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, passed afterwards into the hands of the Rev. Walter Sneyd, of Baginton, Warwickshire, 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 _Bibliothèque des écrivains de la comp. de Jésus_; quatr. série, p. 93. 8vo. Liège, 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 guardianship 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.