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
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. Müller, 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. Müller, dated March 3, is kept in the Librarian's
study. Besides the books, Mr. Müller 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 glass, 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 Principal 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 passing 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 illustrated 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 Japan
Blacking, a Label_' is duly entered.
A.D. 1819.
A copy of the extremely rare Polish version of the Bible, made by the
Socinians at the expense of Prince Nicholas Radzivil, and printed in
1563, was bought for £45[300]; and a folio Psalter, printed by Fust and
Schoeffer in 1459, (finished Aug. 29), on vellum, for £70. The second
vellum printed book in the Library is a copy of Durandus' _Rationale_,
printed by the same printers in the same year, but completed on Oct. 6.
This was bought in 1790 for £80 10_s._ Large additions were made to the
collection of Aldines.
The name of Lady Hester Stanhope occurs among the benefactors as
presenting an Arabic MS. of the Romance of Antar, in thirty volumes.
[300] The rarity of this edition was caused by its being bought up and
destroyed by the sons of Prince Radzivil.
A.D. 1820.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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