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
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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
in this place as his prison, to be bound with its chains, and to consume
his days amongst its books as his fellows in captivity[42].
In this year appeared the first Catalogue of the Library, compiled by
Thomas James. It is a quarto volume, published by Joseph Barnes at
Oxford, consisting of 425 pages, with an Appendix of 230 more; the
Preface is dated June 27. The book is dedicated to Henry, Prince of
Wales[43]. It includes both printed books and MSS. arranged
alphabetically under the four classes of Theology, Medicine, Law, and
Arts, with lists of expositors of Holy Scripture, commentators on
Aristotle, Hippocrates, and Galen, and in Civil and Canon Law. The legal
and medical lists were added at Bodley's special desire[44]. A
continuation of this classified index, embracing writers on Arts and
Sciences, Geography and History, is to be found in Rawlinson MS.
_Miscell._ 730. It was drawn up by James, after his quitting the
Library, for the use of young students in the faculty of Arts, in order
to show his continued interest in them and in the place of his old
occupation. In the preface he thus describes the arrangement of his
book: 'Exhibeo, primo, libros distributos secundum facultates suas;
secundo, dissectos in minutissimas portiones vel sectiones, idque
alphabetice; tertio, habetis cognitos et exploratos auctores singulos
qui de singulis subjectis vel generatim vel speciatim scripserunt
libros, tractatus, epistolas; postremo, ne quid desit, habetis editiones
certas, et maxime ex parte ex pluribus selectas et meliores, cito
parabiles, digitos ad pluteos et pluteorum sectiones intendendo.' This
volume came into Rawlinson's possession from Hearne, who notes in it:
'This MS. came out of the study of Dr. Anthony Hall, of Queen's College,
Oxford, who married the widow of Dr. John Hudson, to whom this book once
belong'd.'
[39] This would-be witticism is made the subject of a quatrain in the
_Justa Funebria Bodlei_, p. 108.
[40] _Reliquiæ Bodl._ pp. 205, 339.
[41] His arms also occur in several places in a Greek MS. now numbered
Auct. E. I. 15. And there is one volume among Selden's books (8^o. A.
24, Art. Seld.) which appears to possess considerable interest as having
come from the library of the many-wived king. It is a fine copy of Æsop,
with the _Batrachomyomachia_, &c., printed by Froben in 1518, which may
be conjectured, from the binding, to have been a gift from Henry to Anne
Boleyn. The cover is of embossed calf; on one side is the Tudor rose
supported by angels, with the sun, moon, and four stars above, encircled
by the lines:--
'Hec rosa virtutis de celo missa sereno,
Eternum florens regia sceptra feret.'
Below are the initials A. H., conjoined with a knot. On the other side
is a representation of the Annunciation, with the same initials
repeated.
[42] The account of the king's visit is given in Sir J. Wake's _Rex
Platonicus_, pp. 116-123.
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