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
On the 9th of the same month of May, John Rouse, M.A., Fellow of Oriel,
was elected James' successor. No account of him is given by Wood,
possibly from dislike of his Puritanical principles, and of his
continuing to hold office during the usurpation. He appears to have
discharged his trust in the Library with faithfulness, and, at least, to
have deserved some mention at the historiographer's hands for the
Appendix to the Catalogue which he issued in the year 1635 (_q.v._)[69]
He is best known as the friend of Milton, who, on Rouse's application to
him for a copy of his _Poems both English and Latin_, published in 1645,
in the place of one previously given by Milton which had been lost, sent
the volume, together with a long autograph Latin Ode, dated Jan. 23,
1646 (-7), and bearing the following title: 'Ad Joannem Rousium,
Oxoniensis Academiæ Bibliothecarium, de libro poematum amisso quem ille
sibi denuo mitti postulabat, ut cum aliis nostris in Bibliotheca publica
reponeret, Ode Joannis Miltonj[70].' The volume is now numbered 8^o. M.
168 Art. A facsimile of a considerable portion of the Ode (which Cowper
translated into English, and which is said to have been the last of
Milton's Latin poetical effusions) is given in plate xvii. of Sam. Leigh
Sotheby's sumptuous volume, entitled _Ramblings in the Elucidation of
the Autograph of Milton_, 4^o. Lond. 1861; and at p. 120 there is a
facsimile in full of Milton's inscription in another volume (4^o. F. 56
Th.) which contains a collection of the political and polemical
treatises published by him in the years 1641-5. This latter inscription,
which gives a list of the contents of the volume, is addressed as
follows: 'Doctissimo viro proboque librorum æstimatori Joanni Rousio,
Oxoniensis academiæ Bibliothecario, gratum hoc sibi fore testanti,
Joannes Miltonius opuscula hæc sua in Bibliothecam antiquissimam atque
celeberrimam adsciscenda libens tradit, tanquam in memoriæ perpetuæ
Fanum, emeritamque, uti sperat, invidiæ calumniæque vacationem; si
Veritati, Bonoque simul Eventui satis litatum sit.' Warton tells the
almost incredible story, in his edition of Milton's _Poems_, that about
the year 1720 these two volumes were thrown out into a heap of
duplicates, from which Nathaniel Crynes, who afterwards bequeathed his
own collection to the Library[71], was permitted to pick out what he
pleased for himself; fortunately, however, he was too good a royalist
and churchman to choose anything that bore the name of Milton, and so
the books, despised and rejected on both sides, by mere chance remained
in the place of their original deposit! Such an incident, if true, goes
far to justify the charges of ignorance and neglect of the Library which
Hearne in his Diary constantly brings against Hudson, the Librarian at
that time, and those whom he employed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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