Part 27 (1/2)

Room, or room containing the publications, foreign and English, which appeared in parts. And on Dec. 20, the Rev. John Besly, M.A., Fellow of Balliol (afterwards D.C.L., and Vicar of Long Benton, Northumberland, deceased April 17, 1868, aged sixty-eight), was confirmed as Mr. Reay's colleague, in the place of Dr. Bliss.

[313] Some notes by G. J. Thorkelin on Northern Antiquities were bought in 1846.

A.D. 1829.

The great Hebrew collection, which at present forms so distinguished a feature in the contents of the Library, was virtually commenced in this year by the purchase, at Hamburgh (for 2080), of the famous Oppenheimer library, consisting of upwards of 5000 volumes, of which 780 are MSS[314]. Many Hebrew works had, it is true, come with Selden's library, in 1659; but little or nothing had been done since that period to advance upon that beginning. The additions made in this department from 1844 up to about the year 1857, are said, in Dr. Steinschneider's introduction to his catalogue (_col._ 50), to have numbered no fewer than about 2100 volumes[315].

David Oppenheimer, Chief Rabbi at Prague, devoted more than half a century to the formation of his library. On his death, Sept. 23, 1735, it came into the possession of his son, a Rabbi at Hildesheim, and thence into the hands of Isaac Seligmann at Hamburgh. Several catalogues were issued during this period, the last being one in octavo, at Hamburgh, in 1826, an index to which, compiled by Dr. J. Goldenthal, was printed at the expense of the Library in 1845. The collection would have been dispersed by auction, had it not been bought _en ma.s.se_ for Oxford.

It possesses extreme interest and value in the eyes of Jewish students, insomuch that for a series of years the Library was never without several foreign visitors engaged in its examination. A very elaborate catalogue of all the printed Hebrew books contained in it, and throughout the whole of the Library, was compiled by Dr. M.

Steinschneider during the years 1850-1860, and printed at Berlin, where it was published in the latter year in a very thick quarto volume. The book is divided into two parts: the first containing a description of the Biblical, Talmudical, liturgical and anonymous volumes; the second containing the works of miscellaneous authors, in the alphabetical order of their names. Prefixed is a brief list of the Hebrew MSS. in the Library, with the numbers at present attached to them, and references to the catalogues in which they are described. Of several rare books in the Oppenheimer library there are duplicate copies, varying in condition and ornamentation; of some there are copies on red, yellow, and blue paper.

Distinguished amongst all is a copy of the Talmud, printed in 1713-28, in twenty-four folio volumes, entirely on vellum. 'Perhaps,' says Archdeacon Cotton, 'this work is the grandest and most extensive vellum publication extant[316].'

Mr. Robert Bowyer, miniature painter to Queen Charlotte, who had devoted a considerable part of his life to the collection of drawings and engravings ill.u.s.trating the Holy Scriptures, put forward a proposal for their purchase by subscription with a view to their being deposited in the Bodleian. Their number amounted to nearly seven thousand (including 113 drawings by Loutherbourg), described as being in fine condition and of great value; and they were inserted as additional ill.u.s.trations in a copy of Macklin's folio Bible, which was enlarged thereby from its original extent of seven volumes to forty-five. Hence the collection pa.s.sed, and pa.s.ses, under the name of Bowyer's Bible. Mr. Bowyer, who had spent upon it upwards of three thousand pounds, proposed to dispose of it for 2500, and a committee was formed in London, upon which appeared the names of many distinguished persons, to raise a subscription for the purpose. But upon Mr. Bowyer's despatching an agent to Oxford, the matter met with so little encouragement here, the Librarian, in particular, being (as Dr. Bliss has noted upon his copy of the original proposal) unfavourable to it, that the project fell to the ground. The reasons why Oxford made so little response do not appear; probably the value set upon the collection was deemed to be greatly exaggerated. After the death of Mr. Bowyer (June 4, 1834, aged seventy-six) the Bible came into the hands of one Mrs. Parkes, of Golden Square, by whom it was disposed of, in 1848, in a lottery (together with a few other prizes) for which four thousand tickets were issued at one guinea each. The successful speculator was Mr. Saxon, a gentleman-farmer, near Shepton Mallet. In 1852 it was in the hands of Messrs. Puttick and Simpson, the well-known book-auctioneers, for sale.

