voracity of mice. Hence, according to this marvellous travellers' story, the MS.

went by the name of _The Book of the Mousetrap_! (See _Notes and Queries_, i. 154.)

[298] Bodl. MS. 965.

A.D. 1818.

A return was made to the House of Commons of such books received since 1814, in pursuance of the Copyright Act, from Stationers' Hall, as it had not been deemed necessary to place in the Library. The list is but a trifling one, consisting chiefly of school-books and anonymous novels, with music; but, nevertheless, it is sufficient to show the great need of caution in rejecting any books excepting such as are of the simplest elementary character, and the advantage of erring rather on the side of inclusiveness than exclusiveness. Miss Edgeworth's _Parents' a.s.sistant_, Mrs. H. More's _Sacred Dramas_, Mrs. Opie's _Simple Tales_, and an edition of _Ossian_, were all consigned to the limbo of 'rubbish.' But the Cambridge Return (which is much more detailed than that from Oxford[299]) shows a recklessness of rejection which speaks little for the judgment of the Librarians for the time being. Besides school-books and music, a large number of pamphlets figure in the list, including some by Chalmers and Cobbett; the _Theology_ includes Owen's _History of the Bible Society_; the _History_ includes _Memoirs of Oliver Cromwell and his Children_; the _Poetry_, Byron's _Siege of Corinth_, L. Hunt's _Story of Rimini_, and Wordsworth's _Thanksgiving Ode_; and the _Novels_, [Peac.o.c.k's] _Headlong Hall_, one by Mrs. Opie, and--_The Antiquary_! The far wiser plan is now carried out in the Bodleian of rejecting nothing; even the elementary works that do not need entering in the Catalogue, are so kept that access can be had to them at all times and examination made; and the music is from time to time sorted and bound. And this plan was commenced in the year of which we are writing; for, (in consequence, of course, of this return being called for by the House of Commons,) the Curators ordered, on May 27, that _all_ publications sent from Stationers' Hall should in future be entered and preserved.

A very valuable and curious series of original editions of Latin and German tracts, issued by the German Reformers between 1518 and 1550, in eighty-four volumes, was bought for 95 15_s._ Additions have been made to this collection at various times subsequently, so that now it probably comprises as complete a gathering of these controversial publications, so easily lost or destroyed from their small extent and often ephemeral character, as can anywhere be found. A kindred collection (although not of like value or interest) was obtained through the gift by Mr. A. Muller, a well-known bookseller at Amsterdam, of a series of tracts, in sixty-two volumes, and chiefly in the Dutch language, on the controversy with the Remonstrants in 1618-19. A MS.

Catalogue, by Mr. Muller, dated March 3, is kept in the Librarian's study. Besides the books, Mr. Muller gave a few coins, including one struck on leather during the siege of Leyden in 1574, and some natural curiosities, which latter are now preserved in the New Museum. A _black negro baby_, preserved in spirits (!) has, however, unaccountably disappeared; let us hope it was decently buried. Seventeen panes of painted gla.s.s, probably by disciples of Crabeth, who painted the windows in the Church of Gouda, also formed part of this very miscellaneous donation; these, most probably, are included among the curious fragments which decorate some of the Library windows.

Six Persian MSS. were given by the late venerable Princ.i.p.al of Magdalen Hall, and Lord Almoner's Reader in Arabic, Dr. Macbride. The signature of this gentleman, who has only been removed by death while these sheets have been pa.s.sing through the press, occurs in the Admission-book of the last century, as having been admitted to read in the Library, while still an undergraduate of Exeter College, on May 10, 1797.

_Alderman Fletcher's ill.u.s.trated copy of Gulch's Wood._ See under 1610.

Mr. John Walker, Queen's College (B.A. 1820; Chaplain of New College, M.A., 1823), succeeded Mr. Fenton as _minister_ in July.

[299] The minuteness of specification is such that '_Turner's Real j.a.pan Blacking, a Label_' is duly entered.

A.D. 1819.