Annals of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, A.D. 1598-A.D. 1867: With a Preliminary Notice of the earlier Library founded in the Fourteenth CenturyMacray, William Dunn
History
Annals of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, A.D. 1598-A.D. 1867: With a Preliminary Notice of the earlier Library founded in the Fourteenth Century
Macray, William Dunn
Bodleian Library
13. Large collections were made by Rawlinson for a continuation of
Wood's _Athenæ Oxon._ These contain much valuable biographical
information, derived in very many cases from the actual information of
the persons noticed, letters from many of whom are inserted. There are,
in all, twenty-five volumes, folio and quarto; among the folios there
are two series of notices arranged alphabetically, and one volume (also
alphabetical) of notices of Cambridge men admitted _ad eundem_; the
quartos contain 1331 notices, numbered but not arranged in any other
order, with one general alphabetical index. These collections, together
with Hearne's Diaries, and Rawlinson's Non-jurors' Papers, and notes of
his own Travels, were included in a fourth and last codicil, dated Feb.
14, 1755, which directed that all these papers should be kept locked up
during a period of seven years. By the same codicil also were conveyed
numerous engravings by Vertue, portraits of Englishmen, some paintings,
and a collection of Roman, Persian, Italian, and English medals[247].
Some of the Italian medals, particularly a fine set in copper of the
members of the House of Medici, are now exhibited in a case in the
Picture Gallery[248]. By a codicil of June 17, 1752, Rawlinson had
previously bequeathed a series of medals of Popes, of which he remarks,
'as they are, I take them to be one of the most complete collections now
in Europe;' together with twenty shillings _per annum_ for enlarging and
continuing the set[249].
14. Finally (as regards MSS.), Rawlinson left a mass of ancient
charters, five hundred of which were catalogued by Mr. Coxe some years
ago, and of vellum deeds and documents of all kinds, chiefly of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He left, also, all the
copper-plates containing engravings of some of his ancient documents and
other curiosities, as well as a large number of impressions from these
plates. Many of these impressions were sold at the sale of Bodleian
duplicates in 1862. The copper-plates were added to his bequest by a
second codicil, dated July 25, 1754, in which he desired that
impressions should be taken from them, to be sold in one volume for the
use and benefit of the University. A last item in Rawlinson's
miscellaneous gifts (besides various bas-reliefs, figures, a Jewish
vessel, Muscovite cup, &c.) was a large collection of matrices of
ancient conventual and personal seals, chiefly foreign; together with
impressions of seals, ancient and modern, in metal and wax, 'most of
which,' it is said in the Will (p. 4), 'were of the collection of Mr.
Charles Christian, the celebrated seal engraver.' The wax impressions
are now exhibited in the Picture Gallery.
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