By them it was announced for an auction on Feb. 26, 1853, and was disposed of, about that time, to Messrs. Willis and Sotheran, the booksellers, for about 500. Since then it has been announced for sale at Manchester.

[314] One MS. which had strayed from Oppenheimer's library previously to its transfer to the Bodleian, was purchased and restored to its place in 1847.

[315] A notice of the Oppenheimer collection, and of the other Hebrew portions of the Library is given in the preface to vol. iii. of Furst's _Bibliotheca Judaica_, 8^o. Leipz. 1863, pp. 42-51. The _Catalogus Interpretum S. Script._, by Thomas James, in 1635, is here metamorphosed into one by Thomas _Jones_, in 1735.

[316] _Typographical Gazetteer_, p. 349.

A.D. 1830.

A copy of the rare edition of Luther's translation of the Bible, printed at Wittemberg in 1541, was bought, through Messrs. Payne and Foss, for fifty guineas, at the sale, in London, of the library of the Archdeacon de la Tour, of Hildesheim, which was said to have been formerly the property of the English Benedictine Monastery of Landspring, and which was then, it appears, in the possession of Mr. -- Solly. It contains some texts on the fly-leaves in the autograph, and with the signatures, of both Luther and Melanchthon, which seem to have been unnoticed at the time of the sale. A facsimile of a part of Luther's inscription is given in plate x.x.xi. in Mr. Leigh Sotheby's _Ill.u.s.trations of the Handwriting of Melanchthon_[317]. The book is now exhibited in a gla.s.s case, in one of the windows of the Library.

[317] A copy of this edition, with MS. notes by Luther, Melanchthon, Bugenhagen and Major, was sold to the British Museum, at Hibbert's sale in 1829, for 267 15_s._!

A.D. 1831.

In December of this year, Viscount Kingsborough[318] presented a magnificent copy (being one of four which were printed on vellum) of his _Antiquities of Mexico_, or coloured facsimiles, executed at his expense, in seven folio volumes, of Mexican paintings and hieroglyphics preserved in the libraries of Paris, Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, Rome, Bologna, and Oxford (in Laud's and Selden's collections), together with preliminary dissertations. This sumptuous book is exhibited near the entrance of the library, in a case made expressly for its reception.

On June 30, the nomination, as Sub-librarian, of Rev. Ernest Hawkins, M.A., of Balliol, afterwards Fellow of Exeter, (of late well-known for his labours in the cause of Missions, as Secretary to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel), was approved by Convocation. He succeeded Dr. Besly, who had taken the Balliol College living of Long Benton, in Northumberland.

[318] This learned and spirited n.o.bleman died, in 1837, in a debtors'

prison in Dublin, where he was confined for liabilities incurred on behalf of his father, the Earl of Kingston.

A.D. 1832.

A twelfth-century MS. of Scholia on the _Odyssey_ was purchased for 100. The collection of Bibles, which had during some time past made some slow progress, was increased by copies of various early printed versions in European languages, and its further enlargement was steadily kept in view in succeeding years.

Six guineas were given for copies of Servetus' treatise _De Trinitatis erroribus_ and his _Dialogi de Trinitate_, printed in 1531 and 1532, which are of very great rarity, in consequence of their having very generally shared the fate of their author.

A.D. 1833.

Some precious Shakespearian volumes, consisting of the _Venus and Adonis_ of 1594 and 1617, the _Lucrece_ of 1594 and 1616, with a subsequent edition of 1655, and the _Sonnets_ of 1609, were presented by the well-known collector, Mr. Thomas Caldecott, who had been formerly a Fellow of New College. They are now incorporated with the Malone collection. Several MSS. of Sir William Jones were presented by the brothers Augustus and Julius C. Hare. An interesting and large collection of tracts on the Roman Catholic disabilities, affairs in Ireland, &c., in forty-five volumes, was purchased at the sale of the library of Charles Butler, of Lincoln's Inn.

An anonymous pamphlet, ent.i.tled, _A Few Words on the Bodleian Library_, appeared in this year; its author was Sir Edmund Head, M.A., Merton College. The object was to urge the desirableness of allowing books to be borrowed from the Library, after the example of Cambridge. One of the arguments by which the author supported the proposal, viz. that College tutors were unable to visit the Library in term time during the hours at which it is open, has since been entirely removed by the attachment of the Radcliffe Library as a Reading-room, which remains open until ten o'clock at night. The pamphlet was reprinted in the Report of the University Commission in 1852.